When I was younger, I made fanciful statements. I stated goals and longings as if they were real.
“I’m a fruit witch,” I spoke, sparkling. “I play with fruits and vegetables to manifest my dreams.”
I was a newly raw vegan teenager at a personal growth workshop in Las Vegas. Hoping to impress all the cool adults with my uniqueness. It was easier to claim I already was something than to confess my earnest struggles.
In reality, I ripped through smoothies with zombielike zeal. I flipped through 13 different browser tabs during my evening salad. I was often too scatterbrained while shopping, storing food, prepping food, and dining to make my interactions with food into intentional, heartfelt rituals.
But I knew my food could be a magical experience for at least 4 reasons:
- Food is an art form that literally becomes us. We make food, and then we turn it into our cells. Though writing is my favorite art, there was something mystical about eating. I didn’t want to miss out on exploring that beautiful mystique!
- Sacred feasts have filled so many cultures. I was lacking this in my secular modern life, where Mr. Computer was at times my only lunch companion.
- Our food production vastly impacts human and animal wellbeing. There are many inequalities and environmental issues. Trying to make empowering food choices is like a world peace prayer in action.
- I was fascinated by spirituality, including Law of Attraction, Wiccan magick, and prayers from other religions. I wasn’t sure which ideas I literally believed, but I knew spirituality felt fun, and creative! I wanted to live a charmed, inspired existence by my own rules — hence, the spontaneous lie that I was a fruit witch.
Food can be heartbreaking. We could use a little magic to combat that.
The idyllic ideal is that we’d grow up having jolly feasts — surrounded by loved ones, or alone or in small groups, whatever feels right to each individual.
Everyone feels welcome and included at the table. Whatever we believe or practice, our intentional, love-filled mealtimes prime us for productive work and play.
The reality is different. Many of us wind up heartbroken around food for myriad reasons:
- Food insecurity or malnutrition.
- Diet culture, struggling to lose weight, fat-shaming.
- A strained or unhappy household, relationship, school, workplace, or other food-sharing environment.
- Health problems caused by favorite foods. Allergies or intolerances that give us reason to worry.
- I’m shy. Will I have anyone to sit with at lunch? What will kids think of me, eating alone in the corner? What if I’m asocial and prefer being solo 90% of the time? I felt forced to interact and couldn’t enjoy my food in peace.
My biggest food heartbreak was about animals having to be eaten. I empathized with every animal who went through a slaughterhouse. After that horrible 11-year-old realization (like discovering Santa Claus wasn’t real), I kept researching ways people and animals are harmed in food production.
What was the point, I wondered, if my luxurious life of growth was based on the bleak servitude and destruction of others?
So I gave my life meaning again and tried to help. I became an imperfect vegan. I went activist. I changed how I ate, I volunteered, and I worked different jobs to improve the impacts of our food system.
I was working in teams to change the content of our plates and the impacts of our eating. What I still hadn’t changed was the state of mind I brought to the table.
With each meal, I seek to be happy and present, filled with loving-kindness — because that is the change I love seeing in the world!
Just eat one meal as a joyful, intimate meditation. Start from there.
It’s been 10 years, and I thank past Phoenix for planting the ‘fruit witch’ idea. I still consider myself a fruit muggle, but sometimes I already do dine magically — and I’m ready for more!
After a recent grocery trip, I indulged in a few handfuls of blueberries. I associated these fruits with concentration because I’d just written a humorously-titled article about how to concentrate when you’re as “all-over-the-place as blueberries on the floor.”
Because of this association, deep breaths began passing through my belly; I perked up.
Next, I picked two tri-color mangoes of the perfect softness, skins well-splattered with gorgeous sunsetty sugar spots. Cutting them, I pondered the romantic relationship I would someday create. Our twosome would taste as heavenly as this very pair of mangoes.
I savored the multiple dimensions of mango-in-mouth nirvana, still standing before the cutting board, till all gone. I promptly cleared the board with a wipe of vinegar, feeling like a Hogwarts student casting Evanesco (the Vanishing Spell) on their latest peculiar conjuration.
To finish off my munching, I gently tore open a ONE Plant Carrot Cake bar as I descended the steps to my writer’s dungeon. How will I make this moment symbolic? I wondered. The bar was white on the outside, iced.
Carrot cake looks like an ordinary sugary dessert, but has healthy carrot hidden within. My upcoming article, I decided, would be infused with a (hopefully) nourishing message once people dug in, but I’d keep the words sweet and friendly, not overperfected.
I chewed the Carrot Cake bar with the same slowness, deliberation, and constant return of focus with which I would immediately write my article.
The bar was bliss, and by the end, I knew what I was inspired to write about.
Explore a playful relationship with food.
Food is FUN. If we ever get down on ourselves for poor food choices or for eating distractedly, we should forgive. One day at a time, let’s practice making our meals a little more magical.
Simply ideas I’m experimenting with — I hope one floats your boat:
- Instead of being guilty about harm caused by food production, feel excited about the difference you can make when shopping. You’re doing your best.
- Breathe deeply before you begin, and see if you can sustain it. This helps me be more present and inspired while cooking and eating.
- Set a playful intention for what the meal’s magic will be. I might pretend my stew is a potion, helping me accomplish a certain goal. I’ll imagine each ingredient symbolizes a different strategy or action I commit to taking.
- Invoke gratitude for all who made a meal possible, and commit to the good things you’ll do with this fuel.
- Carve an intention on a banana peel using a toothpick or fingernail. Imagine that as the banana ripens and becomes incorporated, so will your intention.
- Write on a watermelon shell something you’re ready to get rid. Then, karate-chop and buen provecho!
- Buy and store things in numbers/quantities that are significant to you.
Mealtime is coming up, and it’s a time for me to be nurtured by the senses. To take in the beauty of being alive, being nourished, and sharing moments with myself and with loved ones.
May I take each bite with gusto, like I’ll bite through tough obstacles on my heart-centered path!
Making each meal a symbolic act, with worthy goals in mind, tends to generate insights about how to achieve those goals. Following my mindful feasts, I’m more prone to taking immediate action and enjoying the process!
I hope my story of slowly leaning towards a creative relationship with food leaves you with a useful takeaway. May your beautiful meals spell kindness and joy for the world. Much love.
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This post was previously published on Change Becomes You.
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Photo credit: Unsplash