Hunger strikes

Today was quite interesting. I’ve been walking with spirit through a few fears these last few weeks on lack. One that’s become prominent has been surrounding my connection to food. Food can be one of the foundational elements of our existence. We grow up in different households with differing rules and beliefs about it. Maybe your family was a “fend for yourself” kind. Maybe your family made a pot of fried rice as the only dish. Maybe your family ensured to have a protein, vegetable, starch, and bread for dinner. Maybe you ate a lot of fast food. Maybe someone that wasn’t a parent cooked your meals professionally. There are so many ways to experience food, and how we did can show up in our lives today.

My family was somewhere in between the first few options. Sometimes we got fast food, sometimes we had a pot of mac n’ cheese, and sometimes we ate left overs or whatever we could find. What’s important to acknowledge here is there is no shame in how someone was raised, but what’s doubly interesting isn’t just how you ate, but how food was viewed in general. For me, I’ve discovered that because we were a “you get what you get” kind of house, that I learned to stop intuiting and making decisions on what foods my body would like to eat, and instead began to eat for happiness.

Now, because adults in my life ultimately decided what to eat and I had to accept that, I learned to stop listening to what my body wanted and instead be happy with what I received. By doing so, a pattern was created. I learned to accept that I had no choice in the decision making and instead looked for what about that meal I enjoyed, or what brought me happiness. This pattern created a connection to food that I would turn to eating in order to feel happy. This loop of chasing happiness starts with a low emotional state which drives us to eat to feel happy, we inevitably crash from the spike of enjoyment either from shaming ourselves after or another route.

For me, the loop continued because I would have opportunities to enjoy eating foods I loved from restaurants, but would eventually find myself in a financial pickle. The choice became that I must not eat out at restaurants, because other obligations took priority. But that inability to eat out for however long ultimately began to build an anticipation of enjoying food from a restaurant. I would also eat to feel happiness when things were tough, but I didn’t feel shame after eating like some people might. However, shame would eventually rise if I had not taken my other obligations more seriously and spent too much money on food.

This doesn’t mean that we cannot enjoy food. On the contrary, I still very much enjoy eating lots of food, but what this time of my life has helped me understand is to rediscover how I can eat with intention and release these patterns and beliefs that held me captive to food. Closer to the beginning of this little journey, spirit was helping me cook with the food that was in the house. It was so fun. The coolest thing to discover from situations of lack is the amount of creativity that arises from those situations. Because when you are down to a few dollars, not only do you need to get creative, but I’ve also learned to trust spirit in new ways.

For instance, there were a few things in the house that I could cook. I sat with myself for a moment, and images came to my mind from my body about what I wanted to eat. This time, I remembered there was a random left over packet of cheese powder from a box of mac n’ cheese I messed up because I over cooked the noodles; so I never used the packet and kept it. I had decided I was going to make the fettuccini noodles, put the cheese on them, use some Korean chili paste, seaweed, and eat it with an over medium egg. The whole concept was like a bowl of ramen.

So, I make the noodles and my plan is to drain them and put them back into the pan to put the cheese packet in. Spirit tells me to place the noodles directly on the plate and stir in the sauce that way. I thought it was strange, but I’ve learned, after lots of mistakes mind you, to listen when I’m given some kind of instruction. I place the noodles onto the plate and open the packet. Before I dump it on, spirit tells me to use half. I thought that was reasonable, because I didn’t have a lot of noodles. So I begin to dump the packet more slowly because I was making sure not to use it all. What dumps out onto my noodles wasn’t cheese, but instead hot chocolate mix.

My expression must’ve been priceless. I was so surprised! The instructions had been so weird, but I’m so glad I listened, because all I had to do is put the noodles back into the strainer and rinse them. If they’d been in the pan, the pan would’ve gotten dirty and I would’ve cleaned it in order to make the noodles correctly. And I would’ve had so much more to clean off if I’d used the entire packet. When I asked spirit why they hadn’t told me that I grabbed the wrong packet, they said “it was more fun this way,” and they sure were correct. I finished off the meal with the seaweed, the chili past and the egg and it was one of the most delicious meals I’ve ever eaten. What a memorable experience.

One of the more difficult lessons as of late as been the dwindling amount of food causing stress and pressure. It’s pulling me out of the current moment and surrendering, in favor of my egos understanding of how this works. Instead of trusting the constant reassurances from spirit about how there’s nothing to worry about, I keep trying to piece together a strategy. But, spirit has been so amazing and constantly at my side with guidance and support. I’m so grateful for this. Today was particularly hard, though. As my situation seems more futile, I just kept getting frustrated with myself. Knowing that I can surrender and trust, but still being pulled away by the fear drawing my attention to my circumstances instead of trusting what spirit is saying.

What’s important to remember, which I lost sight of, is that our emotions are there to draw our attention to something. So I was trying to avoid them by believing I could manifest around them. If I just believed harder what I already knew, then my situation would surly change. But that’s not the case. The situation changes when we change. It’s not necessarily about changing our mentality with a few positive phrases and instead takes some real and raw vulnerability to sit with oneself and allow the fears to arise. After all this time of doing this work, I still found myself trying to force myself into change.

Firstly, this is completely understandable. For the most part, we believe we have all the information we need to make a shift, but until we can let go of the energy within that attached to the story, our words may not always be enough. Our emotions demand to be felt. Secondly, it’s so important to be gentle with ourselves. Spirit asked me not to force a shift earlier today as I learned something about myself. They were so sweet and gentle when they asked me to let it go, to not force it, because there’s no rush. We will get there eventually and pushing myself into shifts isn’t the answer. It’s not loving or kind. It’s telling myself that I don’t like who I am, and I demand to change myself, now! But that’s not true. I love who I am. I love myself deeply. But sometimes we just lose sight, and that’s okay. Sometimes the finish line appears closer or “if I just get this thing, then I’ll feel happy” sort of mentality. It can cause us to lose sight of the bigger picture.

I know this time has been difficult for me because of the limited access to food. I began to lose sight of the bigger picture and wanted this part to be over. I wanted manifestations to come in. I wanted to feel safe. I wanted to feel secure and know that there’s food that will last me for days. So I started to push and rush, but when spirit asked me so sweetly to be kind to myself, I surrendered. I just let go, and not in the way I expected. I began to just cry. There were no declarations or new mantras to say, I just cried from pent up emotions.

As I did so, a story finally began to surface. If there’s ever a time I ask someone to trust what it is that comes through to their intuition (whether clairaudiently, -voyantly, -cognizently, or -sentiently) it’s when you’re in the throes of a release. Trust what it is that you’re seeing and sensing, and trust that spirit will guide you through it. I began to cry out that “she said I didn’t deserve to eat.” This was followed by images of an emaciated child eating a rodent and wearing tattered clothes. It became clear to me that I was alchemizing karma from a past/parallel life. There were more things said that I don’t recall, but ultimately I was able to release something that’s been lingering. When I was finished, spirit said “food is a birthright.” I was told that I may have been mistreated, but the natural state of existence is abundance, and food is an aspect of abundance.