On Food

Sep 1, 2015

On Food | www.nalumana.com

Most of us who have ever, even for a short period of time, had a great track record of eating our veggies, avoiding processed food and refined sugars, and listening to our hunger cues know that aside from the great feelings food can generate in our bodies, food can be responsible for a sense of well-being and positive attitude, too. When you’re eating wholesome foods, those feelings can be linked to just about anything from healthy gut flora to a simple sense of accomplishment and taking care of yourself.

But there’s more to it than that. Food, whether it’s a salad or a decadent cheese plate dotted with cubes of dark chocolate, is deeply nourishing. We make food when we want to bring together family and friends to remind us of our support networks. We take casseroles to grieving families, and leave a batch of muffins on the doorstep of a new mother, carefully avoiding ringing the doorbell so as not to disturb her midday slumber.

The foods that we use as vehicles for reaching out to others and creating a sense of support and community are usually warm, comforting, and often wholesome – not necessarily healthy – but they have just as much of a place in making us feel great as our salad does.

Pay attention to how your food makes you feel today. Does the yogurt and fruit you ate for breakfast make you feel deeply satisfied, confident that you can take care of the precious body you were given? Does the piece of chocolate or latte that you indulged in in the afternoon make you feel guilty, or was it a special treat, an act of self-love? This is the power that food has in our lives.

What word describes your relationship with food?  Is this relationship something you feel comfortable with, or wish you could change?

 

 

The Becoming Podcast has been on a short hiatus while I focus on writing my book, but oh what a comeback episode I have for you!

This month, I spoke to Toko-pa Turner, who many of you may know as the unofficial patron saint of many of my circles and gatherings because of the sheer number of times I’ve quoted from the wisdom of her book, Belonging.

Toko-pa is a Canadian author, teacher, and dreamworker. Blending the mystical teachings of Sufism in which she was raised with a Jungian approach to dreams, she founded The Dream School in 2001, from which thousands of students have graduated. She is the author of the award-winning book, Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home, which explores the themes of exile and belonging through the lens of dreams, mythology, and nature. This book has resonated for readers worldwide, and has been translated into 10 different languages so far. Her work focuses on the relationship between psyche and nature, and how to follow our inner wisdom to meet with the social, psychological, and ecological challenges of our time.

Here’s some of what Toko-pa and I talk about in this episode:

> The dream that changed Toko-pa’s life, causing her to question her career and, ultimately, her identity

> How we can court our dreams to support us during times of radical transformation – and the reasons so many of us have a hard time remembering and working with what shows up in our dreamscape

> Toko-pa’s perspective on the message of Belonging after the divisiveness our society has experienced in the years since it was published

> What happened for both Toko-pa and I when we fell out of belonging from the ideologies of the “wellness world”

> How to build community when you’re under-resourced

> “The Big Lie” when it comes to belonging, and how we can reclaim a sense of belonging to the greater family of things, as Mary Oliver so famously wrote

Listen to the episode on iTunes

 

Show Notes

Toko-pa’s Website

Belonging:  Remembering Ourselves Home, Toko-pa’s book

The David Abram video about animism mentioned in the interview

Toko-pa’s self-guided program, Dream Drops

Companion, the program that accompanies Belonging

 

Also, while you’re at it, if you enjoy The Becoming Podcast, I would be so grateful if you would rate and review, and even subscribe to it on iTunes.  That goes a long way to helping more and more people find and benefit from hearing these interviews!  Thank you so much!