Are You Getting Enough Primary Food?

I talk a lot about eating the right foods—foods that will feed your body, nurture your soul and allow you to have the kind of energy needed to support a creative practice. But there’s a kind of food that is more primary to the actual food you put in your body, and most people are lacking in it.

Primary Food

Primary Food is a philosophy created by the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (where I earned my health coaching certification), and includes the things that feed you better than food ever could: your relationships, career, spirituality and exercise routine. I also like to think of creativity as a Primary Food because as an artist, you have to feed this part of you to feel completely fulfilled.

Sure, food fills up your stomach and takes away your hunger, but your personal relationships, career, spirituality and exercise routine are what truly feeds your soul and your creative energy.

When you’re full on Primary Food, the food you eat becomes secondary nourishment.

Here’s an example: You know when you’re working on something that really means a lot to you? It could be a piece of writing or artwork or anything really. Time flies, and hours pass before you even look up at a clock. You could spend all your time doing this activity and never get tired of it.

Your soul was being fed by your creative practice. You probably worked for hours without eating anything, and you likely weren’t that hungry even when you did stop (or maybe you were starving because you worked so long you actually worked through a couple meals!).

Your Primary Food will do that for you. Here’s how:

Relationships

The relationships you have in your life either help you or hinder you. It’s easy to get mixed up with toxic people, but allowing toxic people to remain in your life is your choice.

Relationships include ones with family, friends, husbands, wives, kids, community. It includes all relationships in your life. All of them. Even the relationship you have with your Starbucks barista.

When you have good, positive relationships, they nourish you. You can spend time with the person for hours and always have something to say. You feel loved and supported by this person. You can be yourself with them. You have a passion for living when you’re with them.

If you have toxic relationships in your life, it’s time to think about saying goodbye. It’s not always that simple, but keeping people like this in your life will drag you down, drain your energy and make you unhappy and negative.

You don’t need that and you don’t deserve that. You deserve to have relationships that nourish you.

Identify the people in your life who nourish you, and be unafraid to say goodbye to the people who don’t.

Career

Everyone does something for a living. Some people are living their dream, while others are living someone else’s.

Whether you work for yourself or a company or have a different arrangement all together, you should ask yourself how satisfied you feel.

Are you happy to wake up in the morning and get to work (regardless of where it is your work gets done)? Do you feel fulfilled by the work you do? Are you inspired every day?

Your career takes up a large portion of your life. At least 40 hours a week for most people. And those hours add up. If you work 40 hours a week for 52 weeks a year, that’s 2,080 hours!

I’d say it’s pretty important to be satisfied with how you’re spending those hours.

If you’re not happy with your career right now, think about some of the things you can do to improve your situation. Maybe you can work out a better schedule with your boss or maybe you can take on some freelance work so you can go part-time with your day job.

When you have a so-so career or are just working a job to pay the bills, you’re not getting much satisfaction from it.

But when you’re doing something you love that makes you excited to get out of bed every morning—that’s the kind of career that feeds you. That’s the kind of career you deserve.

See how you can adjust your situation to make your career a better fit for you.

Spiritual Practice

Everyone has the things that they believe in. And it’s a personal choice. But whatever your beliefs are, having a spiritual practice of some kind is a definite way to feed your soul.

Whether you choose to do that in a religious community or to explore your spirituality in other ways (such as through yoga, meditation or prayer) is up to you.

Having faith in something and knowing that there is a greater force out there at work in our Universe can help you go through life feeling guided and connected.

I recommend exploring your spiritual beliefs and starting to figure out what you believe and why you believe it. It’s empowering to know the basis of your beliefs and which ones truly jive with your heart.

Exercise

Your body was made to move! That’s why exercise is a Primary Food, because exercise nourishes your body in a different way than food.

Exercise builds muscles and tones you and helps you maintain a healthy weight. It also allows you to relieve stress, gain energy and have fun in the process.

When you think of exercise, you probably think of running on a treadmill or working out in a gym. And you probably dread it. Many people avoid exercise because their definition of what counts as “exercise” is too rigid.

Exercise can be anything from running to weight-lifting to yoga to Tai Chi to walking in the park and anything in between. It’s about what activities you enjoy.

If you love yoga, make that your primary form of exercise. If you’re more into swimming, get a membership to a local pool and start doing laps. If you’d rather jog first thing every morning, do it.

Exercise doesn’t have to be complicated. You don’t have to run a million miles or lift 500 pounds to be successful at it. Just move your body as often as you can.

Take the stairs. Park in the back of the lot. Take 10-minute laps around your office building throughout the day.

Whatever you can do to add more movement to your day is a step in the right direction.

Creativity

Although it’s not an official Primary Food, I believe for artists it is. Creativity is what nourishes your mind and gives you energy. Having a creative practice is probably one of the most fulfilling things you can ever have.

Creating something from nothing is an amazing feat. And using the ideas and thoughts and feelings inside you to spark that creation is even more powerful.

I’m sure you have a creative practice of some kind, but I would encourage you to make it a more regular thing.

When you do something creative every single day, it becomes second-nature and you’ll never have to worry about being uninspired because you’ll have cultivated a flow and sustained it.

To help you better-identify where you have Primary Food nourishment and where you’re lacking, check out this Circle Of Life worksheet from Integrative Nutrition. Print it out and follow the instructions.

It will help you identify the areas of your life that are nourished or lacking nourishment.

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How do you rate in your Primary Foods? Where can you use more nourishment?

Photo courtesy of Synergy by Jasmine

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