Abundance Messages Found In Food

Reminder, this blog series talks about food, eating patterns, and abundance mindset. If this is a difficult topic for you, I understand. While I do not discuss any particular eating patterns in this blog, and I certainly do not advocate disordered eating, I’m also aware that talking about such topics can be a triggering topic for some. Therefore, please take care of yourself. I’ll catch you on the next blog.

The focus of this blog is thought patterns around abundance and financal matters as they relate to food, with a strong focus on the lessons we were taught as children.

In my previous blog about food and abundance I said:

When we begin to think our basic body signals are somehow wrong or bad, then we’re denying the abundance around us. We’re adding shame to it.

I also want to pause and tell you this has absolutely nothing to do with body size. It’s also very much tied up in socio-economic status, something I’ll explore in a future blog.

Think about your relationship to food, all aspects of it. Hunger. Grocery shopping. Eating. If you are able to, try to journal about your feelings surrounding food and eating. Do you feel frustrated? Shame? Like you’re not worth it? Do you have to skip meals to make ends meet? Are you food insecure? Do you live in a food desert and have to deal with the struggle to find healthy, nutritious food? And when you find it, do you struggle to afford it?

There’s a lot of thoughts surrounding food and at their heart is what you think about abundance. Let’s pause for a moment. Manifestation and abundance isn’t just a matter of “thinking positive.” There are a lot of factors, including socioeconomic ones which affect our income levels and prosperity. A lot of this isn’t even under our control. However, I’ve found unpacking our beliefs around food and lessons we were taught as a child, helps us to identify areas in which we might be holding onto beliefs which no longer serve us, as well as identifying those places that aren’t under our control.

Let’s start with purchasing food. If you endured hunger or poverty as a child, you most likely have feelings of “not enough” or “never enough” when it comes to your grocery bill. You may purchase snack items that feel like comfort to you, simply because your family couldn’t afford them when you were younger. On the other side of that, if you were blessed not to have to deal with hunger or food insecurity growing up, and now you do, then there’s a lot of guilt and shame around that, too.

Guilt, same, worthiness, or “not enough” feelings suck our well being dry. That means it’s good to explore them in the context of your reality today. For example, if you worry about not having enough money for food, is it true?  If you feel guilty for buying certain foods, or for buying food at all, pause for a moment and ask yourself if you need to feel guilty? Often we don’t. Often those are things we were taught as a child and need to release in order to live a better life.

I encourage you to think about those thoughts when it comes to food and eating, and compare them to your thoughts about money. Often we find those things go hand-in-hand. Examining them, even though it might be painful, will help us to live a better life, to feel more safe and secure. In the next blog I’ll talk about some affirmations to help shift your thinking.