2 Steps Creates a Big Impact!

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What seems like such a small thing can have a huge impact spiritually, energetically, and physically!
​Through a powerfully simple, 2-step practice, we can help to re-establish that connection and awareness between ourselves, our food, each other, and the divine.

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We live in a fast paced, disconnected culture. Many of us have lost connection with our food, where it is sourced, how it is grown, and how it is processed. We have also lost the interconnection between each other and the divine.

​​Here’s how it works.

Step 1: 2 Deep Breaths.
When we sit down to a meal, our bodies tend to be in a ‘fight or flight’ (sympathetic) state. This is not optimal for digestion. We need to be in a ‘rest and digest’ (parasympathetic) state. Taking two deep breaths prior to eating helps to bring us into the moment. It helps to switch us out of our ‘fight or flight’ into ‘rest and digest’. In this state, our body prepares to receive food. Remaining in this state helps to ensure that our body is able to effectively and efficiently process our food. Extracting and assimilating the nutrients into our body.

Two deep breaths also creates expansiveness and helps us tap into our Heart space. It brings life giving oxygen into our body which is also a necessary component for metabolism. Use all 5 senses as you are drawing those 2 deep breaths! Pull in the smell of the food you are about to eat. Visually explore the food on the plate and all its colorful beauty. Anticipate the sounds that the food will make as you are eating it like the crunch of a crisp vegetable or the sounds of the silverware on the plate. Imagine the textures of the food in your mouth and the different variety of taste each food will deliver to your palate.

Is your mouth watering? Good! That’s your body preparing to receive!

Step 2: The Gratitude Prayer.
I believe Dr. Deanna Minich said it best in her Nourish Your Whole Self program, “We would nourish not only our bodies but also our souls if we were able to see the cosmos in our plate – an energetic lineage –spanning from the seed, which was planted in a field and tended to by a caring farmer and workers, bathed in sunlight and moonlight, visited by a multitude of insects, to when, eventually, the seed transformed into a vegetable picked by someone’s loving hand. The vegetable made a hearty journey to ultimately make it to the store or farmer’s market. It connected with someone enough for it to be selected and bought. A chef or cook took great skill in preparing it into a dish, and days later, it has found its way to your plate. So when we are eating, we are not just eating a blip in time, savoring a present moment of goodness, but a whole past history of connection. By doing so, you acknowledge the interconnection of all the pieces that are involved in the lineage of that food.”

By creating a gratitude prayer for your meal, you are honoring the food that is in front of you, the journey that it has traveled, creating connection between yourself, the food, and all those that took part in helping it arrive to your plate and to your body.

This is a great exercise to do as a family! Have each member contribute a component of the Gratitude Prayer and enjoy the creativity and uniqueness that you will now share every day!
 
So remember, two deep breaths utilizing your 5 senses of smell, sight, sound, texture, and taste. Then, your own unique Gratitude Prayer honoring the complex, beautiful lineage of the food and the miraculous transformation that is about to happen to contribute to your health mind, body, and soul.
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In this practice, we are creating expansiveness, Love, connection, and nourishment.