How Healthy Food Brings Flow and Vitality In Your Life
Ways how healthy food and creative cooking promote creative flow, a deeper sense of awareness, habits that last a lifetime, and how both help to work with sensitivities.
A few days ago, I came across a couple of photos from 3 years ago, when I was just underway with healthy and creative cooking. At least, the healthiest version for me, all the years before that were merely a warm-up of trial & error. The colors, textures, and vibrancy on the photos all speak for themselves. Instantly the joy came up that I had while I was creating these dishes. A realization that this has continued and increased ever since. What’s probably most striking is that it costs me zero effort! One way to describe it is creative flow, a flow with lots and lots of layers of depth and aliveness.
This state of being was there the first time that I cooked for myself, back in 2004. Effortless actions flowing over into each other, whether only for a few minutes or for hours. Thing is that back then the depth of feeling and experiencing wasn’t there yet. Flow yes, being fully aware of it, no. See it more as not feeling the body, while now it’s being aware of everything simultaneously. And still staying centered and present in the moment. Experience of life to the fullest extend.
All of this came by surprise, developing in the background. Unexpected discovery after discovery. Both on finding out new stuff as well as becoming aware of current limitations. Breaking through things that are limiting is so much fun! Especially when it’s about your own health and well-being. For years I bumped into lots of health problems on the surface level. The symptoms themselves weren’t huge, the accumulation of all little issues felt like the equivalent of a mountain. Try to move throughout your day with a mountain on your back, good luck to that. My body had adjusted so well, that somehow I was able to move myself through. Even more so, seemingly with ease, with people around me pointing out “you look so healthy!”. At the end of the day or week feeling completely exhausted. It’s incredible how much stress the body can hold.
Imagine the opposite of that, a body free of stress, without a mountain on your back. A completely different world opens up, a world of depth, of senses you’ve never heard of before, and creativity without limits. Mostly, being able to put it into form, to take action and bring your imaginations and inspirations alive.
Creative Cooking Brings the Ability to Detach
Simplicity first, take a step back before moving forward. Slow down to feel, to notice, to observe. Leave the labeling, naming, putting into words, and wanting to grasp aside. Listen equals silent. What you feel, notice, or observe is how things are. There’s no personal connection, no identity, no reference point. Whether it’s something within, like joy or pain, or something outside, like chirping birds or the noise of a highway. The more you’re able to practice this, the more you become aware of. How your body responds, what happens in your mind, in your surroundings, the emotions that come up, and a lot more. A deepening takes place with your ability to feel, to sense, to be present with yourself and the world around you.
That’s what creative cooking brings, being able to detach completely. From current circumstances, from personal preferences, old habits or beliefs, what the rest of the world thinks, and what’s going on around you or within your mind. Listening to your body, while your mind takes a break.
The trick with food? It brings instant results. Take a bite of a fresh lemon and you know what I mean. The flavor activating your taste buds, your mouth and cheek contracting, your eyes closing, and a ripple effect throughout your whole body. It’s intense at first and very refreshing afterward. If I would ask you to actually do this, your mind might go crazy, with that intense hurdle upfront. Imagine the after effect as vividly as you can, and feel how your liver, stomach, and brain get an uplifting kick. Seriously, try it out!
Knowing How to Bring Out the Best Flavors
Your body never lies, it knows what’s best for you, and simply prefers the healthy stuff. Each day something healthy and nourishing goes in, there’s a positive effect that can be felt whole day long. With ‘guilty pleasures’ being a thing, let’s focus on pleasures without the guilt! Eating cookies, cheese, and meat have an impact on your taste buds, they get numbed down. Preventing the tasting of real and pure flavors of fresh ingredients. So does the use of alcohol. The good news? It can be restored, every cell within your body gets renewed within 7 years. Some are renewed during the day, like skin cells, and some take a much longer time, like bones. For your taste buds it takes at least 30 days to get back to a healthy state.
Most fresh ingredients have multiple layers of flavor which are much more subtle. There’s sweetness in leafy greens that at first taste bitter. Some of them have a hint of citrus or minty freshness. And you can feel this when you consume it! Let alone when you combine ingredients or cook with them in a certain way. Flavor develops itself once you know how to treat it, getting the most flavor out of dish relieves you of the desire to go to a restaurant. Since you cannot go wrong with this, it’s so simple to apply. No thinking needed, going back to the basics all the time does the trick. Taste, smell, touch, feel, hear, sense. Without the labeling, naming, or putting into words. Within no-time, your imagination takes over.
Being in a State of Creative Flow
Does that mean you need to spent hours in the kitchen? If that’s what you want and love to do, yes, there’s no one stopping you. If you need cooking to be functional and work with family, work, schedule, and occupation, you can implement what suits you. It’s the state of being that makes all the difference. Here’s where creativity comes in. All the different variables in life can be unsettling and discomforting. Creating a sense of control is tempting, with building routines, consuming the same things over and over, or going for take away and pre-packaged food. Being able to use what you have available right now to the fullest brings originality and uniqueness.
The style in which this comes out can be simple, elegant, deep, colorful, complex, and anything in between. The starting point remains the same:
Being aware of what’s going on within you and around you
Knowing what you’ve got available right now (including time, space, experience, etc.)
Tasting, feeling, touching, smelling, sensing, hearing
Getting on your way can be a thing when a lot of this is new to you. Looking up recipes might be a solution to save time and effort, or get inspiration. My experience is that the time I win with not having to think myself is lost with the looking for recipes. Most of the time there’s so much interesting stuff online, that there goes much more time into it than I intended. Even when you’re already following your own inspirations and creativity there’s space to win. A recipe is nice for inspiration, as a warm-up, to give a new perspective. Creating stuff that’s unique and original is something entirely else. That’s what creative cooking is all about!
Making Sense of Sensitivities on a Deeper Level
Sensitivities come in many ways. Being sensitive to foods, dust, chemicals, emotions, feelings, other people, places, animals, you name it. The main narrative is that there must be something wrong when this occurs. Which can be a good things when it’s regarding life threatening situations. Most of the time that’s not at all the case. Even more so, the brain is hard-wired to treat impulses and triggers of a similar kind equally. A big event can have the same impact as something tiny.
Instead of looking at sensitivities as wrong, from my experience it indicates the ability to sense very deeply. A very vulnerable trait is also what makes you the strongest at the same time. What I’ve learned over time is that on many occasions I feel things that aren’t mine. Feeling what other people feel, their emotions and state of being. Mistaking this for my own and judging myself for it. Knowing this right now gives me complete detachment in most cases and the awareness of what’s actually happening. The ability to point out to others what they are feeling and helping them to develop their own ability to feel has only become stronger. Turning sensitivities into superpowers is a gift for everyone involved. By seeing things for what they are and bringing it back to the physical you’re able to do this yourself. No more stories needed!
Healthy Habits that Last for a Lifetime
One of my main objectives years ago, when I learned about habits for the first time. Growing up in an environment where no one thought or spoke about habits, I had to find out myself. A lesson that I remembered vividly is that most habits fail over time. Creating habits that can be prolonged for a lifetime became my objective. At first it was on top of my mind for a couple of months. Like with other things, the moment I let go of the objective it comes into form. In surprising and unexpected ways it just pops up, seemingly out of nowhere.
The practice makes all the difference, doing the tiny steps every day. It may sound like a boring routine, that’s not at all my experience. A core habit that I’ve been practicing myself over and over for years, is getting into a state of creative flow. Having the intention to do everything I can to live as healthy as possible. Starting where I’m at each day and focus on getting the most out of what I already have (including that what I can imagine!). Practice makes perfect, it takes seconds now to get there, prolonged this state of flow for hours, throughout days or even weeks in a row. Leaving behind the need to go through a cognitive process.
For me,the healthier the food I consume, the more food has become medicine for me. Not a medicine to fix a symptom — more in the traditional sense, it’s food for the soul. Coming from an angle to thrive, to be joyful, limitlessly creative, and fully alive takes all the heavy load away. Transitioning smoothly into a more abundant life continuously, living from a place of gratitude and inner peace.
The most unexpected? Having access to my creativity all the time, like a more spontaneous state of being. As it was during childhood, when there’s so much energy available to create. A place of awe and wonder that becomes available again, as if it has never been away.
Becoming the Master of Your Own Kitchen (and Well-being!)
Making life changes is easy with your creativity in the lead. Instead of a linear step-by-step process, where someone tells you what to do when, you’re able to make big jumps forward in no time and without much effort. Practicing to get into a state of creative flow, creating from there, and prolonging this during daily tasks that you already do.
At the start, it requires work and effort to make this switch (especially to get your mind out of the way!). Once you’re on your way, it becomes more simple, with less and less need to go through a cognitive thinking process. Instead, the joy that comes out of your creative pursuit becomes a very powerful driving force.
Having space for fun and play in your life makes a huge difference. Inviting in an abundance of energy, joy, and confidence to come through. And feeling like you fully deserve every single bit of it!
Look at the Food for Creativity website for more information. See the schedule for online classes and events. Got questions that are more personal? Fill in the contact form on the website and I’ll get back to you!