Did you notice? When you lose something you start to give it back its full dimension?

Your brain is designed to keep you safe and your Soul is designed to keep you fulfilled, true to your Self and happy. To accomplish its mission, the brain needs input from your outside environment. To fulfil its desires your Soul needs to translate input into pleasure.

That’s how our sense of TASTE is driving your life in the background!

Over the past ten years, I’ve seen a few clients coming to me with transient ageusia (a lost sense of taste), because of an infection, an autoimmune reaction, or some nutrient deficiency. Quickly, with this loss, their interest in food fade out. And with it, a daily source of pleasure disappears.

While food clearly is essential to survival, it is the pleasure involved that makes eating worthwhile. Feasting is a root for intense wellbeing. That’s what makes it so difficult to rely on the sole rational brain to lose weight or change your eating habits.

It is essential we better understand the fundamental pleasure systems involved in the act of eating. While bringing pleasure into the equation, we open the door to find ways to rebalance the system and reduce overeating or eating junk.

I recently heard: “you don’t look like a food lover”. As if pleasure found in food has to pair with weight gain and average health? Often, confusion between instant reward and deep pleasure creeps in. And it all has to do with your brain function.

Feast & Fast, The Cycle of Life

Celebration is marked by feasting. And eating is a celebration of life. Not acknowledging it is a route to failure.  You don’t celebrate with birthday salad! That’s why a constant diet does not match the cycle of life.

To keep the pleasure of feasting, you need to fast. If we keep feasting and eliminate all the fasting, deep pleasure becomes instant rewards and sometimes addiction.

The best of all medicines are resting and fasting – Benjamin Franklin

In modern time, with constant food availability and food marketing, we have kept the feasting and forgot the fasting. As a result, we feel more lethargic, and we suffer from chronic disease. Feasting and fasting is a matter of balance.

Contemplation, A Source of Harmony

Imagine a classical concert where musicians are playing randomly. Without a conductor, cacophony is the norm.

When you let your (food) choices depend on the fluctuations of your external environment, you move away from your personal harmony.

Tuning into your sensations and feelings, being at ease with them, accepting and honouring them is a sure way to bring back the symphony and harmony you need to feel well.

When you re-educate your sense of taste, healthy food becomes pleasurable. As you learn to love the food that energizes you, you bring your power back. Food becomes an instrument of your profound wellbeing when you start to practice food contemplation and deep connection within.

In those time of uncertainty and chaos, let’s bring back contemplation and sacredness in the act of eating.