Author: jo.loach@gmail.com

Last weekend I gave a talk on nourishment.

We all know we need physical nourishment, but how much thought much less application do we give to our mental, emotional and spiritual need for nourishment?

As I reflected upon this matter, I realised a few things.

Firstly, whilst training for the half marathon last year, I had to physically nourish myself to a whole new degree to facilitate my body keeping up with the additional physical demands I was placing upon it.  I had to learn about the different foods required to release sufficient energy to fuel over two hours of running.  Equally I had to learn about the foods required for my body to recover and repair after this increased exercise.  None of which would have been any use to me had I not then applied that knowledge.

We must nourish our body in line with the demands that we place upon it.

But in addition to the demands we place upon ourselves, we must factor in the age and stage of life that we are in. 

For example, post forty my body no longer processes carbohydrates in the way that it used to.  This means that my love of chips, crisps, cakes and the likes, basically fast tracks straight to the creation of a spare tyre.  As I learned to my detriment last October, the sporting of such a tyre can make the wearing of jeans a very uncomfortable experience.  

We need to recognise and understand not just what but how much our body needs to nourish it sufficiently.  A failure to do so will inevitably lead to weight gain or loss which if substantial can lead to various other issues.

Most of us know this stuff.

But do we realise that by the same token we must also nourish our minds and hearts sufficiently for the demands that we place upon them.

For example, in my own life, once I began to practice my work on a full time basis, I quickly discovered that I needed to learn a whole new level of nourishment.  Just as with the half marathon training, I was asking a whole heap more of myself mentally and emotionally than ever before.  As such I needed to increase and improve the way I nourished my heart and mind. 

This required a review of who, what and where leaves me feeling nourished and similarly, who, what and where do not.  I then implemented the necessary changes. 

How easy it is to allow the very things we need most; exercise, time with friends, fun pursuits etc to be squeezed out during the very times that we need them most.

Equally, how easy it can be to become stuck in situations that leave us malnourished.

Similarly, we need to recognise the season that we are in along with the subsequent impact upon our minds and hearts. 

For example, in that first year of grief for the loss of my spiritual mother, I needed more time than ever before to simply be.  My capacity for all was diminished.  Subsequently I spent long periods out walking in the fields or by the sea, I sat in garden centres indulging in serious flower gazing and I had more need of time with those precious people with whom I can bare my soul. 

In doing so, I was supporting my heart and mind with their natural capacity to heal.  As anyone who knows anything about grief will know, grief doesn’t end or finish, it simply changes and there are things we can do to support this process and things that obstruct it.

As there is more in the media about mental and emotional health we are beginning to gain more awareness and understanding of these vital aspects of our health.  Knowledge and understanding alone are not enough.  We must apply this.

Do we recognise that we are also spiritual beings who need to nourish our spirits?

Just as with the physical body, mind and heart, we need to nourish our spirits in line with what we are expecting of ourselves as well as recognising the demands of the season we are in.

We need to know not just what nourishes us spiritually and what does not, but we need to apply this in real terms to our daily lives.

Personally I am immensely grateful to be part of a Church that offers me an all round nourishment fest of a Sunday morning.  How I love to enter in to the presence of God to worship and remind myself that He is still God no matter what is going on in my life in between Sundays.  Plus I get fed a spiritual message by the teacher.  Then after the service, I relish the gift of being made a hot drink.  All of which is done amidst the embrace of my huge Christian family.

Nourishment central.

Of course I am still responsible for spiritually nourishing myself in between services.  It is vital that I recognise that sometimes the hunger I feel is one that only God Almighty can quench.  Thus attempts to satisfy such hunger in any other way, will always fall short.

And, just as we generally need more than one physical meal a week, so too do we need regular nourishment mentally, emotionally and spiritually throughout each day and week.

In summary, we need to know ourselves; body, mind, heart and spirit well enough to recognise which part of ourselves is in need of nourishment at any given time and how best to nourish it.

Otherwise, all too often when we have a heart, mind or spiritual need to talk something through with someone or for time outside for a walk or break or to do something fun, we may instead find ourselves mindlessly eating food that is not nutritious or nourishing.

The act of physically eating when your hunger is of a different kind is to temporarily distract yourself from the true source of hunger.  After which you are left not only with the original hunger but also with the discomfort of eating unnecessarily.

We all do this to a degree.

Especially me!

But we need to recognise when we are doing it that we may stop to identify the true source of our hunger that we can respond by nourishing it appropriately.

It is a hungry business being a human.

Let us learn how to nourish our hungers in healthy ways.

The better able we are to nourish all the parts of ourselves well, the better able we are to share such nourishment with others.