Some foods carry a healing essence that’s beneficial to the body, while other foods bring enjoyment. When you choose foods in this manner, you can enjoy a new meal experience, each meal, every meal. Choosing to eat this way allows the body to become healthier. It also becomes a support for a better quality of life and happiness.

Rumi asks, ‘What does this patch-sewing mean you ask? Eating and drinking. The heavy cloak of the body is always getting torn. You patch it with food and other ego-satisfactions.’

For many, life is a continual mental struggle that revolves around food and dieting. They spend most of their time thinking about how to protect themselves from food than anything else. Should I eat this? Will this dress fit if I eat this? Will I be able to go to the gym and work off these calories? Should I make a dinner date this week or will I end up eating too much? Should I eat breakfast today if I am going out to lunch? Maybe I should skip dinner. If I eat a salad for lunch and dinner today, then tomorrow I can eat cake. I can’t buy that for the family because I am likely to eat that too. If I have a glass of wine at dinner with my husband, will it keep me from losing weight this week?

Ideally, a healthy body only asks for what it actually needs. Signals of hunger and desires for certain foods are messages from the body for a specific kind of energy that it needs to function and maintain balance. Unfortunately, we’ve conditioned ourselves to “think what we need’ rather than to ‘feel what we need.”

I urge you to begin to practice this simple exercise to help you recall or reawaken your body’s memory. Sit quietly before a meal and see if you feel hungry, or if you think you are hungry. What’s the difference? Can you tell? Try to become sensitive to this difference. After a meal, see if you feel full or if you think you are full. What’s the difference? Relying on your mind rather than on your feeling as the basis regarding hunger is often the source of unhealthy eating habits.

The next time you sit to plan a meal, choose the experience you desire, the taste and aroma. And to elevate the experience pair your meal with a tea.