Have you ever started on a journey and realized, somewhere in the process, that you needed to understand and educate yourself more, and you’d forever be a student in this area?
For me, it’s integrative nutrition – It combines the principles of conventional nutrition guidelines and functional nutrition to provide a more individualized approach to eating and living. It encompasses the many areas of our lives that impact our health and well-being, not just our nutrition.
Certain life events in recent years have raised many big questions in my mind. In hindsight, those discoveries that seemed out of my control are why I studied integrative nutrition and have put it into practice in my life and others. It has been rewarding.
In his legendary 2005 commencement address delivered to Stanford University graduates, Steve Jobs told the students that you can’t connect the dots looking forward in life; you can only connect them looking backward. This concept requires a whole new level of trust in something greater than yourself.
With the connected dots and the new level of trust, I am starting a newsletter called Mind Body Sage Newsletter (MBSN) to continue exploring the connections between physical, mental, and emotional wellness, our thoughts, and the foods we eat. If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, I invite you to click here and join me.
I’m Not Sure If Therapy Works, But Writing Does
MBSN came from a place deep inside of me.
This February, my mother turned 70, and my son turned five. We celebrated.
Around the same time, I emerged in a 21-day writing challenge to explore the answer to a simple question: “Where’s home?” because the answer was never simple for me. As it turned out, it’s not a straightforward answer for many.
I moved to the US in my early 30s from Shanghai, China. In a short span of five years, I lived in three states across the country. In 2018, life brought me to Hong Kong, a vibrant city with one of the world’s highest expat population percentages.
Somewhere in the process of all the international and interstate moves, I gained some engaging experiences but lost myself and my sense of home. I didn’t know this until recent years when significant life changes happened.
After years of living in the question, I realized home was neither a geographic location like where you grew up nor someone you thought you’d spend the rest of your life with.
Home is something you make, no matter where you are or who you are with, because home is within yourself.
The writing challenge was an opportunity for me to gain more clarity and understanding of how returning home from the places we’ve been, the things we’ve done, the people we’ve met and spent time with, and what we’ve learned along the way can help us get unstuck and move forward while staying true to ourselves. Only then can we make an impact on others’ lives.
Writing one story based on the writing prompt I received in my inbox at 2 pm HKT every day for an entire month was a brutal experience. Yet, it was something I don’t have words to describe its profound impact and serenity.
In the first episode of his MasterClass on Telling Great Stories, Michael Lewis, the New York Times Best-selling American author, stood in the middle of the Oakland Coliseum, sharing how the story of his best-selling book Moneyball unfolded. At one point, he said something that sums up my experience nicely.
“I’m not sure if therapy works, but writing does!”
In my experience, therapy helps to process the raw emotions and feelings when life throws me some big ass lemons; writing takes the process to a higher level and pulls me out of the frame to see the whole picture.
Primary Food vs. Secondary Food
Going into the writing challenge with an effort to explore home within, I had no idea where it’d take me or what would come out of it. I surrendered to the process. Toward the end, I reread all the pieces I had written and discovered that a new theme had somehow emerged effortlessly. It’s a much bigger theme than I had anticipated to explore: What really feeds us?
During my health coaching training, the concept of primary and secondary food was introduced early in the program. In short, secondary food is what’s on our plate. Primary food is everything that’s not on our plate, such as healthy relationships, regular physical activity, a fulfilling career, and a spiritual practice. It can fill our souls and satisfy our hunger for life. When primary food is balanced and satiating, our lives feed us, making what we eat secondary.
The pieces I wrote for the month-long challenge were all about our primary foods, including our hunger and inquiries about life, our real work, and our purpose on earth. I want to keep exploring these through my own experiences and our shared experiences as human beings.
As an extension of my work in the secondary food category, I will continue to write about our circle of life (shown in the image below) composed of the 12 primary food areas to explore how each slice can contribute to satisfaction and balance in our wellness journey.
As a flawed human being, I have many questions, and I don’t have all the answers. That’s why I am on this journey to keep evolving. Together, I believe we’ll spark something worth pondering and that will be helpful to your well-being.
“However we tell our stories, the message about our humanity is the same: I want people to know my heart. That I am a kind person who always tries his best to do the right thing in life and often fails. That I am , furthermore, insecure and vulnerable and dependent and comfortable and independent. Yes, all these things. Just like you.”
– Daniel Gottlieb, The Wisdom We’re Born with: Restoring Our Faith in Ourselves
The Invitation
One thing to note is that no one’s life is perfect. I haven’t met anyone who shows up with a full circle of life in my practice. Remember, our needs for each primary food are bio-individual and will continue to shift over time. The goal is not to reach a full circle but to be in the process of getting there. It’s because health is a journey, not a destination. And the journey is the reward.
If this resonates with you, I invite you to join me by signing up to receive the Mind Body Sage Newsletter (MBSN), a free newsletter in collaboration with you to find foods that feed our body, mind, and spirit.
See you inside.
