Bringing back Joy

The Story

How I brought the joy back in a part of life I used to love

Under certain circumstances, I love to cook. Namely, when I feel energetic and creative, connected to vibrant ingredients, and the pace is leisurely.

I prefer to eat fresh instead of leftover. I also prefer to eat cooked foods. Add in the fact that I eat very differently from the kids, and you can understand why I’m cooking incessantly,  but don’t really enjoy it. Most “health-focused” parents can relate.

I had 'sucked the joy out' of cooking. 

To reclaim it, I made of list of ways I could show up to infuse joy in my culinary experience -

• Shopping more at farmers' markets and rotating vegetables
• Creating “upgrades” to make the kids food enticing for me
• Handing off cooking kids' lunches to the cafe at school
• Cooking/prepping dinner during my late afternoon lunch break (which I created), so there is no rush in the evening and it feels still fresh/ not needing to be reheated
• decreasing the weekly cooking load - On Thursday ams, we eat at the French bakery; on Friday evenings, we order in wood fired pizza or the kids make their own at home
• shopping the local small grocer with delivery instead of the big market

On my client days, I have a fresh vegetarian meal cooked for me by my neighbor. She creates a surprise, and I’m well nourished on days when I would have just grazed on whatever is in the pantry.

On the weekends, I create. Often with the kids. I let them teach me how to do things with Youtube videos. I teach them my kitchen hacks.

Also on the weekends, If I don’t feel excited to cook, I don’t. We go out for relaxed 2-3 hour meals. I try to bring home a new food once a week for us to expand our palate.

I force myself to plate my food; relearn to sit down to eat; slow the heck down and take 3 breaths before eating; pay attention to how my body feels in response to what I eat, and how I eat, and how my emotions are that day.

And, on and on. My journey with food, nourishment, and the ability to digest my life experience will continue to shift, and I’ll keep adjusting.

I’ll have cycles of turning it in to a chore or dysfunction, and then reclaiming the joy in the experience.

I can say the same for my writing. For my private practice. My parenting. Exercising. Sexuality. Sleep. Self Care. We can take our experience in any of the above, and lose touch with the joy possible in the experience.

We’re here to feel joy as much as we can, as often as we can, in as many ways as we can experience life.

Strengthen your Foodsexsleep 

Foodsexsleep refers to the foundation of creativity, nourishment and rejuvenation in your lifestyle. When your Foodsexsleep foundation is solid, you thrive - emotionally and physically. Feeling more joy in our daily activities allows us to - 

• be less reactive
• spread more joy
• feel less depleted
• sleep more deeply
• digest and absorb our food more easily
• connect more deeply in intimate moments
• feel less anxiety

Self-Healing Practice

Consider an area of your life experience in which you’ve lost touch with the joy.

What are the qualities that would allow you feel more joy in the experience? This is not an easy question for most. In the example above, the “qualities” were connection to food, and plentiful time, and a sense of creation.

What are ways in which you can re-infuse those qualities into your experience? You may hit some blocks here. Limitations with money and deserving and fears.

What if you gave yourself these qualities for just 2 weeks? 1 week? 3 days? 1 day? Just to feel the joy again - every minute is worth it.

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