I believe that our relationship with food is an expression of something deeper. Today, I want to introduce you to the idea that our relationship with food not only an indication of our beliefs, it is also a doorway to the rest of our lives.

“How you do anything is how you do everything”. It means that how we handle and manage any situation, challenge or experience in our lives is how we probably handle all of them. A few years ago, I started noticing some patterns in my life.

• I was always running late and I found myself rushing to most of my appointments and the kids’ activities. When I relate this back to my eating habits, I started noticing how fast of an eater I was and how easily I got distracted during meal times. I like to think that this habit was born out of necessity – being a busy working mom, I was skipping breakfast and snacking on the go most days. When it was time to sit down for a nice family dinner, I kept these habits and ate fast which led to ignoring my fullness and satisfaction factor during meal times.

• Know what enough is. I used to fill my schedule up so full to make sure that my family or I don’t miss out on anything (talk about FOMO, Fear of missing out). I feared that by slowing down, I would rust so I kept ignoring my limits and kept searching for that next great height of fulfillment. I was always chasing the next best opportunity to unleash my full potential. I did not know what ‘Enough’ is. Relating this back to my eating habits, I was eating for the hunger to come, not the hunger that’s here. Because I was not actually in the present moment with myself, the idea of ‘Enough’ kept getting ahead of me. Instead of enjoying the food in my mouth, I was ahead of myself and looking forward to eating another bite. To me, the bite in my mouth is just a prelude to another one until I learnt that ‘Enough’ actually is not an amount. It is a relationship to what we already have.

• When you sit down for meals over the next few days, pause before eating and take a few seconds to notice what your eating habits say about your beliefs. Do you notice any patterns? Refrain from self-judgment and instead simply observe with the goal of self-discovery. At the end of the exercise, make a list of your top three food beliefs. Share your ideas in the comments below! We’re all here to learn from each other!