I was looking at the word ‘nourishment’ because it is a word which, when I hear it I get a tingly sensation in my body, like “YES!”, “DO THIS!”. I have seen that when I am cared for and supported by self and others, I tend to move and grow well, but when I am left stagnant, when I abandon myself and let myself drift along, I wither and my life falls into somewhat of a chaos. When I feel uncared for or abandoned by others, it highlights my own tendency to lack self-care and abandon myself.
Care, support and ‘nourishment’ from others is great and amazing, but it cannot be depended on such as a situation where we are constantly abandoning ourselves and depending on others to always come to our rescue, pick us up when we fall and be that support in time of need. We have to be able to do this for ourselves, where cultivating and nourishing relationships of support with others is a natural outflow of our own self-relationship of self-cultivation, self-nourishment and self-care.
To clarify, abandoning self would be letting little things slide in one’s life. Whether it be internal points that require attention, definition and direction (feeling and emotional points interfering in one’s life), external points such as daily maintenance (diet, exercise, hygiene, care for one’s belongings etc), consistency (in scheduled structure, stability or maintaining an orderly environment for example). I have noticed that when I abandon myself, I start letting these things go in some degree, where when all the small points accumulate, it feels like my life and world are falling into chaos and all the little points add up to what seems like an overwhelming amount of things that need tending to.
This seems so overwhelming, simply because I hav abandoned myself inside myself, and therefor I feel I have nothing to hold onto for assistance and support – the assistance and support I am able to give myself during these times, but due to a fall into thoughts, perceptions, ideas and belief, I rather create an internal and external reality of lack of self-care and self-nourishment, and feel helpless and powerless to make a change.
Another clarification would be the distinction between self-care and self-nourishment. Self-care would be the daily maintenance: making sure I eat, keep my room and home orderly, keeping up with hair, nail, oral and body hygiene etc… whereas self-nourishment is more about what I eat (which I decide based on testing out different foods/supplements, seeing my body’s reaction to different things at different times, seeing what works, what I like, what supports me), how I set up my room to support my work/rest/recreation, what products I use for hygiene and why I chose them, and so forth.
Even the acts of testing, research, trial and error are aspects of self-care that lead to proper self-nourishment when the best results are found and implemented.
What is interesting here is that I sometimes have resistance to both self-care and self-nourishment, due to the point of me not really fully caring about myself for real still coming up as a point for me in those moments of self-abandonment and retreat. It is when the self-judgments are triggered and emerge, ancient points of self-loathing and self-hate that I had created within myself over time based on self-perceptions and experiences that are long passed, yet planted seeds that took root and which I am still busy weeding from my self and living.
And so, if I continue with the garden analogy and think of myself as a plant, one that has a need for nourishment every day, and which can’t be left due to ‘not feeling like it’ or ‘not being in the mood’ without causing unnecessary consequences and set-backs to growth.
Looking at the word ‘Nourish’
I hear in it’s sound: New Rich
Within this, I see that every new day holds the possibility of abundance to be had, so long as one is willing and able to move self to take it or create it.
Every day is new, we do not have to be prisoners of our pasts.
Richness can be seen like a rich soil – an environment that provides everything necessary for growth.
This, for me, means an environment where I have a proper diet and exercise, relationships of trust and support, a certain amount of structure and orderliness within which I can work, also fun and recreational activities, and then opportunities for challenges and learning as well. This, to me, is a rich environment, and all of these things are within my ability to cultivate, create and grow in my life.
I also see the potential for eternal expansion, where ‘new riches’ can and must be cultivated and discovered every day.
In conclusion, self-nourishment is the act of cultivating a rich environment within which I will grow best. I can begin implementing my solutions to the self-abandonment and the chaos that ensues by taking the simple steps or picking myself up and organizing my environment and life again after a fall, and to push myself to develop the consistency required to truly live the word ‘self-nourishment’.