BLOGS

It’s common conversation to talk about comfort foods. We all get a picture of certain foods when it is mentioned. Very few imagine healthy food from a living source for their comfort foods (unless it is a vegan recipe for macaroni and cheese or coconut macaroons). Still the concept of comfort foods as we have become accustomed in this country, are those foods that, for the most part, are “man made”. Let’s ponder a possible reason.

First let’s address the emotions that need to be comforted. All people have the same emotions. It is a universal language. We can take all of the emotions and divide them into love-based and fear-based emotions. The love-based emotions are love, acceptance, peace, joy, unity, etc. The fear-based emotions are fear, anger, hurt, loneliness, guilt, shame, rejection, attachment, etc. We can agree that most do not seek comfort when feeling love-based emotions. Therefore, most seek comfort when feeling fear-based emotions.

Let’s go one step further in our understanding of emotions in life. The love-based emotions are considered light. In fact, they make most of us feel light, open, and expansive. The fear-based emotions are dense and dark. They, in turn, make most of us feel burdened, closed, and small. It is the fear-based emotions that allow us to feel weighted down and, yet, at times, empty. It is the fear-based emotions that allow us to feel imbalanced, ungrounded, not centered. Consequently, it is the fear-based emotions (now called stress) that lead to illness and injury.

Let’s return to the topic at hand. If we are feeling a fear-based emotion (or 10) and are looking for comfort, you would think we would reach for love. Yet, when we are lonely, we tend to push people away and lock ourselves further into the loneliness. Right? As another example, when we are depressed we want to shrink back and die. We do not want to access help even though we wish for the rescue from the pain. This is how the fear-based emotions stay alive. They feed off of the fear within us. So, it is starting to make sense that our fear-based emotions would guide us to pick up foods that are equally destructive. Foods that would feed the very fear that is thriving inside. Food that is altered by processing. Food that was invented to create an addiction.

Let’s take a sidebar. Addiction. Addiction represents a person’s core fears. People have known for thousands of years that fear creates attachment to the very pain that is creating the fear in the first place. It is circular.

That being said, it is when we are feeling pain, out of sorts, out of balance, and/or not centered that we reach for the comfort foods (the addictive foods) that feed those very emotions. We reach for the very foods that feed the imbalance and any irregular cells in our body that are called cancer. We aren’t feeling good so we don’t want good food. We are feeling bad and want the “food we shouldn’ t eat” — the bad food. It is why we are hearing western medicine now say that stress causes or is a cause of cancer and illness.

In conclusion, when we are experiencing fear-based emotions in this life, we can understand why we reach for those foods that are most harmful to our health — they feed the fear! In the future, when we are feeling fear-based emotions and want to reach for comfort foods, let us stop for a moment and acknowledge the emotion. Let’s agree to ask ourselves, “If I had a child who was hurting right now, would I give them harmful foods or would I hold them and help heal their pain?” Then, maybe, we will pick up an apple or almonds and comfort ourselves with softness from within. That is when the healing of our pain will truly begin.