Do you remember . . .

. . . a time in your childhood when you were so engrossed in outdoor play that you had to be reminded to come inside for dinner?

. . . as a teen or young adult, being newly infatuated with someone to the point that you didn’t need to eat or sleep, yet you still felt amazing and nothing upset you?

. . . as an adult getting so engrossed in a work or creative project that several hours pass in what feels like mere minutes?

There are things in our life that have the ability to leave us feeling FULL-filled and satisfied in ways that food or accomplishing tasks on our to-do lists cannot.

Joshua Rosenthal, founder of The Institute for Integrative Nutrition in New York City and author of Integrative Nutrition: A Whole-Life Approach to Health and Happiness, describes these as Primary Foods. According to Rosenthal, one could be eating all the kale in the world but if these Primary Foods are not operating in proper balance, one will never achieve optimal health – physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Primary Foods are Relationships, Spiritual Practice, Physical Activity, and Career. Emphasis on one of these areas of life at the exclusion of the others or neglect of any or all of these result in imbalance much the same way a table with legs of unequal lengths can cause it to wobble or topple.

Relationships encompass family members, social networks, and romantic partners.

Spiritual Practice is not dependent on religion. This can be related to anything that puts you in touch with yourself and/or something bigger than yourself (meditation, hiking, sitting in nature, etc.).

Physical Activity can include anything that involves moving your body: walking, dancing, swimming, hiking.

The Career category may include school, volunteer endeavors, or hobbies. Granted, different seasons of life necessitate or facilitate greater focus on some of these areas more so than others, but each of these are necessary for creating a sense of fulfillment and life-satisfaction, it is just a matter of being in tune with yourself to determine what that is at this particular time.

There is no one-size fits all approach to creating and maintaining your Primary Food intake. The only way to determine what your needs are is through self-exploration. Feelings of dissatisfaction, unsettledness, loneliness, and mood swings can be symptoms of Primary Food deficiencies. These deficiencies may manifest in tangible ways through binge shopping, intense cravings for food or other substances, abusing your body, and the daily accumulation of hours on your cell phone.

An effective way to examine your current Primary Foods intake is to create a list so you can see it in black and white.

Divide a sheet of paper into four columns.
Label each column with one of the Primary Food categories: Career, Relationships, Physical Activity, Spiritual Practice.
Under each of these headings, list the things in your life that fall into these categories.
See which categories are lacking or perhaps have even been ignored.
Is there something you’d like to change?

Rather than tackling everything at once, move in baby-steps, adding in something into each category as it feels appropriate to you, removing things that are draining your energy.

When you approach this exercise with curiosity, you may be surprised by what you discover.

What’s Feeding You?