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Our rushing, stuffing and chasing after more leads to our lives losing the dynamic that underlies all living things - the healthy rhythm. The regular alternation between eating and digesting, working and resting, giving and receiving. It is all too easy to lose our sense of the finer things in our challenging everyday lives. Lent is about to begin and it invites us to take a step back from everyday life through a simple act - by practising renunciation. In a time when everything is always immediately available, not just food and material goods, but also people thanks to the new media, the decision to do without can be incredibly healing.
Renunciation as a prerequisite for enjoyment
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With the loss of a healthy rhythm and the exaggerated focus on "more", enjoyment is also lost. Because renunciation is the prelude to enjoyment. Voluntary renunciation enables us to sharpen our sense for the finer things in life. Those who do without the superfluous are reminded of the essentials. When I don't eat, I tap into finer sources of energy and remember that I am more than my body. When I give up indulgent foods such as sugar, I remind myself of other, healthier foods that allow for a more refined pleasure. When I free my body from stress, I can feel it better.
What is it about food that makes people react so sensitively when you want to take away something they love for a while? Like small children, they often cling to their coffee, their pastries, their pasta.
Fasting means giving up cheap and fast things
On the one hand, we have become accustomed to "cheap indulgences". Our everyday diet contains all kinds of things that are addictive - sugar, milk, wheat, coffee. So we turn into junkies without realising it and as soon as we have swallowed the last bit, we look forward to the next "fix". Many people would rather die than give up their drug. I know cancer patients, diabetics, people suffering from hormonal disorders, people who know that every gram of sugar brings them closer to the coffin, and yet they still can't find the strength to break with their drug. But it's a socially accepted, communally taken drug, so we wink conspiratorially at each other as we crush the chocolate bar, as if to say "You too?" and "Yeah, it's just too good, isn't it?". It is. But only in the short term, like any drug. We need a constant supply and we get sick gradually, so the connection with the chocolate bar is not so obvious.
Food as the basis of community
Food has a unifying effect. Eating together, sharing a coffee and a slice of cake with others, that connects us. It's almost like a shared meditation. The person who says "No, thanks, I don't eat sugar" is immediately an outsider. His presence has a different energy, and the rest of the group can sometimes even feel disturbed by him. The cake tastes better if you are not reminded that sugar is unhealthy. The person not eating now sits in the group like the personification of a guilty conscience. That doesn't make it any easier. Seen in this light, fasting can mean having to withdraw from the community for a while. Or simply recognising how much I bow to the unwritten laws of a community in everyday life.
Food as a substitute for spirituality
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The other problem that in my view leads to us being so attached to food is the non-existence of spirituality and energetic care. Spirituality and the care of one's own energy field have existed for as long as humans have existed. Only our supposedly civilised society has no time for it. And if we are honest, we don't accept it either. Or is there a room in your company where you can meditate and relax energetically during your lunch break? If you want to nurture your soul, you have to do it outside the socially accepted framework. As if it were a hobby. We are already teaching this to our children, in whose everyday school life there is hardly any room for rest, relaxation and thinking about meaning and meaningful behaviour. We act as if we are robots that only need fuel and the right programming, as if our sole purpose is to function. Is it any wonder then that we panic when we think about going without food, the "fuel", for a short time? Or even just parts of it?
Meditation, quiet reflection, deep conversations, reading, nature and art - these are also foods. They nourish our spirit. The more we starve our minds, the more rushed our lives become, the more feelings of meaninglessness and emptiness spread. Paradoxically, we feel an even greater physical hunger and craving for luxury foods.
The chocolate bar as a substitute for sense
Where there is no sense, there must be a substitute for sense. A chocolate bar does an excellent job of this. When I'm full of inner conflicts, food is the filler that wraps me in cotton wool so that the reality of my soul doesn't hurt. Because much of what we eat is no longer food, but filler. One of the hermetic laws is: as without, so within. Our physical stuffing is also a reflection of our mind, which is full of all kinds of unimportant things and can no longer distinguish between the essential and the superfluous. To do this, it would have to get out of its everyday life, get some distance and, above all, something that is hard to come by these days and is often rejected because it is so unspectacular and costs nothing: Silence.
Fasting is the celebration of silence
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In silence, the mind can come to rest, often that is all it needs. Silence is one of the basic needs of a healthy mind. Silence heals. In silence, mind and body can snap back into each other, in distance and renunciation the body can feel again what is good for it. Lent is a necessary and important time and is in no way dependent on the calendar, but on your own need for cleansing, detoxification and reduction to the essentials. During this time, it becomes possible to understand food as nourishment again, i.e. as something that adds something essential to my body.
Cleanse your mind and body with pleasure
In order to make this cleaning a pleasure, to support the inside and outside, content and form equally harmoniously, we have developed our Mallorca retreat week was launched. During Easter week and the second week of July, you will have the opportunity to eat real food - free from sugar, gluten, animal protein and pesticides, but full of nutrients, vitamins, trace elements and a harmonious balance of the elements. This turns every meal into a small energy treatment.
Ursula Peer, TCM nutrition expert, combines ancient TCM knowledge with the findings of modern science. I will accompany you with a gentle movement programme geared towards feeling your own impulses to ensure that you get back in touch with your body and learn to perceive its signals again. I accompany your cleansing process with psycho-kinesiology on a psychological level and ensure that your soul can also let go of the unimportant. With me you will learn "Chi instead of Botox" methods thoroughly so that your newfound sense of well-being can be reflected in your face. You can register with me at christina@chi-statt-botox.com. You can find more information -> here
Renunciation as a gain
In this way, going without can be experienced as a gain, which in reality it is. This makes it possible to change your diet without having to rack your brains over what you can still eat. Ursula will analyse your individual constitution so that you go home with valuable knowledge about which foods are good for you in particular. You can recharge your batteries here in a protected environment and with lots of support. I am very pleased about this opportunity that we can offer here, I attach great importance to making my work meaningful.
So I'm also delighted if my article has made you think about the essential and superfluous things in your life and perhaps give up one or two things. And I'd be delighted if you shared your experiences and tips with us here. How do you personally manage to do without? Rest assured - only those who can do without can really enjoy themselves!