Nourishing Yourself: A Guide
Fill me with all the goodness, so I may deal with this difficult world
I’m still doing Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, which is a course in rediscovering your creative self. I’ve had to take breaks from it for various reasons, from laziness to jury service, so I feel like I’ve been doing it forever. But as I said last week, in my routine piece, I believe in doing things imperfectly rather than not at all.
This week, the task was to list seven ways to nourish yourself and plan to do one each day. I struggled to think beyond a couple of initial ideas, so took it to Substack Notes, which is the new (more chill) Twitter. I was grateful to receive some inspiring ideas.
Nourishing ourselves can be spiritual, soulful or nutritional. To me, it means filling myself up with goodness that helps my growth and health. A nourished me is when I feel whole, authentic, fulfilled, confident and calm.
The obvious example of nourishment is feeding ourselves with good food, which I believe to be the most important act of self-respect and care.
We need nourishment more than ever. We’re in tired season and witnessing distressing scenes from the war almost constantly on our phones. I read that it’s productive for us to feel the sadness and rage fully. Therefore, I say feel it, feel it all, but also step away when you’ve done what you can. Bad news and horror scenes can be addictive and damaging to our brains.
With nourishment, we’re better equipt to act, protest, empathise and connect with others respectfully. Nourishment helps us deal with this difficult world, so I take it seriously.
Here’s how I’m going to nourish myself. Please share yours.
Cook nourishing food. Chickpeas, butternut squash soup, mushroom pasta, tomato butter beans and Montezuma chocolate.
Walk when it’s nice out and stay inside when it isn’t.
Read books that feel easy and joyful to read. Discard the ones that don’t.
Yoga. Arrive early, place the mat at the back of the room and fall asleep on a bolster.
Going to the cinema alone on a rainy weekend afternoon.
Writing
Seeing friends that make you feel so full that it’s almost physical.
Morning Pages. Daily journaling and reflections. I’m not sleepwalking through my one life.
Burning nice smells. Incense, candles, walking in and out of rooms and letting the jolly aromas wash over me.
Making plans I look forward to.
Buying lipstick in dramatic colours. Even more excited for those plans.
A full day of rest from all people. Ideally on the weekend and ideally no WhatsApp on that day, either. Saying hello to the person who sells croissants is ok.
From dramatic crying in the shower to face masks, thank you to
for excellent suggestions on Notes. Join the conversation there, or comment here. It’s truly inspiring to hear from you!Thank you!
With love,
Tiff x
More from Tough Love:
God, I needed this list to remind myself not to wish these long days away, the low-grade panic of Xmas made so much darker with what's happening in the world. Walks and soup and reading more than 3 pages of my book before reaching for my phone on the list xo
"A full day of rest from all people. Ideally on the weekend and ideally no WhatsApp on that day, either. Saying hello to the person who sells croissants is ok."
same same same.