fall in love with yourself

every day

“Close your eyes. Fall in Love. Stay there.”

Rumi

It is safe to say that, coming from an Italian mother, I have always loved and appreciated food. I love the different tastes and smells, the memories created with both simple and special meals, the way I feel when I am nourished and when I can nourish others with the food I make.

I have not, however, always loved and appreciated myself as much as I did delicious food. At some point in middle school I began comparing myself to my slim dance friends and the airbrushed girls on the cover of Teen Vogue. I was confused why I had curves and hips; I desperately wanted a straight waist and thinner thighs.

This quest for external perfection led me to various diet experiments and a brief phase of calorie counting, in which I maintained a healthy weight amidst an obsessive set of numerical guidelines and a sea of unresolved issues like constant bloating or heartburn – not to mention my relationship with myself or with the calories I was consuming/counting.

I was not necessarily ashamed of my body enough to destroy it, but I still did not really love my body unconditionally, leading me to abuse myself mentally with judgements of not having enough self control, eating too much, or not being thin enough.

Over the past couple of years within my studies of nutrition, yoga, and more recently Ayurveda, I have learned to catch myself when I start to travel down judgement lane. Diets and calorie counting are breeding grounds for unattainable expectations – they create unnecessary pressure to maintain a shape or size based on the idea that this idealized look will result in us loving ourselves more.

When I find my type-A perfectionist habits still obsessing over what and how I eat, I remind myself what Divya Alter mentioned in her Ayurvedic cookbook, “Life and eating are all about balance, and balance is the prerequisite to happiness… being unhappy is definitely not balancing.” Being stressed about what or how much we eat can be just as damaging to the mind and heart as eating a bag of bin candy can be to the gut.

Caroline Myss says, “It doesn’t matter what you choose, what matters is the energy with which you choose it.” Choosing a salad because we are genuinely craving it is much different than choosing a salad with the condition that it will produce a specific result, especially if we are attached to that result emotionally [i.e. salad vs. fries; salad means I am being “good” and fries means I am being “bad”]. If we are judging what we eat, or if we judge ourselves for what we eat, we are literally consuming and perpetuating that judgement within our bodies and hearts.

The truth is, whether we want to admit it or not: we are perfect as we are. I thought I would love myself more and have a happier life if I lost weight, and I did lose weight, and I can tell you I am still working on loving myself just as I am.

I am still working on my relationship with food and approaching it/my Self with gentleness, gratitude, a big grain of sea salt, and a healthy sense of humor. I am still working on being receptive to love from my Self so that I can fully offer love to others – whether in the form of food, friendship, or mentorship – or simply by freeing my judgements and false perceptions of my Self and others.

It is challenging to admit that we are perfect as we are because it feels more natural to hold on to the paradoxical comfort of our suffering – it is what we know, and it is what we have learned from our ancestors who figured out how to shield themselves from harm.

The danger that was once a deadly plant or a saber-toothed tiger, however, has since become our brothers and sisters, or even food. Instead of being a team of humans sharing this earth, we find ourselves more and more as competing enemies fighting for space, attention, and sometimes our lives.

It is easier to find something wrong with ourselves and others rather than shining a light on the intrinsic goodness within us and the people we love, even the people with whom we disagree [cough – politics – cough]. It is human instinct; it feels safer to defend ourselves from potential harm than to move into vulnerability and receive openly with a loving heart.

In Tara Brach’s recent meditation she asks that we see ourselves through the eyes of a grandparent-type figure, or someone in our lives/in general who observes lovingly without expectations, who loves with a whole heart just as we are.

What if we saw ourselves through the eyes of that person, what if we could see others through those eyes? It might be scary to not accept a compliment or to offer our hearts and energy without conditions, but when we are able to do so we simultaneously give others permission to do the same.

Wouldn’t it be a relief if we could all just give each other full permission to love our Selves and one another as we are, permission to be a light of love surrounded by a complicated and unique and brilliant beautiful mess of a human?

And so I challenge us all to take the compliment without disclaimers. To give complements and love freely without expectation – just because our hearts genuinely feel like doing so. To enjoy being loved just as we are and to love others as they are as best we can. To enjoy what we eat with deep gratitude for full bellies – whether it is a bag of chips or a bowl of kale. To appreciate our bodies for all of the miracles it makes for us every day. To notice how it makes us feel to nourish ourselves from the outside in and inside out.

If you are seeking some practices to honor your Self without conditions or expectations, consider a few of my favorite self-love actions I have learned from my studies in nutrition, yoga, meditation/mindfulness and Ayurveda:

• Write down, think of, or share out loud 3 things you are grateful for at the beginning or end of every day, no matter how amazing or shitty the day felt.
• Immediately after waking up, take a deep breath [or several], bring to mind one thing you are thankful for, set an intention for the day, and put your feet on the ground – all in that order, before doing anything else.
• Begin the day with something nourishing – I love the pre-breakfast cooked apple from Divya Alter’s cookbook, followed by her Ayurvedic oats or sweet potato smoothie. If I am in a rush, I make overnight oats in advance so I can ensure my day begins with something nutritious to fuel my furnace. Enjoy the meal, whatever and wherever it is, grateful for food to fill your belly.
• End the day with something nourishing – if the day turned from mindful to manic, take a moment to settle before bed with things like a cup of calming herbal tea or warm spiced milk/almond milk, a brief meditation, journaling, or light stretching. Connect to yourself in a way that feels natural before heading to bed.
• When the spiral of comparison, judgement or blame begin to spark – take a moment to consider where it might be coming from, and return your attention back to your Self and your breath with kindness [props to Tara Brach for this reminder]. Life is full of miracles if we choose to see them.

Lastly, here are some of my favorite recipes to celebrate self-love:

• Einkorn toasts with rooibos chai almond milk latte
• Ayurvedic veggie & rice bowl with fresh homemade cheese
• Divya Alter’s vegetable upma with quinoa flakes
• Cozy Ayurvedic oats with warming spices [scroll my Instagram for more oat inspo]
• Strawberry rose overnight oats
• Strawberry rose smoothie inspired by Ayurveda
• Carob sunbutter cookies
• Turmeric licorice bulletproof latte
• My go-to matcha latte [actual recipe here]

What can you do today to show yourself how much you care, regardless of what you look like or how your life looks right now? How can you continue with this practice moving forward, even if it is a little bit at a time?

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Photo by Grant Henry Media at Kula Yoga Project, NYC. Wearing Outdoor Voices.