Hello my loves!

It's the holiday season again and you know what that means - FOOD!

So I just want to take a moment and write to you about Thanksgiving; whether or not you celebrate it, the emotionally-charged energy of food and binging is very strong now - it's just plain hard to avoid.

Thanksgiving is never just a little food, it's an explosion of fatty, salty, sugary, heavy comfort foods. But also, it's a time for family, friends, vacation and relaxation - or on the flipside, it's a time for confrontation and arguments, long lines at the stores, crazy traffic and good ol' fashioned STRESS. 🙂 Sound familiar? Painful, right? Ugh.

Yeah.

I have to say, this is a strange holiday. We all force ourselves to sit around a table and gorge past the point of exhaustion, usually on "comfort foods" to feel all warm and cozy - very few of us health nuts will binge on just healthy foods. Either way, there is this sense of a ritual saturnalian "stuffing" that has been attached to the holiday.

My question is this, though: why does being thankful and appreciating all the blessings or wonderful people in our lives have to equate to stuffing our face, our stomachs and our colons dangerously full of food?

Well, I received an unexpected answer from Spirit just now as I'm writing this...

It's because we equate food with Love.

And we all need Love, in fact, we crave it.

Especially this time of year. The weather is getting colder, most businesses and schools are in full tilt, pushing for the end of year deadlines, and also, the holidays remind us the most of relationships - loved ones we've lost, draining partnerships, or the pain of loneliness.

But what happened? Why do we equate food with Love?

The Energy is telling me it's for several reasons:

• The act of eating is sensually pleasing - taste, texture, smell, sound, looks. It appeals to and massages all 5 senses
• As children, our parents often rewarded us with ice cream, sweets or some other tasty treat
• Because cooking is an Art, we associate certain dishes with our loved ones as their Artwork, so preparing and eating the dish invokes that person's energy
• Social conventions of giving food to show one cares - Valentine's Day chocolates, soup for the grieving, etc.
• And last, but not least, food is understood to be one of the basic, primal human needs for physiological function and survival

Ok, that's nice so why do we gorge and binge on food, and how can we break free of this cycle?

Well, this question and others are the exact things that this month's retreat at the dojo will be about:

Food Energywork: Enlightened Eating for Empaths

Sunday, November 23rd

10:00am - 3:00pm

• Topics Covered at this Retreat:
• Sacred Body Image
• The Healing Purpose of Fat
• Emotional Un-Stuffing
• Empathic Decision-Making Technique
• Food Feng Shui
• And More!

Click on the red button below for a full description and to reserve your spot at the retreat.

EARLYBIRD DISCOUNT: Register by 11:59pm this Sunday and save $100 off admission!

See you there,

Victoria

Sensei Victoria Whitfield is a holistic stress management expert; she teaches emotionally overwhelmed professionals how to continue to serve the people they need to while taking care of themselves, first. A Certified Master-Teacher of Usui-Tibetan Reiki and Holy Fire Karuna Reiki, she regularly teaches Reiki and Meditation classes at her private dojo space in Westfield, NJ. Like her on Facebook.com/SenseiVictoriaWhitfield and follow on Instagram @senseiwhitfield

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