Cooking to connect with the body
As a Health and Wellness Coach I talk a lot about the benefits of cooking at home. These meals are healthier and cheaper than what we would get in a restaurant or a delivery service. We can limit salt and sugar intake, picking fresh veggies and proteins that nourish us. We can avoid foods or ingredients that cause inflammation.
At an energetic level, cooking at home gives us a chance to connect to our food source, feeling gratitude for all the farmers, transporters, grocery or market workers and the whole supply chain that got the food to us. And if we are cooking food from our own garden there is something deeply satisfying about what we tended with our own hands going into our mouths.
Cooking at home is a fantastic way to connect to our bodies. We’re able to explore the experience through sound, taste, smell, touch and sight. These sense are portals to our bodies. When we use all of our senses in a situation, we are fully engaged in it. We experience this is our bodies not just one level but on several.
Here’s what cooking often looks like in my home through each of my senses:
Sound: I have music, an audio book or podcast playing through my airpods. I love electronic music, funk, something I can shake my ass to while still holding a spatula. Totally safe I promise. It’s when I dance and flip my hair that my dog hops off the couch and wants to see what I’m up to. So now we’re both bouncing around and somewhere on the stove the veggies are simmering. But the sound of the music, that sparks so much joy for me. I notice the sound of the knife on the cutting board, the sound of the immersion blender, rice cooker, air fryer or blender. So many kitchen gadgets make so many interesting noises. Cold or raw food sounds different than cooked or heated foods.
Sight: The brightly colored veggies. The sink full of dirty dishes. The glint of the knife’s edge. And then it’s sometimes the lack of sight. Because I’m throwing my hair, bouncing around, shaking my hips and doing all of this with my eyes close. Sight is, for many folks, our most prominent sense. So when we close our eyes, the other senses are heightened. We close our eyes so we stop looking outwards and to go inwards instead (when safe of course)
Smell: Garlic and onion in a pot with olive oil is one of my favorite smells. Fresh herbs, spices from Morocco, Indonesia, Budapest or other areas we have traveled to. Having all the smells come together as the meals is nearly ready. That happy feeling I get when my husband comes downstairs and says, “it smells so good in here!” And yes, the occasional smell of something burned on the stove, because that’s part of the process too.
Touch: The feeling of the knife in my hands. My feet on the chef’s mat as I chop. The heat of the steam rising off rice or pasta as I drain it in the sink and it gives me a mini-facial. Holding my homemade special bowl with it’s textured edges as I ladle soup into it. The cold water washing my hands after finishing all the dishes.
Taste: I tend to taste food as I go. Adding more of spice, broth, etc as needed. I’m trying to measure out ingredients but if I’m cooking something I know and I love then I typically eye-ball it. This is why I love soup, it’s far more forgiving than baking. I’m a Gemini, not a Virgo (astrological jokes anyone?) so being exact isn’t really my strong suit. Is tasting food the best part of the cooking? Usually it is, but the whole process is such a joy and a comment to connect.
And then of course, there’s the 6th sense. Intuition. The heart space. The sense that isn’t on our head like most of the others. We feel with the heart and then it’s shared with the rest of the body. This is often the first and last sense I use to explore in the kitchen. Asking my body, “what would you like, what would nourish you?” and then waiting for the response.
In my coaching practice I often ask clients, “Where do you feel that in your body?” or “How does that sensation show up for you?” In some cases, folks have no idea how to answer these questions, they simply lack the language because no one has asked them. So the next time you’re in the kitchen, either solo or with kids or partner, notice how you feel. Notice the words you use and notice where the sensation lives in your body. There is not right or wrong answer, theres’s just loving awareness.
Let me know what you’re cooking and how it makes you feel!