When It Comes To Food Follow Your Intuition
There are no rules, or one correct course of action, regarding what food you should eat, simply because each physical body is a unique case, which must be catered to uniquely. For this reason, establishing rigid rules may prevent your body from receiving proper nutrition, and you from feeling relaxed and balanced about your eating habits.
When you force a rule for yourself, such as “I’ve decided I don’t eat X”, you may be diverging away from your spiritual alignment. Each physical body, and each situation, demand a particular kind of food intake. And it is you who needs to get in touch and align with the best solution for your personal case.
What to Eat
There are only two things you need, to know what you should be eating: A) your body, and B) your spiritual guidance.
Your physical body knows what it needs to exist in a balanced form. So, your can trust in it to tell you at any given moment, what, and how much, you need to eat. Your body carries with it memories from past-lives regarding food. So there are things your body likes to eat that will contribute to keep it balanced. I like bread and cheese. Lots of lives in Greece and Italy.
However, the physical body (as well as the mind) may become attached and addicted to certain foodstuffs. Certain elements in food may cause addicting behavior, or your own emotional state may cause you to feel impulses which may not be completely aligned with how and what you should be eating.
So other than your physical impulses, you should also closely follow your discernment  regarding how you should eat. It is my contention that you already know if something is appropriate or not for you – even if your rational mind doesn’t know the reason yet. This is generally called intuition or gut feeling.
Still, your guidance doesn’t just mean paying attention to your intuition. Your guides can just as easily convey you ideas through repetitive thoughts, and also external coincidences. Following one’s own guidance is a central aspect of a spiritual living and of the Awakening process.
About  Meat and Being Vegetarian
Don’t ever cave in to spiritual-related thoughts and prejudice against meat. It is, indeed, true, that processed meats in modern society carry a great dose of 1) fear and trauma and disrespect for life, and 2) substances and elements not aligned with our well beingness. It is also true that highly evolved societies in the Cosmos tend to not eat animal derived food – when there is actual food – existing instead various forms of vegetarianism, or even, feeding directly of light or energy. The higher the consciousness level, the more subtle and energetic the body is. At these higher levels, the notion of depriving a being of well-beingness, or life itself, in order to sustain another’s body is a barbaric notion at best.
However, the challenge of 2D consciousness level (plant and animal life) on Earth is not always about being alive or not, but it is to be respected, or not, for its service. Some of the animal and plant life in this planet are dedicated in a more specialized manner to the service of providing meat and foodstuff to humans. If the conscious/energetic level on Earth was high enough, the bodies of animals are designed so it would be possible for them to peacefully leave their body once it was required to use it as food. At that point, the animal would be thanked for its service, and simply leave, leaving its body behind.
It is the choice of the humans, collectively and individually, to honor, or not, the service that is being provided by those animals, as long as their type of service is required.
The Earth is a context for the lesson of the Souled beings within it, and everything exists for our lesson. That doesn’t mean we can abuse life or take resources for granted. But it does mean that circumstances exist to serve us.
If you label something as right or wrong and you stop eating meat because of it, you may be disregarding your particular body needs, and your current life path, which are completely unique to you. No-one can dictate them to you. It might indeed be that your body doesn’t need meat at all, or that it’s just habituated and you can bypass it. But it might need meat at some points. It depends on the body, and your current life moment. All rules, studies, and man-created ideas about the human body requiring or not requiring meat, are nonsense. All physical bodies are unique. All moments are unique. Forget rules.
Animal meat brings the energy of structure, grounding, and assertiveness to your body. In excess over what you need, it can create anxiety, aggression, short temper, and bring greater focus to your lower chakras. If your body needs and lacks meat, especially land animal meat such as bovine, it can leave you tame, passive, undecisive, unfocused, and “cloudy”.
Are you on particularly intense emotional or spiritual circumstances? Are you in need for structure and assertiveness in your life? Are you undergoing a particularly intense period of mental activity? Are you reviewing your current life circumstances and need to make a clear decision, and have the strength to pull through? Are you undergoing a Spiritual Awakening process? If you are, depending on your body type, foregoing meat at this stage can have negative consequence. My personal awakening process  at times has been so intense, that never in my precious human life have I ever needed meat more than right now. At certain specific points in time my body needs actual meat – not tofu or seitan or pills with supplements.
If you feel natural food, or even exclusively raw foodstuffs, are better for you, then go for it. If you are sensitive to the hurt of other beings and you just can’t eat from these sources, then you shouldn’t.
In the same way, if you need to eat exclusively a chocolate cake as today’s lunch, do it. If you find you need to go to your local McDonald’s once or twice for you to be in physical balance, then do it. Don’t judge it. It doesn’t mean you’ll need that specific solution forever. You need to dynamically, in each moment, acknowledge and respect your own unique needs of your personal path, without rigidly judging yourself or the circumstances as right or wrong by external beliefs. It is also so with any other subject, and it is a powerful lesson in a Spiritual path. Otherwise, if you need a meal in McDonald’s and you dismiss it, you’ll be dismissing your own optimal solution for that moment.
When non-vegetarians say vegetarians are missing on some good flavor in meat, they have a point. And the point is: don’t negate your body and your personal taste what you enjoy. I’m not talking gluttony or indulging in obesity. Simply make sure you consume with integrity, respecting your discernment and your guidance. But don’t negate yourself. Otherwise, what’s the point in being on Earth if you don’t allow yourself your pleasure?
You won’t find your specific diet needs in a book, in a rule-set, or even in a spiritual movement. You may only gather advice, examples, and suggestions, which may or may not resound to you.  There isn’t any rule, or rights or wrongs, at any level: neither physically, ethically, nor energetically. Even if at some level you may judge something as right or wrong, oftentimes the Spiritual Truth above it may reveal new perspectives upon that which you may think.
So please, don’t ever take in any advice or rule, no matter how passionate or spiritually righteous it may be, about meat or any other type of diet. Food rules can become just as much dogmatic and zealot-driven as anything else. For goodness sake, stop creating rules. There are no rules. Rules are outside of Spiritual Truth. Just follow your personal guidance and clues from your body to give it the proper foodstuff it needs, in integrity and without guilt.
With Whom to Eat
If you live in a family household, and the communication between family members is not emotionally clear and transparent, then it may indeed be beneficial to join in family meals, without TV, as a way to improve communication and family ties. This is a commonly accepted idea today.
However, if your emotional connections between your household members is free, fluid, and clear of negative charge, then it may be beneficial for you to consider having your meal time entirely alone, or together in silence.
I’m discussing routine meals and everyday default habits regarding food – not going out, or other special non-routine circumstances. By all means, have your food in any circumstance you want and free of rules. This is regarding the default stance about food intake.
The intake of food in your body is a special occasion. Your are fueling your body with new energy, both physically and at other levels. Much like a car shouldn’t be moving or even running when taking in gas, the moments in which you have food should also be spent entirely dedicated to that activity. Not that you need rituals, meditations, or anything like that. Your mind can flow freely. But in general it is best to be quiet and enjoying the food as you take it in. The meal time is also a good time for your spiritual guidance to talk to you – if you stay quiet.
Much like you taking energy while eating, you should also turn inside and be with yourself during that time.
Do not worry if the person who habitually cooks the food (or if that person is you) has interest or expectation in the other’s eating habits. Usually, the person will want to feel acknowledged and recognized for the contribution it makes to the household, for example, by wanting to know if others find its food tasty and rewarding. This is a legitimate desire to address. Still, if the person is cooking in an unconditional way, it will understand your desire to eat by your personal terms.
Face the meal as a circumstance similar to going inside a temple to pray, or writing a book, or working on something that takes focus, or doing something you really enjoy. It is an activity you don’t want to be doing at the same time as others, dividing your attention. You want to be fully in the moment, and with the least distraction around you as possible. This also extends to people around you.
I’m not religious at all, but picture going into a temple to pray: even if you are with others, you’re not loudly talking about the ball game or the distresses with the wife, while you’re inside the temple. Instead, all the persons who are there with you, are quietly but in a focused mindset aligned with a common activity in mind. Eating, at least as a norm, is also a sacred activity, exactly in the same sense.
Meal Habits
Another thing is the habit and the system of meals. You don’t have to stick to rigid breakfast-lunch-snack-supper system. Eating small quantities many times during the day, is generally a sound advice. But if you spend too much energy controlling when and what you eat, you’re losing much of the benefit in the worrying and the stress alone. How practical is such a system to you? Is it practical to you to carry pieces of fruit and snack bars around? Do you feel comfortable managing it all? If it is, if it works for you, then use it. If you achieved a better and easier situation than before, then it’s okay. This is all about what works organically to you, that is, what you feel most comfortable using, fluidly, within discernment.
Personally, I feel that much of these systems are a little forced and rule-oriented, or in other words, a little too much discipline and not much fluidity – which makes the person occasionally “lose control” and raid the fridge at night or indulge in a wild ferocious visit to the local ice-cream store. They may be a means to add and train discipline, thus potentially beneficial. But only to a point.
I don’t like the concept of dieting, or any system at all, because they are not fluid. You’re making rules, and by doing so, you’re detaching from what your body naturally wants, and may be asking you, in order to be balanced. This is why by the end of diets you tend to gain weight – or you break them in-between and they render ineffectual. You naturally have a tendency to break free from a self-imposed strict rule system. A diet by definition has a start and an end, therefore, it’s an exceptional, punctual situation, it’s always a self-imposed limiting situation, rather than a true shift in awareness.
Weight and Emotional Issues: A General Guideline
If food is in any way an issue in your life, most likely there’s an emotional aspect of you which is unbalanced. At this point, you shouldn’t pay attention solely on the food alone, to the eating habits themselves, but to the emotional and spiritual reasons behind them. Food habits are like the situation of illness and disease: the cause is never simply physical, but mostly energetic.
You might eat too much due to feelings of loss, of shame, or lack of love. Or, you might abstain from food you should really be eating, and endure in self-impossed but probably needless food austerity. You might even jump around between the two. Many times, it’s possible that one gains weight based on karmic, emotional, and energetic patterns, as well simply because of body type, not merely according to the amount of calories you eat or the amount of oil, butter, etc, you use when cooking.
The Truth of things always lies above the physical. This is why it’s important to bring spiritual discernment to the mix. Discernment will help you guide you not just through the physical impulses alone, but through emotional and spiritual conditioning that you may have and that is affecting your eating habits. I’m aware food and weight-related unbalance is sometimes not a simple thing to handle, although spiritual discernment and handling things in a… holistic/integrated/spiritual/energetic level, in my view, is always a necessity.
Having said that, my advice is: relax. Within discernment, if you let go of rules and let your body tell you when it’s hungry and thirsty, where does it find balance? How and when do the meals stabilize? Are you getting a little chubby? Try simply eating a little less in each of your regular meals, without changing the content of the meals themselves. How does that affect your weight variation? Try completely cutting something you don’t actually need, for example sugar in coffee or tea (just an example). Just try and experiment with things. It doesn’t have all to be a rule-set.
Rules
I found that by relaxing and just letting go with the flow, much of the stress regarding food was gone, and I felt much more free. Doing so was an extremely liberating choice I made for myself. At a point in life I was losing an incredible amount of energy simply worrying about my weight, dieting, healthy foods, and eating animals or not. The amount of distress I spent on this, in retrospect, far outweighed any benefit of any discipline I had.
Now, my eating habits depend on the day. Sometimes I go breakfast-snack-lunch-supper-snack. Sometimes, I go brunch-brunch-supper. Most of the time, I go about and eat little things here and there. Not that I’m implying that I should be considered a role-model in any way, but I do firmly state that this stance about eating habits is much more liberating to me, and allowed my vibratory level to rise to new heights. Or in other words, I felt better with myself. I was more free than before. Once you have that, you don’t want to turn back.
For example, a new thing both me and my partner spontaneously developed is eating desert first. We’re undergoing a strong Awakening process for some time now, and sometimes our bodies specifically need sugar. So what we do is eat the desert first, and afterwards our body will tell us: if it’s still hungry, it’s time for the main, bulkier, course; if not, it was just a snack. This happened spontaneously. This can only occur if you’re acting on a moment-by-moment basis, outside of rules.
When I was a child, my father told me repeatedly that a proper meal was “soup, main course, and fruit/desert”. I really hated the soup part. Admittedly, it was his attempt to bring discipline and order and health to the eating habits. But I found out, much later in life, that much of this was simply nonsense, and ended up being just brainwash, a tape that stuck being replayed in my head for a very long time – even when it didn’t apply to my life anymore – and that continuously made me feel guilty for not following the “proper rules of eating”.
Rules don’t make sense. If you follow rules, you’re not following your Self – even if it was you who made them up.
You have to own your life in its various aspects, being in this case, the food you eat, and let yourself decide in a moment-by-moment basis. Let this article be, not an excuse to eat without discipline or in an unhealthy way, but a call for you to take ownership of that discipline and accountability for yourself. And for you to allow yourself the discernment to eat whatever is most appropriate to you, freely, regardless of rules, guilt, stress, and rigid discipline.