We nourish our bodies with nutritious food.
So I pondered: how do I nourish my starved soul?
Let me share my ways:
– Gratitude: give thanks for the many blessings in my life
– Kindness: being kind to myself, and not beat myself up when I fail
– Gentleness: be gentle and go easy on myself on hard days
– Forgiveness: forgive myself
– Experience pain and sorrow: to allow the emotions to overwhelm me in a safe space, and not bury them all the time; to cry, scream or shout or any other ways to let my emotions flow out safely
– Reading: to gain insight, learnings, and to enter into the world of the author
– Travel: to explore new places, food, cultures and environment
– Support: to seek support from family and friends who understands me, instead of carrying the burden by myself
– Authenticity: to have the courage to be vulnerable and to reveal my true self, good and bad
– Beauty: to recognize the beauty within my soul and treasure it
– Service: to reach out to serve others in need, to service in a community
– To Love: to love others unconditionally, no strings attached
– To Be Loved: to allow others to love me unconditionally, to allow them to enter into my inner world
– To know that – It’s okay not to be okay sometimes, that I haven’t gotten it all together in some seasons of my life, but it’s okay
– To Wait: to know that I sometimes need to wait for God’s timing for my life, that He is working in my life as I wait patiently for Him
– To Meditate or Practice Mindfulness: to quieten my busy mind and seek my inner strength within
– To Trust in God: for me, this is the most important one; to trust that God is always faithful to walk with me through my joys and sorrows, and that He is always with me through thick and thin
To tell you the truth: I don’t always do all these things above. When our bodies are starved, we can feel the hunger pangs. But when our souls are starved, we are sometimes not even aware of it. Let us always remind ourselves to nourish our souls lovingly.
Feel free to add to my list in the comments. I would love to find out more ways to nourish my soul. Thanks!