A Spiritual Approach to Intuitive Eating

Learn how to apply manifestation and the law of attraction to intuitive eating to help you make peace with food and your body!

Alright, before you go thinking I am twisting the purpose of Intuitive Eating, hear me out.

I used to think you had to go to church every Sunday and pray to be “spiritual”….which i’ll be honest, never really resonated with me (nothing wrong with it if it does for you).⁣ I noticed, though, as I went on the journey to making peace with food and my body, it opened up this more spiritual side of me.

The more I connected with my intuition, the more spiritual I felt. As my freedom with food and my body expanded, it opened up room in my brain for this part of me.

Learning to listen to my body taught me how to listen to my soul and intuition.

It’s hard to put into words, but coming back into my body (after years of ignoring its innate wisdom through restriction, health obsession, diet trends, etc) really felt like a spiritual experience to me. So for me, yes, intuitive eating IS spiritual. So I’d be remiss if I didn’t share what I’ve learned about manifesting and the law of attraction with you and how it can apply to healing your relationship with food and your body.

What is manifesting?

Manifesting is basically bringing something into your physical reality through your thoughts, feelings and beliefs. What we think, feel and believe, we attract into our lives.

So for example, if you choose to believe you can have a happy, healthy relationship with food and your body, then you’ll likely take actions and think thoughts that support you in having that. But if you believe you’ll never love your body and that you have to control your food to be healthy, then you’ll like sabotage the trust between your mind and body. So it’s about choosing thoughts and beliefs that serve us and make us feel good, because that’s the kind of energy that will allow us to feel free around food and our bodies.

I’m going to summarize my 8 steps to manifest anything you want and we’ll talk about how you can apply each step to making peace with food and your body.

1. Gratitude

When we’re grateful for what we already have and what is to come, we give off high vibe energy which attracts more of what we want in our lives. Instead, if we complain about what we don’t have, we give off negative vibes which creates resistance and closes us off from the manifesting process.

How to apply gratitude to making peace with food and your body:

• Start practicing gratitude for food and your body even if you don’t quite believe it yet. Maybe you say or write down affirmations like “I am grateful for being able to afford groceries and cook delicious meals in my home”, “I am grateful for the farmers who grew this food” or “I am grateful for my body for allowing me to go on walks in nature”.
• Try a gratitude body scan, starting with your feet. You might think, “Thank you feet for taking me on epic adventures”. Then continue moving upwards, appreciating something about every part of your body for what it can do for you.
• Make a list of all the ways you are grateful for your body that aren’t based on your appearance like “I love that my body allows me to play with my kids” or “I love that my body turns food into energy to keep me alive.”

2. Make space

We can only manifest what we have the space to let in. How can you make more space in your life for what you really want? What are you holding onto that you need to let go of to make room for something new? Maybe old belongings that don’t bring you joy anymore, maybe unfulfilling relationships, maybe the clutter in your house, maybe limiting beliefs that are no longer serving you, etc.

How to apply making space to making peace with food and your body:

• Make space by letting go of your scale, diet books, diet food, or anything you associate with trying to change your body or control your food
• Work on breaking free from the diet mindset, which is basically the shoulds and should nots of eating. When you remove the shoulds and should nots from your mindset, you have space to actually listen to your intuition and your body’s natural wisdom.
• Work on overcoming and transforming the limiting beliefs that are holding you back. You might believe you can’t practice intuitive eating or have food freedom until you’re at a particular weight. But can you absolutely know that is true? …..Probably not. How do you feel when you think that thought? …..Unworthy? Who might you be without that belief? …..Free and happy? What do you want to believe instead? …..Maybe it’s “I know that listening to and trusting my body leads to balanced, healthy eating overall. Having a peaceful, healthy relationship with food and my body and treating my body with care, kindness and compassion is what leads to long term, sustainable health and happiness. A certain weight can’t give me any of that.”

3. Write and speak your desires into reality

Get really specific about what you want; try to visualize and feel it clearly every day. What does it feel like? What does it look like? How does it make you feel about yourself? What else is the experience like? What does your ideal relationship with food and your body mean to you?

How to apply writing and speaking your desires into your reality to making peace with food and your body:

• Write down exactly what you want your relationship with food and your body to be like. What are you able to do? How does it feel? How do you feel about yourself? What is it like when you go out to eat? What is your eating environment like? Write down anything that comes to mind…and maybe even write down what your ideal day would look like.

4. Surround yourself with positivity

You are responsible for your vibes (your energy). Tune into what makes you feel good (raises your vibe) and what doesn’t feel good (lowers your vibe). Choose to do more of what feels good.

How to apply surrounding yourself with positivity to making peace with food and your body:

• Get rid of diet books, diet foods and your scale and instead replace them with podcasts (like Food Pysch) or books that make you feel good about yourself.
• Clean up your social media feed and fill it with people who uplift you and make you feel good rather than people who encourage dieting or trying to change you or your body in some way. You can come hang out with me @sunnythymesblog, where I share almost daily tips and inspiration on how to create a healthy, loving relationship with yourself!
• Create a positive eating environment. Maybe light some candles, use pretty plates/silverware or make arguing off limits at the table.

5. Embody the version of you that already has it

Who do you need to be to have what you want? What do you need to believe about yourself to be true in order to manifest it? If you already had what you want, how would you feel? How would you act? What would you say/do/think?

Constantly ask yourself, what would the future version of me who already has this do/say/think? Then actually do those things and be that version of you now.

How to apply embodying the future version of you to making peace with food and your body:

• Think about what the version of you who’s made peace with food and her body is like. What does she feel? What does she believe? What does she do? Maybe she feels free and alive, maybe she believes all bodies are good bodies and believes that her body can be trusted to take care of her. Maybe that version of you journals daily. Maybe she keeps a variety of food in her pantry so she can have what she wants anytime. Maybe she doesn’t own a scale because she knows it doesn’t add any value to her life. How can you envision and embody that version of you now?

6. Take inspired action

What needs to happen in order for you to have what you want? Inspired actions aren’t just random actions; they are actions aligned with who you REALLY want to be and how you REALLY want to feel. What are the little steps you need to take to get what you want? What new habits and rituals can you practice that will help you align with what you desire?

How to apply taking inspired action to making peace with food and your body:

• We’ve already talked about this, but see if you can give yourself permission to get rid of all of your dieting tools.
• Read or listen to podcasts to learn more about making peace with food and your body. You could read Just Eat It or Intuitive Eating or listen to podcasts like Food Psych or Don’t Salt My Game. And definitely make sure to check out the episode I did with my friend Molly on her Food Freedom Accelerator podcast all about these 8 steps to manifest anything you want and how it applies to food and body freedom!
• Sign up for a course or hire a coach to get the additional support you need. You can learn more about my courses and coaching programs here.
• Can you give yourself permission to eat something you normally wouldn’t allow yourself? See if you can experiment with breaking one of your food rules.

7. Surrender & trust in the divine timing

Trust that if it’s meant to be it will happen, trust that the universe is conspiring in your best interest. See if you can hand over your desires to the universe, god, or whatever you believe in. I’m not saying let go in the sense of giving up, but more so be at peace knowing what you deserve and that your worth isn’t dependent on if you get what you want exactly as you planned it.

How to apply surrendering and trusting in the divine timing to making peace with food and your body:

• Practice trusting affirmations. Maybe it’s “I am choosing to believe that the universe gives me exactly what I need at exactly the right time” or “I know that I can trust my body to tell me what, when and how much to eat for optimal nourishment” or “Food is not my enemy, I thank it for nourishing me and giving me energy”. If you want more ideas, check out my 67 affirmations to help you make peace with food and your body.

• Instead of fixating on eating perfectly intuitive (which can easily become another set of rules to follow if you let it), how can you release that desire and instead settle into the now and the more grey areas? If you obsess over wanting to eat intuitively, you’ll end up yet again obsessed with food and your body. Know that you deserve to have a peaceful, free relationship with food and your body but that you are no less worthy if your journey isn’t perfect or doesn’t happen overnight.

8. Cultivate awareness

You are manifesting all the time without even realizing it. Try to become aware of what’s showing up for you and what you are attracting into your life. Look around you and notice what you’re manifesting every day without even trying. The best way to do this is gratitude, which brings us right back to step 1. The more you become aware and grateful of what you are attracting, the more you can attract what you want.

How to apply cultivating awareness to making peace with food and your body:

• Become aware of the relationship with food and your body that you are attracting and creating. This can be both your positive and negative aspects of your relationships and that’s okay.
• When you notice yourself wanting to control food or feeling out of control around food, ask yourself, what has gone on in the last day or so that may have contributed to me feeling this way? What might I have done to encourage this feeling? How am I keeping myself stuck in this feeling and how can I shift towards feeling better?
• Also notice when you feel free around food and your body. Maybe you went to a restaurant, ordered exactly what you wanted, enjoyed it thoroughly and left feeling super satisfied…notice that too and be grateful for it. Maybe tell yourself “I am so grateful I was able to go out to dinner and trust my body to guide me in my eating in a way that felt so good and nourishing.”

The more you practice these manifestation steps, the more natural and intuitive it will become. Same with making peace with food and your body. The more you practice giving yourself permission to listen to and trust your body, the more intuitive it will become.