How Eating Well Can Improve Your Relationships

One unexpected result I have experienced through refining my diet is that the quality of relationships I have with others has improved significantly. These are my thoughts about why and how this happens.

The only control you have over a relationship you have with another person is what falls in your domain: your attitude, your effort, your thoughts, your actions and your commitment. The only way you can improve a relationship with someone else is to improve your side of the relationship.

Improving relationships with family, friends, co-workers and your general community members begins with improving your relationship with yourself.

If you find yourself arguing with or displeased by those around you, you are probably arguing with and displeased mostly with yourself. Your self-talk may be more brutal than anything you’d dare say to another person. Rarely are people who are pleased and at peace with themselves cruel or rude to others.

One way to practice kindness toward yourself is learning how to eat optimally. To do this you will need to invest time in educating yourself about food, perhaps a little money for courses or books, and a lot of experimentation in the kitchen, on your plate and in your mouth.

When you feel fantastic inside your body – such as energetic, clear, motivated, happy, rested, positive – and you like what your body presents to the world – such as strength, fitness, softness, beauty, health, glow – then you have the basis for a healthy relationship with yourself.

How you eat influences your inner biochemistry, your thoughts, physical pain or discomfort, your weight/body size and your energy.

If you feel unbalanced chemically, if your thoughts are predominantly negative, if you are in pain, if you are carrying too much stored energy (fat) or if you feel sluggish, it will be challenging to be kind to yourself and feel good about how you are living. Your relationship with yourself will be one of torment more than nourishment for your soul.

The relationship you have with yourself is one of the most important relationships of your life, if not the most. Some might say their relationship with God (or other higher power) is more important. Some people may say these two are one in the same.

The relationships you have with other people are largely affected by your relationship to yourself. If you do not feel energetic, you might be annoyed by those who are or you may try to siphon their energy. If you don’t feel beautiful or handsome, you may feel intimidated and try to minimize those who you do consider beautiful or handsome. If you don’t feel positive about your life, you will negatively try to stain the happiness of others. Their joy will annoy you.

When others try to siphon your energy, minimize your beauty or handsomeness or negatively comment on your joy, you need to establish healthier and broader boundaries with these people.

I have found that the better I take care of myself, the more willing I am to control and edit my boundaries. I am able to set them wide, or I am able to bring them close. With people or situations I may not want to become  close to, I set a wide boundary. With a select few people I want to share my soul with, I bring my boundaries close. I feel safe being vulnerable, raw and unedited around those few people I allow really close into my soul space.

Boundaries are invisible fences. You intentionally or unintentionally (consciously or unconsciously) enclose what you are willing to take responsibility over. You enclose what keeps you feeling safe and you exclude that which feels harmful. People with weak or inappropriate boundaries often do not claim responsibility for themselves and solicit others to meet their needs for them.

Are you taking care of your needs? See Maslow’s diagram of fundamental human needs below. Do you meet and protect these needs yourself or through healthy, interdependent relationships like partnership, marriage, or friendship? Are you not meeting your needs or are you manipulating others into meeting your needs for you in unhealthy, co-dependent relationships?

It has been since changing my diet to a low-fat, high-fruit diet that I have been able to exert more control over my boundaries and fulfill my needs in healthy ways. Here’s how it’s done:

1. When you make the decision and effort to feed yourself as best as you know how as often as you can, you establish a regime of acute self-care that tells your cells and the universe that you are placing yourself as a high priority. This builds your self-worth.

2. When you set standards for yourself which you are rarely willing to bend, you send the message that you are committed. This builds your self-loyalty.

3. When you demonstrate long-term, consistent, acute self-care, you demonstrate to those around you – family, friends, co-workers, community members – that you take full responsibility for your needs & wellbeing. You show that you adhere to your beliefs and that your actions match your beliefs. You have integrity and sovereignty. You walk your talk and you exude authority over yourself. This builds self-actualization.

4. Those observing you over time will learn your standards and beliefs and will respect them or the relationship will dissolve. This builds self-respect.

When you are able to generate self-worth, self-loyalty, self-actualization and self-respect, you are more inclined to value, stand by, truly see and respect other people. 

When you notch-up your personal standards, some relationships will naturally dissolve. You need to decide for yourself what is more important: your personal standards of self-care or the relationship.

Establishing clarity within yourself about what you will tolerate and accept from yourself or others helps you to flow through life with fewer emotional snags, manipulative hooks and energy draining relationships. Your healthy boundaries help you to edit out life’s junk and receive life’s gems.

When you can say “no” to yourself – your temptations, your weaknesses, your denials – you are better able to say “no” to others when necessary.

When you can support your wellness goals and say “yes” to better choices, staying on track and fulfilling your goals, you are better able to say “yes” to the inclusion of healthy people in your life. You can recognize and protect what feels good, safe and wholesome inside your boundaries.

Healthy boundaries with others begins with healthy boundaries with yourself. Period.

Is eating well the only way? Of course not! No matter what self-development platform you position as the engine on your Change Train, the rest of the boxcars will follow. When you up-level the standards of one area of your life, the others are inevitably affected. You can use food, exercise or spirituality, for examples, as the engine of your Change Train.

Eating well doesn’t prevent all future challenges with yourself or other people, however the more you love and care for yourself, the greater the chances are of you handling the challenges with grace, kindness and respect…for yourself and others.

The seat of your relationship with yourself resides in the Solar Chakra which is located in your solar plexus between your navel and ribs. It governs the vitality of your spleen, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, stomach, small intestines, kidneys, adrenal glands and is the seat of your ego. A healthy Solar Chakra generates trust, responsibility, power, courage and wisdom.

Eating well for your Solar Chakra helps build vitality in the energy center that dictates your self-identity. Learn how to eat well for your Solar Chakra using The Healers Diet.

We’d prefer for those we love to grow & change with us, however sometimes we must let go of a relationship in order to take better care of ourselves. It’s not easy. I’d love to hear from you in the comment section below about when you let a relationship fade in order to step-up your self-care. While walking through the process was inevitably difficult, in the long run were you glad you did it?

Additional Links:

Emotional McDonald’s

9 Ways Eating Can become Your New Spiritual Practice

The Lightworker’s Diet: Eating for God