Are We Feeding Each Other Good Food?

When I was in Junior High I sometimes got my lunch at the school cafeteria. One day I came straight from gym class and took a big gulp of milk from the little cardboard carton on my tray. I immediately vomited it out– it was sour. I didn’t stop to think, Oh this tastes bad. I didn’t wonder if I should spit it out or not. My body rejected it instantaneously! Thank goodness.

What if something had disabled my digestive tract? What if it didn’t know to spit out that spoiled milk and my stomach tried to absorb it through its sensitive lining? I would have gotten sick and probably been in a lot of pain.

We Are Wired To Eat Physical, Emotional And Mental Food

We humans need food on all levels, not just the food we put in our mouths. We crave emotional, mental, and sometimes what we call spiritual food. We are hungry for good feelings and constantly scan our human environment to find love, acceptance, belonging and safety. We crave new ideas, too. We think them up ourselves and we absorb the thoughts, beliefs and perspectives of others. We are wired to learn new things, improve on what we already know, and find companionship with others in shared or similar thinking. We are also wired to see things differently and try to convince others of our opinions. But when we are being fed good food on all levels, our differing views and desires are still held within the safety net of belonging to the whole.

30 plus years experience as a psychotherapist has shown me that the best food for human beings is love and belonging, safety and cooperation, and that hatred and violence are toxic; they make us emotionally, mentally, and behaviorally ill. Our psyches know this as surely as my stomach knew to throw up that sour milk without a moment’s hesitation.

Why Are We Feeding Ourselves Bad Food

What has disabled our psychological digestive tracts that we not only tolerate but condone producing poisonous psychological food– discrimination, lies, threats and acts of violence? Why are we not instinctively vomiting these toxins up? This is what I explore in depth in America in Therapy. What I will share with you here is the teaser – if left unharmed, we Instinctively move away from what can hurt us, just as we instinctively move away from a fire or try to put it out. It is basic survival that we move toward what is life-giving on all levels. If we didn’t have that inner radar, we wouldn’t be here.

We must know that we are in grave danger today because our inner radar is being disabled.The key phrase here is- if left unharmed. When we are harmed, threatened, silenced and overpowered, it is nearly impossible to listen to our instincts for survival. We know this from years of work with people who have been abused in their families and immediate communities. We live in a culture where too many of us are not left unharmed. Too many of us are being force fed toxic physical, emotional and mental food, pressured into believing that hatred and violence are actually good food, rewarded for digesting it, and becoming participants in forcing it on others. As a result, as individuals and as a culture we have become increasingly mentally unwell.

Where Is The Tipping Point? 

It doesn’t have to be this way. If I had known that the milk was sour, no matter how thirsty I was I would not have drunk it. We must know what is poisoning us if we really want to stay alive. The tipping point toward national and global wellness starts with you and me. We can warn each other now that the violence we see escalating is not random; it is the result of a diet bereft of love and belonging, safety and cooperation.

I know what I’m saying sounds Pollyanna-ish or even impossible in this complex world of obsession with all things high-tech, extreme partisan politics, mind-control, corruption, discrimination, and addiction to power, weapons, and unending war. But I believe we can heal if we know what good food is, if we share that information with everyone, and we agree to eat nothing less.

Thank you. Amen.

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