Let’s Put joy on the table

Taken from Salve Healing Newsletter Substack - follow here:

There is more than food that is on the table during this time of feasting.

As a pastor turned functional medicine coach/yoga instructor, I’ve had a good long time now to think about what I now call, “the human spark.” These are the moments when you can see people light up. You can see it in the reflection in their eyes, or maybe the way in which they move their body, or the way they respond with words. There is a deep engagement of soul, body, and spirit. A profound connection exists in these “human spark” moments.

I recently had a client come to me after surgery because he “could no longer move.” These were his words. He actually could move, but he couldn’t move in the way that he remembered when he was younger. He had lost himself over the years, and for reasons that are still a mystery to me, he had a moment when he decided that he needed to find himself again. So, he came to me to regain his movement.

Our first few sessions were slow. He could not sit on the ground. He could not sit up straight. But, I saw a light in him. In a fleeting moment of fear and bravery, I mentioned to him that I believed he could find himself again, but it was about mindset more than anything else.

He looked at me with “the human spark,” and he almost came to tears.

He ran to his car and brought back to me a list. He had been writing down the things that he really cared about, his own reasons for living. We both shared a sense of awe and silence in this moment, and then I said to him - you can do this.

What happened over the next six weeks was nothing short of miraculous. He quickly signed on as a nutrition client, and we overhauled his habits. He was ready to get into the heart of his own healing. He jumped into a local gym and started lifting weights at the most minimal level. He visited me three times a week for yoga therapy and mobility.

By the end of those six weeks he had totally transformed his life. He was back to twenty mile bike rides, sitting on the floor, touching his toes, and moving his core. He had found his “human spark.”

So, what prompted his healing? Was it the food, the movement, the grit? What was it exactly?

From what I can tell, it was the synergy of all of these practices. It was as if the intention and the practices had resulted in a surge of energy that provided the momentum to overturn his previous inertia. He had tapped in to something new, or something old, that was in him and around him, and he caught a spark. How does this happen, exactly? I don’t know. But I do know that in new research we are seeing that even WORDS THEMSELVES have the ability to change the response of the body at a cellular level.

This means that healing is, as I have always believed, related to something unseen. But, before you think is this all woo-woo, the reality is that matter still matters. Food, movement, lifestyle - they all still matter tremendously. But the spark, it comes from something deep within all of this.

So, this leads me to my challenge for us all during this upcoming holiday season.

Let’s put joy back on the menu. As we share in food and the fruit of the earth, let’s remember that there is actually something unseen that we are also sharing. We are sharing intention, hope, and love. These are real, though unseen, energies that have an effect on the cellular level. We are engaged in the flow of energy, and it carries a charge. We have the choice to infuse it with an intention and bring a human spark to the table. Or we can sit there, empty, but “stuffed.”

It’s time to reverse this trend. Joy, creativity, hope - these are all real things that we can put back on the menu.

Let’s try this -

Before you share in the meal together this coming week, how about allowing each participating to complete this sentence:

I feel grateful/joyful when I see….

Perhaps if you find it awkward to do this in words, have people write it out on paper. Then one person can read the sentences over the course of the meal. This preserves the anonymity of those that shared, but still celebrates the intention.

Let me know if this changes the substance of the meal for you. Let me know if this puts joy back on the table.

Healing does not ignore the shadow. Healing believes that because there is shadow, there is light.