Synergy to Synastry: A Balanced Plate, A Balanced Mind (S2E5) Podcast Transcript

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Welcome

Renee: You're listening to Synergy to Synastry, the podcast where two corporate girlies call to follow their intuition take you on a journey of self-exploration through metaphysical modalities.

Christine: I'm Christine, intuitive coach and clairvoyant.

Renee: And I'm Renee, psychic intuitive and astrologer.

Christine: We're excited that you're here and honored to be your spiritual guides.

Christine: If you enjoy this podcast, make sure to subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen.

Christine: It helps listeners find our show, plus it automatically enters you into our raffles to win a free psychic reading.

Renee: Now, let's get into the episode.

Farmers Markets

Christine: I wanted something with beef for dinner, and this young kid helps me.

Christine: He's like, I have a sourdough miche.

Christine: I'm like, all right, give me that.

Christine: And then I went over to the beef guy, and I was like, I want something to put on top of toast.

Christine: He gave me like a beautiful skirt steak, and then I got onions that I was gonna saute and Renee.

Christine: This is the most delicious thing I've ever made in my entire life.

Christine: The bread this man gave me, like I need to go back and find him and thank him.

Christine: So comforting, it was everything that I dreamed of.

Renee: The audio book that I've been listening to is Stanley Tucci's What I Ate in One Year.

Renee: And he had a whole section early on where he was talking about his love of farmers markets.

Christine: Yes.

Renee: He'll be describing different things that he eats, and sometimes he'll say, Oh yeah, that was disgusting, or like, you know, gave Felicity the runs, and then you just moved on to the next section.

Renee: He'll eat something that he really loves, and he's just so, so excited about it, which is very much how we feel on this podcast.

We're Talking About Food!

Renee: Synergy to Synastry, as our loyal listeners know, is secretly a food podcast.

Christine: Yes.

Christine: We sneak it in whenever we can, and we're not upset about it.

Renee: And today, we're not just sneaking it in.

Renee: We are making an entire episode about food.

Renee: We will be talking about the relationship between mindfulness and food, through the lens of a couple of different lifestyle frameworks, specifically Ayurveda and, as we were just mentioning, the Italian lifestyle.

Christine: Just like in last episode when we talked about Feng Shui, with the Bagua map, health is at the center.

Christine: Food is important for being grounded, neutral and open to receiving messages.

Christine: A balanced lifestyle that works for you also helps you receive your intuition a little bit more.

Christine: Think about when you're hungover.

Christine: You've probably eaten food that's not great for you.

Christine: And you wake up in the morning and like you can't think, you can't receive messages.

Christine: Whereas when you're feeding your body like fresh food and you've gotten a good night's sleep and you have clean water, the sun is shining and I can think clearly and I'm positive.

Christine: So that's why we thought it was important to talk about food and nourishing your body in an episode, especially if you're looking to hone your intuition and hear that voice a little bit more.

Renee: Food, while it can be a very fun topic, it can also be very sensitive for some people.

Renee: So we want to acknowledge anybody that is living with eating disorders or body dysmorphia.

Renee: We are not telling anybody what to do or not to eat or how they should be handling their nutritional intake.

Christine: Exactly.

Christine: And as with anything, when it comes to your health, always check with your doctor first.

Christine: So if there's something that we say today that you find interesting and you want to make a change in your diet, we highly recommend speaking to a medical professional before taking our advice and just going for it.

Our Introduction to Ayurveda

Renee: Our first lifestyle topic we're going to cover today is Ayurveda, which means the science of life in Sanskrit.

Renee: It's considered the oldest healing modality that stems back to Vedic culture in India over 5,000 years ago.

Renee: It's centered around creating balance between the mind, body, and spirit where disease stems from imbalance or the presence of toxins.

Renee: Ayurveda helps you tune into your body and identify what helps it run optimally.

Renee: While you may love these pancakes, they might not love you back.

Christine: I feel like I can entirely relate to me loving food and food not loving me back.

Christine: Hello, cheese.

Christine: But the early 2010s, I went to a cooking class with my mom.

Christine: I think she just went too much into details, so it made me feel like the only thing I could eat was lentils.

Christine: I do find it fascinating when I hear about it from people who do practice it.

Christine: I haven't gotten on board with it.

Christine: It's not for me, but I am curious to listen today and see if I could learn something new and maybe undo that experience that I had all those years ago.

Renee: Yeah, my first introduction was actually through a TV show.

Renee: Yogi Cameron had a show on own, Oprah's TV network.

Renee: My mom and I just stumbled upon it one day, and then we started regularly watching it.

Renee: His show was working with different individuals or families.

Renee: So he would go into their house.

Renee: What's in their fridge?

Renee: What are the things that they're eating?

Renee: What are they stressed about?

Renee: And then he would look at their body.

Renee: What's their skin, their nails, their hair, these other principles that are baked into Ayurveda.

Renee: So sometimes the show would end, and they didn't really make that many changes, and they didn't really see improvements because they were refusing to make any adjustments.

Renee: We just enjoyed watching the show, we thought it was totally interesting, like who is this guy?

Renee: I don't know anything about Ayurveda.

Renee: Over the years, I of course watched that show, I've periodically read things online, read books, listened to podcasts, just to get some insights because what I do appreciate about it is it is so ancient, it's so fundamental.

Ayurvedic Practices

Renee: Yes, I think there are in some ways quote unquote too many rules, but even if you just pick some of them out, just like what we were talking about with Feng Shui last week, some of them just make a lot of sense to me that they are stripping away things that are aggravating and inflaming your system and inflammation is like the number one triggers for a lot of health issues.

Renee: There's a lot of considerations around what are your specific dietary portions, so what's on your plate, how much of your plate, the time of day that you're eating, when's the best time to eat certain kinds of foods or food at all, or when you're drinking water or when you're moving your body, that there's these things called dosha hours.

Renee: While I've been exposed to all this stuff, have I memorized all of it?

Renee: Do I do it every single day?

Renee: Absolutely not.

Renee: But I was sitting in reflection and realizing there are some of these things that I actually do kind of regularly, drinking slightly warm water or hot water in the morning.

Renee: I don't know if I've mentioned this on the podcast before, but I have Raynaud's, which is a circulatory disease, so I am very, very sensitive to cold temperatures.

Renee: It was like a light bulb went off in my brain.

Renee: It's not always super pleasant for me to drink ice water.

Renee: I'm like, can there be no ice in it?

Renee: Can I just have slightly chilled water and get rid of the ice?

Renee: Actually drinking something that's closer to room temperature works better with my body.

Renee: First thing in the morning, make sure that I drink some fluids before I actually start eating because that's another Ayurvedic principle that you're trying to tell your body, hey, I'm about to start consuming stuff.

Renee: Get ready, start working a little bit.

Renee: I've actually recently started picking up again how convenient for the timing of this podcast is doing tongue scraping.

Renee: The idea is while you're sleeping overnight, yes, your digestive system slows down, but it's still kind of kicking some stuff up.

Renee: It's a little bit gross to think about, but that's why you can wake up in the morning and you have a bunch of stuff all over your tongue.

Renee: Things are kind of working their way up.

Renee: Part of Ayurveda and something that Yogi Cameron would do in the show all the time is he would look at people's tongues.

Renee: The shape of it, the coloring, whatever stuff happens to be on it is an indicator of what's going on in your gut.

Renee: So I do that most mornings.

Renee: Sometimes I forget, but.

Christine: I have several points before we jump into the quiz.

Christine: The first one is, Yogi Kamran's show came out in the early to mid s.

Christine: We were introduced to Ayurveda at the same time, or it's just you and me on our same journey, but I think it's kind of interesting.

Christine: And then the hot or the warm room temperature water in the morning, the only time I drink ice cold water is when I'm in Italy and it's  degrees and there's no air conditioning.

Christine: When I wake up in the morning, first thing I have to do is drink a big glass, a 16 ounce glass of room temperature water.

Christine: And if I have the time, what I'll do is the night before, I'll have hot water with lemon and leave half of it in the cup and then fill it up in the morning with fresh hot water.

Christine: An acupuncturist taught me to do that.

Christine: I think that's fascinating because again, I came into this being like, oh, Ayurveda, but like I am doing one of the important practices.

Christine: I don't scrape my tongue, but I always brush my tongue.

Christine: I'm assuming it's different or are those similar?

Renee: No, it is.

Renee: I brush my tongue too.

Renee: Scraping sounds so harsh.

Renee: You're not like, I'm scraping my tongue.

Renee: It's like you're just like pulling off a little bit of stuff that's on top.

Renee: Do it a few times, rinse it off.

Renee: That's it.

Renee: There's also oil pulling, which like that's like a classic.

Renee: You wake up in the morning, you do oil pulling, you tongue scrape, you have your warm water.

Renee: What you're doing with the oil pulling, extracting all of the different bacteria and things, and you're getting them out of your body.

Christine: I'm very big into dental hygiene.

Christine: I floss twice a day.

Christine: I have to buy it at Costco because I use so much of it.

Christine: I need a fresh string for each crevice of my mouth.

Christine: I did oil pulling for a long time and then I stopped because it's kind of expensive and I'm taking a break from it.

Christine: Interesting.

Christine: Another practice I was doing that's Ayurveda that I didn't even know.

Dosha Quiz

Renee: There are what's called doshas.

Renee: You can view these as wellness types.

Renee: I'm going to give a very, very, very oversimplified summary of what each of these three types are.

Renee: If you want to learn more about them, I've included some references in the show notes, as well as a quiz that we are going to be taking momentarily on the podcast, so we can figure out what our doshas are.

Renee: To join along, pause the podcast and then come back when you know what your type is.

Renee: What's your dosha?

Renee: Take the quiz.

Christine: The first question is, what best describes your physical frame?

Christine: Am I small or medium?

Renee: I view small as, it means you're petite.

Christine: I buy petite clothes, am I petite?

Christine: Cause I feel like I'm thick.

Renee: If you're not sure, then just pick in the middle.

Christine: I just found a definition.

Christine: If your body frame size is small, your wrist size is less than five and a half inches.

Christine: And if you're medium, it's between five and a half and five and three quarter.

Christine: And a large wrist size is over five and three quarter.

Christine: So I'm gonna go get a measuring tape.

Christine: And measure my wrist.

Renee: That is such a small.

Christine: I know.

Renee: Difference between each of them.

Christine: How is that?

Renee: How does that matter?

Renee: I have tiny little wrists.

Christine: Then you're probably small.

Renee: Meanwhile, I'm now on question eight.

Christine: I feel like this just describes us as people.

Christine: I'm a medium.

Christine: I knew it, I was thick.

Renee: I had  for vata, five for pitta, and three for kapha.

Christine: I have ten for vata, five for pitta, and six for kapha.

Renee: My order is vata, pitta, kapha, and your order was vata, kapha, pitta.

Christine: Yes.

Renee: Everybody has a little bit of all of them, and the idea for Ayurveda is to create balance across the board.

Renee: It wouldn't necessarily make sense that you have 100% for vata, and you never select for any of the others.

Renee: You're trying to determine, is any one of them particularly out of balance, and how do you soothe it?

Renee: How do you tend to it?

Renee: That's what I'll be talking about next.

Pitta Dosha

Renee: For the first dosha type, we'll talk about pitta.

Renee: Pitta represents fire and water elements, rules the metabolism, digestion, and body temperature.

Renee: When pitta is out of balance, you run hot and you can also be very irritable and angry.

Renee: Characteristics for pitta are being alert and sharp, prone to getting clammy or sweating a lot, skin rashes and inflammation.

Renee: The ideal diet for a pitta, sweet, bitter, astringent tastes, with earthy foods and lots of veggies.

Renee: And the ideal lifestyle is staying cool, including the forms of exercise.

Renee: So not doing anything that's going to cause you to sweat so much because you're already hot and you're already sweating.

Renee: And avoiding spice or oils.

Vata Dosha

Renee: Vata rules the breath, muscles and heart.

Renee: When vata is out of balance, you can have a stagnant energy, lack of creativity and anxiety.

Renee: Characteristics can include being very fast thinking, fast talking, prone to dry skin, constipation, very active and go-go-go mentality.

Renee: The ideal diet for vata is warm, cooked meals with sweet, sour and salty tastes.

Renee: And the ideal lifestyle is staying warm, resting, to counteract that go-go-go, and having a consistent routine.

Renee: Because vata, in going all the time, will want to jump around, do this, do that.

Renee: Doing something consistent, giving you a home base, helps settle and counteract the energy.

Kapha Dosha

Christine: Okay, tell us about kapha.

Renee: So the third dosha type has the earth and water elements, and it rules the bones, tendons, joints, immune system.

Renee: And when it's out of balance, you can have your attachments a little bit out of whack, so maybe overly attached, have envy or have resentment.

Renee: Characteristics include being grounded, prone to mucus-related illnesses, headaches and water retention.

Renee: And the ideal diet includes bitter, astringent and pungent tastes.

Renee: And the ideal lifestyle for kapha, being physically active, having very light food and having a varied routine.

Renee: So vata wants a consistent routine because it's going all the time.

Renee: And kapha is the opposite in that it's very grounded, very earthy, very calm.

Renee: So it needs variety.

Renee: It needs to get up and move and go around.

Dosha Food Groups

Renee: This is a high level overview.

Renee: For example, when I was talking about the diet and I was saying, oh, like bitter, astringent, pungent taste, you may hear those words and go, what on earth does that mean?

Renee: Go to the link in the episode description because in Ayurveda, each of those terms are very intentional.

Renee: They break out specific food groups.

Renee: If you decide you want to test it out and vata is saying sweet, sour, salty, you can look at the resource list, see what those types of foods are.

Renee: Check in with yourself.

Renee: Maybe you're doing a food log and say, you know what, I actually eat a ton of bitter foods.

Renee: And if I really think about it, maybe when I eat those foods, I don't feel so great afterwards.

Renee: Maybe that's why.

Renee: Maybe you don't have to cut it out entirely, but reduce it and move a little bit more into the vata balancing foods as an example.

Christine: I wish you taught the cooking class because now I'm way more like I can relate to Ayurveda a little bit more.

Christine: Whereas that cooking class, I just was like, I can't eat lentils for the rest of my life.

Our Dosha Profiles

Christine: My brain, I mean, literally like is bouncing all over the place.

Christine: Should I start something new right now?

Christine: No, this is my brain 100% and like out of balance, I do.

Christine: I get anxious and I can't get creative.

Christine: And of course, staying warm, like love me a good snuggle on the couch.

Renee: In and around the same time that I was exposed to Ayurveda was when I also got diagnosed with brain odds.

Renee: So it's so interesting that that's folded in here because the recommendations for vata are staying warm.

Renee: I'm like, I literally have to stay warm because my circulation is out of whack.

Renee: Spicy foods, having things that activate my system and warm me up, it's on that standpoint, the opposite in some ways of pitta because pitta is already hot.

Renee: So you already are like an oven.

Renee: Technically not Twilight, but New Moon.

Renee: When Jacob, this is not a spoiler.

Renee: Everyone should know this by now.

Renee: When Jacob becomes a werewolf, his whole thing is that he's like a radiator.

Renee: He's like a human radiator.

Renee: He's so hot.

Renee: Classic pitta.

Renee: I'm sitting here right now.

Renee: I have a heated blanket on.

Renee: And because I talk with my hands so much, my hands are ice because they're just flying around in the air and they're not grounded.

Renee: So it's that kind of big movement energy, active mind, active body.

Christine: One more time for those of us in the back.

Christine: The whole point of Ayurveda is to help get your body into balance, right?

Renee: Yes.

Christine: Cool.

Christine: Yeah.

Renee: So if anybody decides from listening to this podcast to go on an Ayurveda lifestyle journey, send us your updates.

Renee: Let us know how it goes.

Book a Psychic Reading & Buy Me a Coffee

Renee: This podcast isn't sponsored, but we're taking a little pause in our food discussion to remind everyone each episode of Synergy to Synastry, we include the links to book readings with myself, Renee, and Christine.

Renee: If you'd like to work with us one-on-one, head to the show notes and check those out.

Renee: If you would like to support our podcasts through tips, you can use the Buy Me a Coffee link also in our show notes.

Italian Lifestyle

Renee: Seems like, Christine, you are slightly converted.

Renee: You're recognizing that you have been using some Ayurvedic practices, and you are relating to your doshas.

Renee: But we'll turn the tables now, move away from India, hop on a plane, and go over to Italy, as we discussed in season one.

Renee: We are both Italian, but I would say you are more Italian than me because you can actually speak the language and you've been to Italy multiple times.

Christine: Yes, I will always say I'm Italian American because Italy has my heart.

Christine: Last summer, I got to spend a month in Italy with my nonna and cousins and family.

Christine: A lot of the lifestyle practices there have really stuck with me since I've come home.

Christine: I've spoken on the podcast before about how I have PCOS and I reversed my symptoms.

Christine: I feel like the practices that I adopted helped me manage my PCOS even more.

Christine: I want to share some of those things here because not only have they helped my body, but it's also helped me hear my intuition more because I'm not inflamed as often and it's a lot easier to hear that intuitive voice when your meat suit is healthy.

Christine: One of the big things that stuck with me is just how important fresh food is because when you get fresh food that's in season, I'm convinced that there are more nutrients in there, but it tastes so much better and it makes like eating vegetables a pleasure.

Christine: And I understand not everybody has that luxury, but if you do, I highly recommend getting fresh food.

Christine: The other thing that I found really interesting is how they structure their meals.

Christine: So breakfast is typically an espresso or a cappuccino and like a little biscuit if you're at home or a croissant while you're out, or a shviedel if you're down in Naples, usually because you've eaten the night before and you're still full.

Christine: Breakfast is very small and quick and that has been a game changer for me because like I just constantly felt bloated or something because I was trying to get so much food in at every meal.

Christine: Whereas in Italy, it was like we woke up, we had our quick breakfast and then we were out for the day.

Christine: We were constantly on the move as well.

Christine: We would get a couple of things done and then we would have lunch.

Christine: And lunch is the biggest meal of the day over there.

Christine: You would have an antipasto, you would have a preemie, which is usually like your carby dish.

Christine: And then you would have your secondo, which is usually the protein.

Christine: And then you would have a bunch of sides, which is vegetables.

Christine: After lunch, we would have fruit.

Christine: I mean, there was always like cake and coffee.

Christine: But I'm telling you, the food was so fresh, most of the times I was just having fruit as a snack because it was so good.

Christine: One of the things that I've been incorporating is at breakfast, lunch and dinner, I always have a piece of fruit.

Christine: And I think it's like game changing.

Christine: So I'm still eating my biggest meal at lunch and I'm having pasta at every meal.

Christine: Most times, I'll have gluten free pasta unless I know where the pasta came from.

Christine: Just because in America, it's really hard for me to eat gluten.

Christine: I'm actually eating more carbs than usual, and I'm still like losing weight, but gaining muscle.

Christine: I'm working with my trainer and so we're just tracking.

Christine: I'm still eating the same amount of protein.

Christine: I'm just eating it at a different time.

Christine: Then their dinners are typically very light.

Christine: I will tell you, my body is digesting so much better, and I wake up in the morning, I'm not hungry, I'm not having blood sugar instability during the middle of the night, I'm sleeping better.

Relationship Between Food and Community

Christine: The last thing before I take a break and have Renee chime in here, is how important community and socializing is.

Christine: They did a study in either rats or mice where they would feed them sugar.

Christine: And the rats who were pet and coddled and like socialized with, metabolize the sugar better than the rats who were ignored.

Christine: And while I am not for animal testing, it highlights when you socialize and when you're eating with people who you love, and when you're having good conversation, that feel-good vibe helps you metabolize your foods better.

Christine: Renee, I'm curious what your thoughts are after my long diatribe.

Eating Lighter Means & Mealtimes

Renee: Your point about eating the lighter dinner.

Renee: I would say it probably slots in with the Ayurvedic perspective as well, because think about this.

Renee: Your digestion slows down when you are sleeping.

Renee: Why are we eating our biggest meal of the day when our body only has a couple hours to process it, and then it slows down overnight, and it's like it's not going to be effective in processing it, to actually extract the nutrients and get rid of the waste and all of that.

Renee: If we move that earlier, and if it's closer to mid-day, or several hours earlier than we might normally eat, it does make sense from just the biological perspective.

Renee: I was drawing some comparisons between the two different lifestyles that we chose to highlight today, and I would say a general theme here is you're trying to integrate how your body is moving, when your body is moving, how you're sleeping, when you're sleeping, what you're eating, when you're eating.

Renee: A lot of it is around the timing and of course the quality of each of those experiences.

Renee: And doesn't it just make sense from that perspective if you, with your specific body, turn the dials just so on each of those areas that you can feel lighter, as in energized, not weighed down by food, something I'll acknowledge we haven't really talked about here.

Food Sensitivities

Renee: To my understanding, I've never been tested.

Renee: I don't have any food allergies per se, but I definitely have food sensitivity for sure.

Renee: If I eat something that has too much oil in it, too large of a portion of any kind of meat, too much butter, same thing with the oil, like fat and oil, that whole category right there, I feel the food in my face.

Renee: And I will explain this in that I'll literally feel as if there is oil coming out of the skin in my face, that I can smell the butter as if I've rubbed butter all over my face.

Renee: Same thing with the meat.

Renee: It's like I'll have the meat sweats.

Renee: I'll feel physically heavy.

Renee: I've created a few different food logs.

Renee: I'll do this cyclically every once in a while.

Renee: I'll log my food intake and timing over the course of a month.

Renee: And then I'll also note I was feeling some sensation like that in my face.

Renee: I had an upset stomach and I can put all that together and I can draw the through line.

Renee: And so over the years, I've made different changes such as switching to dairy alternatives for milk, yogurt, ice cream, I still have regular cheese, I still have chocolate.

Renee: But if I eat too much of those things, I see the reaction, I experience the reaction.

Christine: Bodies are always speaking to us.

Christine: And that reminds me of something too, again, when I was in Italy because eating is such a social thing, we were always eating family style.

Christine: If I didn't want a ton of meat, nobody put like half of a steak on my plate.

Christine: I just took from like the big pot of food and like ate whatever was good for me.

Christine: I do feel like here we get served a huge plate of food, and it's almost looked down upon if you don't finish it.

Christine: But your body knows how much of something you can have.

Renee: You mentioned how when you have been abroad, that even like eating pasta has worked for your system more than it does here.

Renee: There's a lot of discussions around that.

Renee: I went to Croatia with my siblings.

Renee: The food was so good.

Renee: It was so fresh.

Renee: Exactly what you're describing with your experiences in Italy.

Renee: On our last night, we had received the recommendation to go to this specific restaurant in Dubrovnik.

Renee: We described them as pillow gnocchi.

Renee: It was a texture of gnocchi I have never experienced in my whole life.

Renee: When you took a bite out of it, it's almost like it kicked back a little bit, and then it totally melted in your mouth.

Renee: They put the plate in front of us, and I saw all the cheese all over it.

Renee: And I looked at my siblings and I said, all right, this is the moment of truth.

Renee: I had no reaction.

Christine: I'm not surprised.

Christine: When I was in Italy, I had so much cheese and I was fine.

Christine: So much cheese, so much bread, so much pasta, and no issues.

Christine: So really quick, I just want to close out.

Renee: Yes.

A Balanced Plate, A Balanced Mind

Christine: Any Italian you speak with, I think that one of their main purposes in life is eating good food.

Christine: Have you ever had a perfect blueberry or something?

Christine: The joy that comes from good food, right?

Christine: The main goal is to regulate your nervous system, and eating good food is a way to do that.

Christine: This is important spiritually because of the energy that our food gives to us, and allows us to become and hear our intuition.

Renee: We wanted to close out today's conversation on food by mentioning just a few other little bite-size mindful eating practices.

Cycle-Syncing

Christine: One of the methods of eating that I have found helpful is cycle-syncing for any persons who are still having a menstrual cycle.

Christine: If you've ever noticed how you're craving certain things, like I would always crave salmon, or then I would be craving chocolate.

Christine: Once I started learning about cycle-syncing, I'm like, oh, that's because it's what my body needs at this point in my cycle.

Renee: During each of those phases, your energy is working in different ways and processing, and therefore, you can do what we've talked about with, specifically on the Ayurvedic side, do what you can to balance what's happening if you're feeling more tired, if you're feeling heavier, maybe eating lighter, fresher food.

Christine: Exactly.

Christine: I think the best way to think of it is seasons.

Christine: When you have your period, I think we all understand that it's winter.

Christine: And then when you come out of it, you enter your follicular phase and that's spring.

Christine: The sun is shining, the world is looking better again, we have hope, our mood is better, our energy is better, our body can handle more during the follicular phase and the ovulatory phase.

Christine: That's spring and summer.

Christine: After you ovulate, you head into your luteal phase.

Christine: I almost feel like I can't trust my mind during the luteal phase because it's trying to find everything that's wrong with everything, right?

Christine: Like the sun's going down, it's getting darker earlier, and then you go into winter, you kind of like hunker down, you get your period and then the cycle starts again.

Christine: For example, I'm in the fall phase right now, I'm in the luteal phase and we got on our call and I was like, Renee, I'm really low energy today.

Christine: I'm not forcing myself to have more energy, but I am feeding myself properly.

Christine: For breakfast this morning, I had pumpkin bread with raisins and an apple.

Christine: I would recommend the book Flow by Alisa Vitti, that's the one I have and that's what I've been going off of.

Christine: Alisa in her book has all of the foods written out, and what I basically did was look at the list of foods, picked out what I like and I create meals based on that.

Christine: For lunch, I'm going to have a chickpea salad with cucumbers because when you are in your luteal phase, your body temperature is higher, so you need cooling foods, hello Ayurveda.

Christine: The last two weeks of your cycle, think of more cooling foods.

Christine: The first two weeks, think of more hot foods.

Christine: It's like leaning into the seasons of your body.

Seasonal Grocery Shopping

Renee: Something that we didn't necessarily talk about for the Italian lifestyle, eating with the seasons.

Renee: When you go to the supermarket or wherever you are buying food, there is a reason that none of the apples look good.

Renee: And it's because they're out of season, they're flown in.

Renee: And rather than just eating the same things all year round, if you actually rotate a little bit and you say, well, that's why the zucchini looks awesome.

Renee: It's because all the squash are in season.

Renee: And when you eat those, it's going to be delicious.

Renee: And then think of how fun that is.

Renee: You can eat those things in the fall and that's the best time to eat them.

Christine: Yeah.

Christine: And I will tell you, again, as somebody whose hormones have been out of balance, I think this is one of the things that have helped them come into balance.

Christine: It's not like a quick fix.

Christine: It has definitely helped.

Christine: And I will say my PMS symptoms are a lot lighter.

Christine: So do with that what you will, people.

Renee: Awesome.

Food Consumption Speed & Mindful Eating

Renee: Next tip, thinking about your consumption speed.

Renee: There is this mind-gut connection that we see.

Renee: If you are inhaling your food, your mind doesn't have processing time to get the information from your gut, traveling all the way up to your brain, doesn't fully understand how much you've eaten, how much is enough, when to stop, so that you don't get to that point where you feel sick.

Renee: I will have this happen to me, where I'm eating a meal and somebody asks me questions, so I get into a whole side story.

Renee: Well, when you're talking a lot, then you can't eat, so you stop.

Renee: You actually will end up eating less because you gave your brain processing time.

Renee: I've heard a recommendation, taking smaller bites, eating at a quarter of your normal chewing speed.

Renee: Benefits of this are helping to signal the mind and your digestive system.

Renee: Hey, get ready to digest what's coming.

Renee: To break everything down when it's not coming in these huge, fully unprocessed chunks versus if you actually chew it more, you're getting it smaller, it's going to be easier for your body to digest and break down and extract nutrients and then create the waste from it.

Renee: If you were trying to lose weight, maybe you're hearing this and going, oh, that's great, it'll help me eat less.

Renee: It's not really the point of this.

Renee: How can I help my body run more optimally so I don't feel bad after I'm eating the food because my body is upset with not even just what I put in it but how I eat the food?

Christine: I naturally am a slow eater.

Christine: People will make fun of me because they'll watch me eat and I'm like in my own world, I'll dance if something tastes good.

Christine: Like I just, again, I just truly enjoy food.

Christine: So my other grandma, not my nonna, used to tell us to chew our food as many times as how old we were.

Christine: And I think that's because we were kids, right?

Christine: So if you were nine, chew your food nine times.

Christine: If you were ten, chew your food ten times.

Renee: Part of the reason I know this is really important for me in particular to do, for anyone who gets disgusted by bodily fluid stuff, cover your ears for a moment.

Renee: But my mom said when I was a baby, I would drink my milk so fast I would immediately spit it back up.

Renee: And so the doctor was saying put less milk, formula, whatever in the bottle.

Renee: That way you're controlling her portions.

Renee: When she would tell me that years later, I'm an adult, I started being more aware of the fact that I would do the same thing.

Renee: I would eat really, really fast.

Renee: And I would feel like a pressure in my chest.

Renee: I'm not like giving my body enough space to breathe because I'm just like eating all of the food.

Renee: So this is apparently something I've been doing since I came out the womb.

Renee: I don't know why I do this.

Renee: It doesn't serve me.

Renee: I don't feel good when it's happening.

Renee: So if I'm ever eating a little bit too quickly, I'm now familiar enough with that kind of chest pressure sensation that I'll stop.

Renee: People might look at me and be like, Oh, are you done eating?

Renee: Because we're not even that far into the meal.

Renee: I'm like, No, I just have to wait.

Renee: So I'll just sit a little bit, breathe, try to relax, and then I can go back to eating.

Renee: And this doesn't happen every meal.

Renee: But you know, it happens sometimes if I'm like really, really ravenously hungry or something.

Dream Analysis

Christine: So now that I'm starving after talking about food all day, let's jump into our dreams.

Christine: I was driving around in my car, but the driver side door was missing like it's outer paneling, and all of this wiring was exposed.

Christine: And I kept driving past these buildings that were covered in like a single advertisement for one product.

Christine: I thought it was a weird way to advertise, but the buildings kept getting bigger and bigger until I finally stopped at one that was an advertisement for spaghetti, of course.

Christine: And I heard the message, sometimes you just need something big to get your message across.

Christine: So the things I want to highlight in this stream, driving a car in general is a symbol of dependence and the degree of control that you feel you have over your life.

Christine: And in this instance, I was driving.

Christine: So I'm taking an active role in my life.

Christine: And when the outside of my door was slightly concerning, I was still driving just fine.

Christine: So this signified to me that regardless of what's going on around me, I'm doing okay.

Christine: And I'm confident in my ability to navigate from one phase of life to the next.

Christine: The second thing is looking at the advertisement represents a message conveyed via your subconscious.

Christine: And I don't think the message was spaghetti, although I would accept that as an answer.

Renee: This feels meta.

Christine: I think it's almost like a premonition.

Christine: Like I don't know what to do with this message just yet.

Christine: But when I know, I'll know.

Renee: Well, if you find that to be continued, let us know.

Christine: I will let you all know.

Renee: In my dream, I was with my siblings, and we were watching the TV show Severance.

Renee: Do you watch it?

Renee: Or you've heard of it?

Renee: Oh, so good.

Renee: 10 out of 10.

Renee: Recommend.

Renee: Great show.

Renee: So we were watching Severance.

Renee: This doesn't spoil anything because it doesn't make any sense.

Renee: One of the characters was suddenly a drug addict, and another character was administering a dose of drugs for him.

Renee: Okay, time to get ready for bed.

Renee: And I go to my bedroom.

Renee: This is not my house.

Renee: I'm in my closet.

Renee: I'm looking at clothes, figuring out what to wear for my PJs.

Renee: And I look across.

Renee: Instead of a solid wall, it's glass.

Renee: And so I'm seeing people over there.

Renee: And I'm like, oh, like, what is that?

Renee: So I leave my room and I start walking around and I work my way over there.

Renee: And when I get to the other side, I somehow end up in a mall.

Renee: Maybe I'll just try to retrace my steps and just head backward.

Renee: But instead of doing that, I turn and all of a sudden I'm in this unknown guy's perspective.

Renee: I'm sitting down at a table and he's with a bunch of different friends and they're all eating.

Renee: How perfect.

Renee: They're all eating.

Renee: I definitely was missing some chunks in this dream, but all of a sudden, my character, who I was, was lying on the ground and I was paralyzed.

Renee: My friends are there and they're reacting and they're trying to help.

Renee: I knew it was just going to wear off.

Renee: So I wasn't in a panic.

Renee: I just knew like I couldn't move, like something was happening and I couldn't move.

Renee: This friend group was people from a bunch of different groups in society.

Renee: Like they were representing different factions and organizations and backgrounds.

Renee: And then this teacher comes over who we all knew.

Renee: I don't really remember how it ended.

Renee: I looked at the main symbols that I identified here.

Renee: And one of them was watching someone else doing drugs, grappling with self-destruction or your sense of responsibility, picking out clothes to wear, protection or concern with your finances or your mental state.

Renee: And that piece was linked to the glass wall, which can represent transparency and fragility.

Renee: Being lost in a mall, obtaining something and difficulty completing a task or goal.

Renee: Switching into that other perspective, it's either something that's psychic, a specific story or something that is going on with somebody else.

Renee: Or questioning your own sense of identity, like who are you if you keep becoming other people in your dreams, which makes a lot of sense.

Renee: Switching perspectives was immediately tied with this idea of paralysis, struggling with the ability to advance or move forward.

Renee: And then this idea of distinct groups being at the table, seeking consensus with a teacher, it's a guide coming in, or maybe you're being encouraged to seek advice.

Renee: So my synopsis here in trying to pull all these different images together, maybe I'm being asked to take a look at my identity, my behaviors, which ones are serving me, and how are they supporting my business and sense of security, my connection or disconnection from being able to move forward in full force.

Renee: And also I could just be getting encouraged to seek counsel, so I could be checking in with my spirit counsel, which I've conveniently started to do this week.

Renee: I had some of those scheduled in my calendar, or just asking for advice and not trying to do things by myself.

Christine: I think you did a great job interpreting it because I wouldn't have known where to start.

Renee: We have so many dreams, but we happen to pick certain dreams to be included on the podcast.

Renee: And to hear from episode one all the way to the season two finale, what's happening with our subconscious?

Renee: What messages are we getting?

Renee: What's our internal dream character doing?

Christine: Yeah.

Christine: Now it'll be really cool to see what happens.

Psychic Readings for the Listeners

Renee: And now, on to our readings.

Christine: So my reading started off with Goldilocks, where she like just entered the home, and she was like sitting on everyone's chair and eating everyone's porridge.

Christine: Some kids know when they need a nap, some kids know when they need to eat strawberries.

Christine: When we haven't had life thrown upon us, it's much easier for us to tune into our intuition and into our body and feed it what it needs, or give it the recovery that it needs.

Christine: Like if you aren't harming yourself or anyone else, and you're doing a practice that makes you feel your best, then do it.

Christine: Go to bed one night early, cancel your plans, turn your phone off, say no to something.

Christine: It may upset other people because you're not doing for them, but you're doing for yourself.

Christine: It feels like this vision was really about filling your cup first so you can better function for those around you.

Christine: The mantra I got is I am the expert in me.

Christine: Am I doing this for me or am I doing it out of obligation?

Christine: Do I just have too much on my plate and it's going to throw off my sleep schedule for the week?

Christine: Or am I in my luteal phase and I have no energy and this just isn't the week for me to go out?

Christine: Something's not working for you, communicate it.

Christine: I think this is something that a lot of empaths struggle with.

Christine: If I can do it for you, why wouldn't I?

Christine: You can't pour from an empty cup, guys, and that just proved it was true, that horn that you heard in the background is very timely.

Christine: So Renee, what do you think and tell us about your reading?

Renee: I think we have another week where my reading is holding hands a little bit with your reading.

Christine: Love that for us.

Renee: Mine started out with My Chemical Romance.

Renee: The quote came in, Look Alive Sunshine.

Renee: For anyone that's familiar with this song or the music video for it, it's a gem.

Renee: I recommend it.

Renee: It's dusty, grimy, dystopian, people on the run.

Renee: But in this scene, I was seeing cars driving around and kicking up a bunch of dust.

Renee: But you have grit and you have power and literal and metaphorical drive.

Renee: And the message I was getting here is to be mindful of those around you who are disingenuous, be mindful of misinformation and manipulation by those who have a lot more power than you think they do.

Renee: And then the scene shifts because there's a sudden downpour, change is finally happening and it's something that you can feel tangibly.

Renee: Before we sat down to record today, I knew I was going to be pulling a card for my reading.

Renee: So the deck that I'm using is the Moonology Manifestation Oracle Deck.

Renee: And it was at this point in the reading that I pulled the card and I had a good chuckle to myself.

Renee: The full moon in Libra and the mantra reads, find a balance.

Renee: How perfect?

Renee: One, from what I just explained.

Renee: It was too dry and we had this water come in.

Renee: It balances it out.

Renee: And then there was also these discussions of what power do you have versus what powers do other people have.

Renee: So we're trying to achieve balance in this imagery.

Renee: And then also I was realizing, wait, this episode today, we were talking about different modalities to create more mindfulness and balance with your relationship with food.

Renee: The final thoughts that I have for this reading were to check in with yourself.

Renee: And then I got this line, measure twice, retract thrice, and extend just before your limits.

Renee: You were talking about extending yourself, like how much are you giving?

Renee: And the fact that I had that woven in right at the end of mine and the general theme that was coming up is who has the power.

Christine: It was kind of like yours was external and mine was internal.

Christine: So however it hits for you listener, whichever way you needed to hear it, we hope it landed.

Christine: Thanks for listening.

Christine: If you'd like to learn more, the resources we used to prepare for this episode are listed in the show notes.

Renee: If you're curious to develop your intuition, we've partnered with the Nuurvana Be Light program to give our listeners a $500 discount on tuition fees.

Renee: Email us for more details and we'll connect you with the founder, Deganit Nuur.

Christine: Want to connect with us?

Christine: You can reach me, Christine, @ChanneledbyChristine with one L on Instagram.

Renee: And you can reach me, Renee, @_readbyrenee, or connect with both of us via email at synergytosynastry@gmail.com.

Christine: Keep your spirit curious and your aura sparkling.

Renee: We'll see you when the stars next align.

Outro

Renee: Have you ever watched The Wiggles or did you watch that growing up?

Christine: I think I was too old for The Wiggles.

Renee: Jeff, he was obsessed with eating, so it was this running thing in the show, and there's this song, Food, Food, Food, Oh How I Love My Food.

Christine: This is so catchy.

Christine: I need to learn these lyrics.

Renee: Hot potato!

Christine: Which I'm gonna have a hot potato for lunch.

Christine: Tommy Cash from Estonia wrote this song called Espresso Macchiato.

Christine: It's a positive uplifting song.

Renee: This picture of him is just in a suit with a piece of paper in front of him and a glass of milk.

Renee: Oh wait, he's moving.

Renee: Oh, I thought it was a still frame.

Renee: What's it gonna do with all that milk?

Christine: I don't know, that would give me a tummy ache and acne.