“Find your tribe and love them hard.”
- Danielle LaPorte
Hello friends,
I hope what has felt like the 875 days of January so far have been treating you as well as can be. For my part, I’ve officially embarked on my journey towards becoming a Health & Wellness Coach with the Institute of Integrative Nutrition, and my inner school nerd has been thrilled to have something to focus on in amidst the chaos and noise of the outside world, as well as the chaos and noise of my internal world (thanks, perimenopause!)
One of the most interesting parts of my new education so far has been the framework of this program. You might think from the title that I am going to school to become some form of nutritionist, but it’s misleading. In fact, food and eating is secondary to all other aspects of the program where the emphasis is on what they refer to as “Primary Food” using the below graphic as a tool for coaches and their clients to identify the primary areas of life where they feel nourished, and areas where they feel less so. The way it works is that you place a dot in each section to indicate your level of satisfaction in that area. A dot toward the periphery indicates satisfaction, and a dot closer to the center indicates dissatisfaction. From there, you can connect the dots and visualize your current areas of focus and then determine where to spend more time and energy to cultivate balance
The Primary Food Method: Using The Circle of Life (IIN) As A Tool
Doing this exercise for myself was eye opening, and that’s why I’m sharing it with you here today, as it might give you some insight into the areas of your life where you might want to focus more (or less). Given that January is a month where our culture is almost entirely focused on the actual food on our plates—whether the restricting of, or the removing of—I thought it might be a refreshing perspective to look at life, and what you consume off the plate for nourishment, as being so much more important to your overall health, vitality, and happiness.
For my part, what I realized is that while I’m doing very well in the areas of spirituality, health, physical activity, and home cooking, some of the other areas felt less than where I would want them to be, particularly in the area of connection with relationships and social life. And the realization left me feeling at first sad, and if I’m honest, a little bit lonely, but then it gave me a sense of motivation to balance out my wheel in the coming months and years ahead. I have no interest in getting to the golden years of my life and being able to say that while my nutrition was on point and I was really good at getting in my meditation and steps every day, I was missing something fundamentally more valuable.
I also realized I have to give grace to the fact that this is the season of life for myself and my peers, and also the way our world works. So it’s a bit of a case of “it is what it is-ness”, while also being open to making changes.
I’m very lucky in that I have a loving home. Every day, when my husband and kids and I are back together after work and school and activities are said and done, we have a safe space and a deep sense of connection being all together. I make dinner, we watch Survivor and talk about what we would do if we were on that beach (I definitely could not tolerate the sand and cold rain and the bugs, not to mention all of the personalities!) and then we all go to bed in relative peace.
But what became clear to me in doing this Circle of Life exercise, is that the connection I am missing is that which lies beyond the four walls of my cozy home. I’m missing a deeper sense of tribe, of community and support. Of seeing people.
One of the doctors lecturing in my program shared this story, which I think sums up the importance of tribe with such an impactful, real life example. This is the gist:
In the 1960s, researchers investigated why residents of Roseto, an Italian-American town, had significantly lower rates of heart disease compared to neighbouring towns, despite poor diets, hard lifestyles, and environmental factors.
They found that the secret wasn’t diet or exercise but social cohesion and strong community ties. Roseto residents had a tightly knit culture centred around family, shared meals, mutual support, and a sense of belonging. This protective social environment buffered them from stress, which researchers believed contributed to their exceptional heart health.
The phenomenon, sometimes called the "Roseto Effect," highlights the powerful impact of social connections on physical and mental health.
That is not to say that I’m not blessed in the connection of friendships and relationships I have. I’m grateful to have continued friendships with my best friends since childhood. It’s a rare and beautiful thing to have that 30 years and counting. I have caring parents, and I have supportive, present in-laws. I have made great friendships in my community and through my kids sports with women and men who I value deeply. At my place of work, I’ve made connections with people I otherwise would not have met who have opened my heart up even more as I’ve walked with them through their professional and personal challenges.
And yet, as someone who works from home, I spend most of my days alone—alone in my thoughts, and alone in my house. My youngest son is now in aftercare at school, so I don’t have that little bit of social time every day that I used to get when I would pick him up and watch all the kids in the playground, which I realize now in retrospect is what saved me through the years of the pandemic by providing a sense of daily camaraderie (and incidentally is the way in which I formed many of the great friendships in my neighbourhood).
When my kids were home sick last week, it was just me and my husband managing the vacillation between fevers and barfing. And that’s when it really hit me, this lack of tribe, in the sense of a physical presence. It’s how, as humans, we were really designed to exist: with people around us, in the flesh, showing up—and not just in the phone.
But that is not how life is structured anymore, in many ways due to the simple fact of urban sprawl. Whereas if we all lived in close proximity to each other, my mother might have come by to check on us and to lend a helping hand, and my best friend might have dropped off some soup (or maybe some wine, ‘cause being home with 2 sick kids and 1 sick husband all week is not in alignment with Dry January). But the truth is, these closest people in my life live a 45 minute drive away, and beyond that, everyone else is also just trying to get through their own days, with their own shit, and that kind of daily physical presence isn’t a possibility or a reality.
On this topic, Dr. Vivek Murthy, the U.S. Surgeon General, has called loneliness a public health crisis and has even written a book about this called "Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World".
I know I am one of the lucky ones. Most of us are. We have friends and neighbours and families who call us, text us, visit us when they can, and we know they would be there if we really need them. But I think that, for me, I’ve realized that as we move further and further into this digital age, and despite my innate nature as an introvert who recharges best in solitude, I’m missing that fundamental, basic part of life where we can actually regularly and easily spend time in person with the people we love, without having to plan around it several weeks in advance (only to get cancelled when the inevitable sickness of one or the other puts the kibosh on those plans).
Is it possible to be lonely, even though I know that I’m cared about and supported by more people than any one person has a right to expect? It seems counterintuitive, but I think the answer is yes. Maybe it’s just the winter, maybe it’s perimenopause, or maybe it’s an opportunity for me to explore how to build more regular, face-to-face and heart-to-heart connection despite the challenges of living in a fast-paced world. Maybe it’s all three.
As I continue on this journey of becoming a Health & Wellness Coach over the next 6 months, I see now that (as has been the pattern of my personal evolution for as long as I can remember) I will have to explore, heal, and grow in each of these areas of “primary food” even more deeply within myself so that I can establish a solid foundation for myself as a guide in helping individuals reach better health and happiness. All so that, one day, I’ll be able to speak from an authentic place of lived experience, and the empathy that comes with that, by being able to say “I know what you’re going through. Let me show you the way to the other side of it.”
At least, that’s my plan.
Until next time, be so very well.
Allison