I used to think nourishment meant food, vitamins, and water. I tracked macros, counted calories, and tried to fix my body more than I can count. But while I was feeding my body, I was starving something else entirely: my soul.

It wasn’t intentional. Life got noisy. I stayed busy, did the right things, showed up where I was needed. Reliable. Responsible. Resilient. And eventually, restless.

I had an insatiable hunger I couldn’t name. Some days I tried to control it, weighing, measuring, restricting. Other days, nothing filled me. We all have our vices, and mine has always been ice cream. I didn’t realize it at the time, but when ice cream becomes the thing, you can’t get enough of every single day, something deeper is going on. I wasn’t craving sugar. I felt a hunger.

It didn’t occur to me that I wasn’t feeding the right part of me. I did my best with the limited understanding I had at the time.

And it took me a long time to see that my hunger had nothing to do with food. I was feeding my Body, but starving my life. I spent years managing, fixing, striving, and still, something felt hollow. I finally realized I had been nourishing the parts of me that kept me functioning, not the
ones that made me feel alive. My body was overfed, my mind was managed, but my soul had been running on fumes.

So, I did something about it. My need to feel alive took me across the world to South Africa. I was fulfilling a childhood dream and feeding my soul what felt like a 24-hour buffet.

That trip fed a part of me I had lost: my sense of wonder, my curiosity, my connection to something greater, something beyond myself. Feeding the soul looks different for everyone. It can’t be measured in macros or calories. Sometimes it’s saying no without guilt. Sometimes it’s standing barefoot in the sand or sitting in silence unil the noise fades. It’s giving yourself permission to explore again, whether that means flying across the world or just crossing the street to try something new.

Since that trip, there have been many more. But beyond the travel, I have learned to pay attention to what fills me up and what drains me. Real nourishment has texture. It feels like laughter, silliness, creativity, honesty, and for me, above all, connection.

We live in a culture that tells us a million ways to feed our bodies and even how to train our minds. But the soul? No one teaches us how to feed that. Until one day, the cracks show up in our mood, our relationships, our drive. That’s not weakness. That’s hunger.

Nourishing my soul has meant reclaiming what I buried: curiosity, play, courage, and joy. It has meant surrounding myself with people who light me up. The soul doesn’t need fixing. It needs feeding.

We nourish our bodies to live longer. But we nourish our souls to live better.