My uncle always had a weight problem. When his doctor told him that he needed to go on a healthy diet he asked me what was the point of living if you can’t eat what you want to eat. I told him that there is an amazing range of foodstuffs that are both delicious and nutritious. I reminded him that we eat to live not live to eat and that there are many things that we can do to feed our souls instead. The world is full of ways to gain pleasure without eating. Sadly, he wasn’t convinced and died prematurely.

One of the behavioural patterns I have noticed with human beings is that if they don’t feed their souls and imaginations enough the hunger goes elsewhere. This happened with my uncle, he focussed too much on cream cakes and not enough on feeding his soul. How many times have you had a piece of cake with a cup of coffee both for something to do and also to bring comfort?

Have you noticed how when you are bored the chocolate in your fridge keeping zooming in mega sized pictures in your mind? This is why I want you to start thinking about how you can feed your soul. It doesn’t have to be spiritual. In fact, I will be coming up with ideas on this so even if you don’t like what I’m suggesting in this post there will be something that fills you up somewhere so that the hunger from your soul doesn’t transform into boredom or comfort eating.

I have gathered a backlog of children’s writing that I haven’t done anything with. It’s sitting there waiting to be unleashed onto the world and will be in due course, the reason I am telling you this is that I wanted to share with you that I write children’s stories initially for soul feeding.  Later on, I use it professionally but I started writing it in the first place because it makes me feel so good.

Let me explain. I think I should start with what adulthood can be these days. Sometimes, it seems like a series of frustrations and disappointments. Just getting a doctor’s appointment can seem like a fight and trying to speak to someone on the end of a phone can mean waiting for an hour listening to dreadful music before being passed from department to department. We have more television channels than ever to watch but there seems to be less to enjoy. You get where I am coming from? It’s no wonder a hell of a lot of comfort eating goes on.

Can you remember when you were a kid and splashing in the rain was funny? When seeing a wild rabbit in the woods filled you with joy and discovering your favourite adventure book completely transported you into the world of the characters? If you unleash that inner child, you can have that again and it’s amazing how the lift it gives you takes away the need to turn to cake and coffee.

Well, let me tell you, a great way to get that childish feeling of euphoria is to completely immerse yourself in writing a children’s story. If at this point, you are rolling your eyes and thinking that it takes you all your time to write a shopping list, stop there right now. Writing a shopping list is necessary to live a comfortable life, writing a children’s story can feed your soul by releasing your inner child.

Think about it, you don’t have to let anyone see it. Actually, you may surprise yourself and want to show it to others when you have worked on it. However, for the time being, the whole idea of you writing children’s story is to transport you into your very own fantasy world. It is truly a form of escape from the tensions of everyday life and a way to feed your soul.

You can create a setting that is all of your making. For instance, if you’ve ever wondered what would have happened if the Gunpowder Plot hadn’t been discovered, you could create a whole scenario there. If you love fairies or dinosaurs, you can close your eyes and imagine yourself as a dinosaur princess or a fairy dragon slayer. Let your imagination run wild and enter the world inside your head.

You don’t even have to write anything down, if you don’t wish to. Just let the film play through your mind. However, I think you will find that once you have the story set out in your head that it won’t go away until you get it down.  If you do decide to write it up, don’t let your nagging inner critic spoil it for you. The whole point of this exercise is to transport yourself to another world, to reawaken your inner child and to fill you up so that you don’t need the false feeling of comfort that snacking gives you.

I hope you will give it a go. Until next time – happy creating.