Joshua Rosenthal, Founder, Director, and Primary Teacher of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition shares his wisdom about creating a healthy and happy life that helps transform the world.

Does a fulfilled, happy, healthy life seem like a pipe dream to you? Whether you’re looking for more joy, money, love, or simple contentment in your life, I have just the exercise you need.

Yes, there’s an exercise you can do to find more balance and joy in your life in this moment. I know it sounds a little crazy, but it really is that simple. 

That exercise is the Circle of Life, based on my concept of primary food. It turns out that the food on your plate, what I call secondary food, is not always the most important thing. Primary food overrides it, and includes a fulfilling career, nurturing relationships, an exercise routine you love, and an enriching spiritual practice. 

When you are filled up on primary food, regular food becomes secondary. 

I used to work at a health food store and I would watch people spending hours comparing different flax seed oil brands and obsessing over what brands of food to buy, and those people surprisingly didn’t look that healthy.

Then I would go over to the movie theater next door and I would see people eating popcorn and drinking soda, laughing with their loved ones. Guess what? The second group of people looked way healthier and happier. Why? Because they were filled up on primary food. 

When your primary food is imbalanced, many different physical and emotional symptoms appear. Some examples are anxiety, depression, eating disorders, weight gain or excessive loss, skin problems, and chronic fatigue.

For example, if your relationships are not fulfilling you, you might turn to food for that emotional satisfaction – a substitute for love.

If you’re not in a loving relationship, you might come home and binge on ice cream when what you really need is hugs and kisses. See where I’m going with this? 

If you’re unhappy in your job, you might start to experience anxiety on Sunday nights as you think about the week ahead, or you might snack all day at work to distract yourself and feed your boredom. 

If you don’t have a spiritual practice, you may start to feel very lost and ungrounded and look to other people to fill that void. For example, you may start engaging with a lot of people sexually to feel grounded and fulfilled, rather than looking inside yourself for that sense of peace and fulfillment. 

Exercise, another main area of primary food, can totally change your life. When you move your body regularly in a way that feels good to you, you greatly reduce the risk of depression, obesity, and stress disorders.

The Circle of Life includes all the sub-areas of the main components of primary food, and it’s a great discovery tool to find out which areas are out of balance so you can take action to improve on them.

The first step here is consciousness. Once you see your weak areas and strong areas, you can get honest with yourself about what needs to happen for you to create the life of your dreams, and then take action and get the support you need to get there. 

Remember that wherever you are in your life now is ok, but there’s never a bad time to make a change, and there’s always another level you can reach. 

Who’s in control of you and your life and your future is you, not anyone else. 

Ready to create your best life ever? 

Find out what areas of the Circle of Life are strong for you and which could use some work.

If you do one thing for yourself today, this should be it. This tool has changed so many people’s lives, and I can’t wait to see what you do with this new information about yourself. 

What if the world knew about this too? Wouldn't it be a better place?

Use the social tools in this post to spread the word about the Circle of Life tool so more people can create the lives of their dreams!