Yesterday was a big day for us Pilgrims. We went to the Taj Mahal in the morning and then to a temple devoted to Krishna, who is one of the incarnations of the Hindu God Vishnu. Krishna’s core teachings are loving relationships and loving service to sustain those relationships. There we met with Shivatsa Goswami, a Hindu priest, who taught us more about Krishna and about his view of the world. He talked to us of the environment, of relationships, and of service. So much of what he said validated and confirmed what is taught at the Wright Leadership Institute.

But the thing that struck me most was when he said that when you eat, you should say, “I’ve just given service to the god who lives inside of me.” As someone who has struggled with food, eating, and my weight for the better part of my lifetime, to think of food as serving the god inside me opened a whole new way of relating to eating. It’s not just something I have to do to live, or have to struggle against all the time.

By seeing eating as serving God, I have a new lens with which to look at it. I intend to use it as I continue to work on finally liberating myself from my excess pounds into a new, fit, me.