The 8 Pillars of Wealth: Pillar 2 — Health & Nourishment | Building Trust With Your Body

Building Trust With Your Body

Pillar 2 of the 8 Pillars of Wealth is about health, sustenance, your physical body, and taking care of the vessel that you are living in, but more than that, this pillar is about your relationship to your body.

Not just what you eat.

Not just what you drink.

Not just whether you are “disciplined enough.”

Not just whether you can cut something out and prove a point.

✨This pillar is about building trust with your body.

Because your body is not a project to punish into perfection.

Your body is a partner you are co-creating with.

Your body carries your purpose.

Your body carries your creativity.

Your body carries your relationships.

Your body carries your healing.

Your body carries your intuition.

Your body carries the woman you are becoming.

✨If you are trying to step into a new version of yourself, your body has to be part of that becoming.

You cannot shame your body into transformation.

You cannot ignore your body into alignment.

You cannot punish your body into wealth.

You have to build trust with it.

And sometimes, building trust with your body means taking a very honest look at what you are consuming, depending on, normalizing, romanticizing, and calling it “just part of life.”

Then asking: Is this actually supporting me?

Not, “Is this good or bad?”

Not, “Can I prove I’m the most disciplined woman in the room?”

Not, “Will people approve of this?”

But simply: Is this supporting the life I am building?

That question changed a lot for me.

The Layers of Health & Nourishment

In this part of the video series, I go through three mugs that represent different layers of Health & Nourishment for me: alcohol, coffee, and values around what I consume. And each one taught me something different.

The Boston Mug: When Fun Stops Honoring Your Safety

The first mug was Boston. This story is from my twenties, so let’s be clear: this was not recent, current-day Danielle behavior. This was younger me, learning lessons the very human way.

I went to visit my friend Emily, and while I was there, I got so drunk at the Sam Adams brewery that I not only missed my flight, I made the poor decision to sleep in the airport lobby. Which, looking back, was probably not the safest thing to do. And honestly, that was the point.

This was not about demonizing alcohol. This was about recognizing that, at that time in my life, my relationship with alcohol was not honoring my body, my safety, or the woman I was becoming.

️ There is a difference between enjoyment and escape.

️ There is a difference between celebration and self-abandonment.

️ There is a difference between sharing a beautiful glass of wine over dinner with someone you love and drinking yourself into a situation where your body is no longer being protected by you.

And that is where the healing lesson lived.

For a long season, I needed a full reset. I took about a year away from alcohol because I was doing a whole health overhaul. I needed to clear out old habits, reassess my relationship with alcohol, and give myself enough space to understand what was actually meaningful about the experience and what had become potentially harmful. Because sometimes you cannot clearly see your relationship with something while you are still inside the pattern. Sometimes you need to pull away.

Not forever.

Not as punishment.

Not to prove your discipline.

Not because the thing itself is evil.

️

✨But because distance gives you clarity.

That year taught me that I could have fun without alcohol.

I could regulate without alcohol.

I could celebrate without alcohol.

I could be social without alcohol.

I could be myself without needing something outside of me to loosen the edges.

And then, more recently, I reintroduced wine back into my life in a very different way.

Now, wine is rare. It is usually a glass or two with a beautiful meal, at home, in a safe environment, with someone I love, or during quiet quality time.️

It is not about escape anymore.

️It is not about chaos.

️It is not about losing my connection to myself.

It is intentional. And that is the difference.

✨The goal was never to become extreme.

The goal was to come back into a trusting relationship with my body.

The Pike Place Mug: When a Ritual Becomes a Dependency

The second mug was Pike Place. The quintessential Starbucks mug. And if you know, you know. Coffee has been a whole personality for a lot of us.

I started drinking coffee in eighth grade. My parents drank coffee, and I wanted to be fancy and grown up, so naturally, I joined the ritual. Over the years, I told myself coffee was my beautiful morning tradition.

It helped me get my bearings.

It was cozy.

It was familiar.

It was part of the way I started my day.

And honestly, some of that was true. But another truth was also present. Coffee was wrecking my sleep.

The caffeine was affecting my nights, which affected my mornings, which affected my schedule, which affected my energy. And I had been late to multiple meetings over my life because I “needed” to get coffee first. That is when I had to be honest with myself. Was coffee a sacred ritual? Or had it become something I needed in order to function? Because those are not the same thing.

❌A habit is not sacred if it drains your body.

❌️A ritual is not nourishing if it controls you.

️❌A treat is not a treat if you cannot go without it.

So I released coffee for a long season too. And again, that pause was not about perfection. It was not about making coffee bad. It was not about becoming the woman who never touches caffeine again and floats through life on spring water, breath work, and moral superiority.

It was about reassessing my relationship with coffee and caffeine.

It was about clearing out old habits and giving my body a chance to tell me the truth.

I needed to discover what was meaningful about the experience, what was inherited, what was habitual, what was dependency, what was potentially harmful, and what I actually wanted my relationship with coffee to look like from a healthier, more healed perspective.

That reset helped me separate enjoyment from dependency…It helped me learn what my natural energy felt like…It helped me see how much of my routine had been inherited, normalized, and romanticized without being questioned.

Recently, I have reintroduced low-acid cold brew coffee as an occasional treat.

Not as a caffeine dependency.

Not as a morning emergency.

Not as something I need before I can be a functioning human woman in society.

As a treat. And that feels different in my body.

✨That is the whole lesson of this pillar.

Sometimes healing means cutting something out completely…Sometimes healing means cutting back…Sometimes healing means taking a full break so you can hear your body clearly again…And sometimes healing means reintroducing something from a more grounded, intentional, honest place.

The healing is not never touching something again. The healing is knowing what works for your body and what does not. The healing is knowing what needs to be released, what needs to be reduced, and what can become beautiful again when it is experienced under healthier conditions.

✨️That is relationship.

✨️That is discernment.

✨️That is nourishment.

The Wisconsin Mug: When Your Values No Longer Align

The third mug was Wisconsin.

Now, let me just say, Wisconsin has very nice people. Milwaukee is pretty cool. I am not here to fight the entire state of Wisconsin. However, I have been vegan for almost six years now, and Wisconsin is famously associated with dairy; Cheese, milk, dairy culture, the whole thing.

So when I looked at that mug, I realized it no longer represented my values. And that matters.

Health and nourishment are not only about calories, caffeine, alcohol, macros, or ingredients. They are also about alignment.

What do I stand for now?

What do I consume now?

What do I want to support now?

What no longer feels like me?

️❌Sometimes something can be harmless to someone else and still feel misaligned for you.

That does not mean you have to judge everyone who chooses differently. It means you get to be honest about your own values. And when your values change, it is okay to let things go.

That is one of the biggest lessons of healing.

You are allowed to outgrow things.

You are allowed to change your mind.

You are allowed to change your habits.

You are allowed to change your relationship with food, alcohol, coffee, routines, identities, and old versions of yourself.

You are allowed to say, “This used to be part of my life, but it no longer aligns.”

And you are also allowed to say, “I needed to release this completely for a season, and now I can relate to it differently.”

✨️That is not hypocrisy.

️✨That is growth.

️✨That is wisdom.

️✨That is relationship.

Restriction vs. Relationship

There is a difference between restriction and relationship.

Restriction says: “I cannot have this because I do not trust myself.”

Relationship says: “I know my body well enough to choose what actually supports me.”

️❌Restriction is fear-based.

️✨Relationship is body-led.

❌️Restriction creates a cage.

✨️Relationship create freedom.

And that is what Health & Nourishment, as a pillar of wealth, is really about. It is not about being the woman who never touches wine, never drinks coffee, never has fun, never changes, never softens, never allows nuance. And it is also not about ignoring your body, dismissing your symptoms, overriding your sleep, numbing your emotions, or pretending something is fine when your body has been whispering, “This is not working for me.”

This pillar asks for honesty.

It asks you to listen.

It asks you to notice what gives you energy and what steals it.

It asks you to notice what feels aligned and what feels expired.

It asks you to build a relationship with your body where your choices come from love, not punishment.

That is real nourishment. Not just what you eat: But what you allow.

What you consume.

What you normalize.

What you return to.

What you release.

What you reintroduce.

What you choose differently because your body and soul deserve to be considered.

Your Body Is A Vessel

Your body is not a side character in your healing journey. Your body is the vessel. And if your body is carrying your purpose, your creativity, your relationships, your dreams, your work, your movement, your pleasure, your prayer, and your becoming, then tending to your body is not vanity. It is wealth.

️ If you want to go after the other aspects of healing, abundance, purpose, creativity, success, legacy, love, and expansion, you need a body that feels safe enough to come with you.

✨️A body you can trust.

️✨A body that trusts you back.

️✨A body that feels safe enough to become with you.

That does not mean your body has to be perfect. It does not mean your body has to look a certain way before you are allowed to become powerful.

It means your body needs to know you are listening. It means your body needs to know you will stop overriding its signals. It means your body needs to know you will not abandon it just to keep up with old habits, old identities, or old versions of success. That is how trust is built.

One honest choice at a time.

One reassessment at a time.

One loving boundary at a time.

One moment of listening instead of forcing.

One moment of choosing what actually supports you instead of what keeps you disconnected from yourself.

So for Pillar 2, the question is not: “What do I need to restrict?”

The question is: “What kind of relationship do I want to have with my body?” And then:

What supports that relationship?

What drains that relationship?

What am I consuming out of habit?

What am I consuming out of escape?

What am I consuming out of alignment?

What have I outgrown?

What can I enjoy without letting it control me?

What balance would actually serve my body and my soul?

Where have I stopped trusting my body?

Where has my body stopped trusting me?

Because sometimes nourishment looks like adding more.

✨More water.

✨More minerals.

✨More protein.

✨More rest.

✨More sunlight.

✨More movement.

✨More color.

✨More real food.

✨More softness.

✨More pleasure.

️✨More listening.

And sometimes nourishment looks like letting something go.

Not because you are bad.

Not because the thing is evil.

Not because you have to prove anything.

❌But because your body is asking for a new relationship.

What Is This Pillar Of Wealth?

That is the wealth of this pillar.

The wealth of being able to hear yourself.

The wealth of honoring your vessel.

The wealth of co-creating with your body instead of controlling it.

The wealth of choosing balance over extremes.

The wealth of saying: “This may have served me once, but it does not serve the woman I am becoming.”

P.S. This is also why I created my two cookbooks, Eat Like a Goddess and Scoop Like a Goddess. They are invitations to come back into a relationship with your body through nourishing, beautiful, vegan food that supports strength, pleasure, creativity, and joy. Because nourishment is not supposed to feel like punishment. It can be delicious, intentional, playful, and deeply supportive of the woman you are becoming.

✨Godmother Reflection✨

What is one thing your body is asking you to reevaluate right now?

Is it asking you to cut something out, cut back, or create a healthier balance?

Where are you being invited to move from habit into intention?

Where is your body asking you to rebuild trust?

Love you very much.

You got this.

Danielle Rae | Godmother of Women