Creative approaches to wellbeing

• Written by: Satya Dunning — Stepping into Life — Healing Diets Nutritional Consultant and Facilitator
• Published: 11th November 2025

In this part one of two opinion pieces, Satya Dunning reflects on nutrition as part of self management during the colder months.

What if the colder months of the year could help you return to balance and eat for health? 

Introduction
Health is a lifelong process, not a fixed state. Through the choices we make, our environment, lifestyle and nutrition, we move along the continuum between health and disease, closer to renewal or further from balance. 

Finding a way to nurture health through nutrition
When seeking to make long term dietary habits, which remove the conditions that create health issues, one starting point is through the transition diet. 

What is the transition diet?
In natural medicine, the transition diet is the axis around which healing diets work. It is the foundational diet that nourishes true health. And it exists alongside cycles of cleansing, and rejuvenation, in order for the process of healing to be facilitated. 

Benefits of establishing a transition diet
The transition diet enables balance by focusing on adding healthy foods and alternatives rather than removing unhealthy ones. It provides a gradual strategy of immersing yourself into a healthy, nourishing diet at your own pace. It provides an opportunity for the body to strengthen itself through whole foods and creates an environment in the body that supports health and lasting healing. 

The transition diet is flexible and changes according to your needs, and your life stages. 

The challenge of colder months
As we progress into the remaining quarter of the year, we may find that symptoms of chronic health conditions flare up or return more acutely. 

Winter can also be a challenging season to transition and lean into. Staying warm, keeping your circulation going, staying uplifted in the face of shortening and darker days can be daunting. Oftentimes, this time of year is one when many of us experience or revisit grief, loss and death. 

The gift of the colder months
November brings the ritual and celebration of Samhain, when we are invited to reconnect with our ancestors and the dead. The root of November is the latin word ‘novem’, which means nine, as it was the ninth month in the early Roman calendar (March was the first one). It marks the end of autumn and the beginning of winter. It brings echoes of the 9-month term of pregnancy. In short, November offers themes of ending, beginning, and birth. 

At this time of year, the bounty of nature from summer has been harvested; some veggies are preserved and fermented; fruits are made into jams or frozen; edible berries of all kinds and nuts are up for grabs; and it’s the perfect time to safely forage for (edible) mushrooms. Moreover, the garden still yields vegetables ranging from the colourful root kinds to cruciferous veggies, as well as leafy and crunchy salads. I think these themes and setting offer a creative proposition we can really take advantage of to create and nurture life. 

—

Satya Dunning hosted the Self Management Week 2025 event, ‘An Invitation to….Reconnect, Rest & Reset’. Satya is a Glasgow-based Healing Diets Nutritional Consultant and Facilitator specialising in: 

Nutritional literacy –  Using food as medicine to foster vitality and maintain health whilst exploring the emotional and mental patterns at the root of your relationship with food, as well as dietary and lifestyle choices. 

Body literacy – by fostering and facilitating a return to and reconnection with the body, can a healing – grounded in the body’s wisdom – of thinking, feeling and genuine relating in connection with nature and its cycles begin. Satya believes this process naturally opens the human heart towards the humanity of self and others, and body of the earth. 

Emotional literacy – Satya supports self awareness and transformation from inside out using the tools of Nonviolent Communication and compassionate processes. She has created her own women’s empowerment programme called Welcoming Ourselves Home. From January, she will be trained to offer a new programme of emotional healing to resolve grief, loss and emotional pain.

To arrange a free 15-minute consultation with Satya, email satya@steppingintolife.co.uk

End of page.