"Success on the raw foods diet" - by Bryan Yamamoto.

[Gosia]

Hello raw friends,

You can access the article "Success on the raw foods diet" - by Bryan Yamamoto at:
http://freehostz.com/rawgosia/articl..._yamamoto.html

I believe that this article offers an interesting insight into some issues that many of us have been facing in our raw foods adventure. Your comments/discussion are most welcome!

Sincerely,
Gosia.

PS I am also finally releasing my website. I have been having some fun learning html basics. Thanks for the support from all the contributors!!!

[Tanja_swe]

I haven't read the article yet but wanted to say that you've done a great job! A very nice website!

Thanks for sharing!

[vegbaby]

This is a very good article, but what I often wonder is do I need to work on my issues *before* I attempt the raw food lifestyle, because I keep feeling like a failure when I can't stick to it.

"Often before the body can heal, there is a spiritual and emotional healing that must first take place. This spiritual healing involves confronting our difficult emotions, releasing behavior patterns that are destructive and drain our energy, and making ourselves whole and complete again."

Melanie

[Alissa]

love your new site gosia! ill put you on my links page if you like.
Best of luck with it!
xo Alissa

[Curtis]

Congrats Gosia on your web site!

[Wrecked Spark]

Wouldn't mind speaking sharing ideas with regards to the "issues"...

"Often before the body can heal, there is a spiritual and emotional healing that must first take place. This spiritual healing involves confronting our difficult emotions, releasing behavior patterns that are destructive and drain our energy, and making ourselves whole and complete again."

I find this aspect of the lifestyle change the most difficult, but I must admit, it wasn't until I had known ill health that I came to know what abundant health really is. (I was still very healthy to the mainstream standards but was dealing with chronic pain and severe hives that mainstream medicine either couldn't fix, couldn't diagnose or wouldn't believe! argh. )

Before I could think about the physical aspect of making changes, I needed to educate myself ~ and thus an inner journey began taking place. I found that this lifestyle required more than simply a physical committment to eating well... one change precipitated another, and much like the domino effect, one choice brought on three more. As i started to change things on the outside, all of these inner things began bubbling up... things that required my attention, that I couldn't ignore or numb out like I had done before with a glass of wine, or potato chips, or (gasp!) a chocolate bar. I needed to clean house on the inside AS i was cleaning house everywhere else.

Consequently my life started changing... friends who were toxic suddenly just disappeared. The art of discernment didn't seem so radical. Synchronicity was an everyday ocurrance. I was changing, so my life was changing. Change the inside, and the outside takes care of itself (or more aptly, we create our experiences from our thoughts).

I think the journey needs to be a whole one and taking responsibility for one area of our lives means taking responsibility for it all. I struggle every day to be authentic, whole and expressing the highest aspect of my being. It isn't always easy when someone cuts me off on the way to work or I hear someone gossiping, or I wake up in a cranky mood!!! ;)

I have been very fortunate to be in a place where I no longer deny my issues or simply try to numb them through outside means... I am continually dealing, grappling, coping the best way my intuition tells me. I make strides every day and am slowly becoming the person I have always envisioned... the best me. Choosing this lifestyle (eh-hem... er, the pursuit or goal of this lifestyle ) has come hand in hand with TRUE health ~ physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

Some ideas to ponder. Would love to know your thoughts.

Cheers,
Wrecked Spark

[Alissa]

i love how you put this Wrecked Spark. i think it does go hand in hand. We are not one dimensional human beings, what we do in one area effects the other. i too began to work on the inner emotional first and it led to raw. But i think it can happen the opposite as well. When you start to 'clean house' as you said, it changes the process in other areas of your life. beautifully said and i totally agree.

[Olive]

Gosia, you have such a nice website! Thanks for sharing it!

You know, I hadn't thought about it before, but the more emotional and spiritual growth I do, the cleaner my diet becomes. About 3 1/2 years ago, I entered a spiritually-oriented graduate program and became vegan. Since then, I have changed dramatically and I have done a lot of recovery from an eating disorder. I find it interesting that now, at my Saturn return, I am choosing to go raw! It is a beautiful, humbling and joyous thing to see divinity at work in my life!

[Wrecked Spark]

Well said.

All the very best to you Olive.

:)

Wrecked Spark

[Olive]

And to you, Wrecked Spark!

[Gosia]

Melanie, I think that it is important that you accept yourself the way you are, wherever you are. Do not let guilt make you feel bad about yourself. I know, fighting cooked foods addiction may be really difficult at times. Things will get easier in time! Taking little steps is just fine. Please, do not beat yourself up for not meeting some high expectations. You are doing great! Also, I think that you could work on the issues as you continue raw journey, gently, slowly, with love towards yourself. But, of course, you know what you need the best!

Alissa, thanks! Of course, you may put the link to this website on your site. That would be an honour!

Thanks everyone for encouragement!

Wrecked Spark, I also like to think about health as being balanced in all these levels, as you said "physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually". I do not think that one can truly be healthy physically when sick emotionally/spiritually. I have also observed that when I am in peace with myself on an emotional level, then my diet is becoming healthier. Conversely, when I am filled with anger, I suddenly want some junk food! I feel that I should work more on my state of mind than I have in the past. My father has been very volatile at times. He died at the age of 48 from heart attack ... I am well aware of my own tendencies, which I think is the first step towards some growing up! I noticed that raw foods help me feel more capable of addressing my emotional issues (probably because I no longer feel numb/lethargic from eating all these heavy cooked foods).

[vegbaby]

All of you are so wonderful to share your thoughts and experiences - and so right. Thank you. I know this is the right path for me, and though I struggle from time to time, I know that if I can just get back to that 100% raw place where I'm loving life (and loving myself) that I will not want to go back. I joined Alissa's juice fast, and I feel really good about that, but I'm also aware that in the next week some issues are probably going to come to the fore, so I'm preparing for that and taking some time off from work (work at home) and planning lots of rest and reading...and journaling.

Melanie

[Wrecked Spark]

How wonderful that you honour yourself enough to realize that you will need some time and space to go through this journey. Journaling is absolutely vital... have you ever read back to realize just how far you've come? It's amazing...!

Gosia you are so right... when I'm having a difficult time emotionally or mentally I tend to want to "treat" myself with something that will ultimately only make me feel worse. I don't have much of a sweet tooth but I have a horrible addiction to potato chips. They're nasty! And very, very difficult to pass up.

I'm getting to the root of where that mental pattern came from... the wanting to "treat" myself because I've been good, or conversely because I've had a bad day ~ "medicating" myself, so to speak. Those are very addictive patterns and while it's only a darn bag of chips (!) to me it's a serious thing; it's a lack of control over the mental patterns that cause that wanting in the first place. I have spent many years studying nutrition (on my own... not formally, and with the aid of my nutritionist who has come to live a raw lifestyle over the last couple of years) and so I know better! But you see, it isn't the physical act of reaching for the chips... it's having the thoughts before the reaching. Does this make any sense?! ;)

And so, to come full circle in this wonderful conversation, it is dealing with aspects of the "Shadow Self", the addictive behaviours, the learned mental patterns, all of the things that we pick up over years of living in a mainstream way and being force-fed a way of life we neither want nor (worse yet) don't even know we don't want that we will finally be able to release ourselves and live from the inside-out ~ authentically, free from the binds that would otherwise prevent us from being who we truly want to be.

Hmm. Hope you made some sense of my rambling. :)

Cheers,
Wrecked Spark

[Sweet lips]

Gosia,

Great website and a good article. I am one that knows how to disconnect myself from not feeling. Recently and I haven't been 100% raw - no where near, I had a flashback of some pain that I thought was gone and I had to process through it - I didn't die either, I had to come to realization that with progress there will be pain and sometimes the pain feels so unbearable that even my strong faith gets shaken.

I do find that I am allowing myself to process some emotions that I at one time wouldn't allow to surface and letting go of somethings that no longer serve me well.

Thanks Gosia for the article ;) Best to all of you!

[smasty]

Gosia! Your site is beautiful...I loved looking at your pics....you are the picture of how raw foods make a person GLOW!