Food- Pretty Important Stuff.

I've been really getting into nutrition lately. Just from my work and study alone, I believe the 2 main things that cause people physical illness are 1) negative emotions and 2) diet, and the two are actually often intertwined. I've spent a lot of time now helping people with emotional health, and so it was time to venture into nutrition. And I've been learning really important things that have honestly surprised me, or at least the fact that they aren't common knowledge has surprised me. My eating habits have drastically changed over the last 4 months and I really wanted to share because food has such a huge impact on your physical body and chakras. And even on your spiritual practices being that your body has to be able to handle the energy during meditation.

PLEASE take the time to educate yourself about what you put into your body. Not just about things like fat (which is what I had worried about in the past since my relationship w/food often revolved around the asthetics of my physical body), but about deadly stuff.

As an example, studies show that corn syrup feeds cancer cells & helps them reproduce. So if you have a cancerous cell or small tumor somewhere that you might have no idea exists (and that your immune system might just blast off on its own), corn syrup gives it food to multiply and spread. That's pretty important. Particularly since corn syrup is present in an estimated 90% of fast food and processed foods (like bread, cereal, chips, soda, junk food, etc.) since corn is subsidized by the government and super cheap.

Here's an article on this information: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/08/27/warning--fructose-feeds-cancer-cells.aspx?aid=CD945

Sounds as dangerous as smoking, right? And like something you should know as you as you decide between reaching for a bowl of raw cashews or some potato chips.. People often wonder why cancer has become so widespread.... Seems like the answers might be in the food people are putting in their bodies.

If you want to find out more about the food you are putting into your bodies, I'd recommend watching Food Inc. (u can watch it on youtube if you'd like). After tons of people telling me I should watch it since I'm into all this stuff, I finally gave in last night. Previously I had just read about the points in the movie and watched interviews because any kind of animal abuse really ruins my mood, and I didnt want to subject myself to it (did you know pigs are smarter than dogs?? And so sweet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDtj4uT2eCg ). I sucked it up last night because I saw how many people were changing their eating patterns after watching the movie and because I found myself often recommending it though I hadnt actually watched it. I bypassed my issue by watching the movie during my workout and just turning around and lifting weights whenever I saw they were about to show animals. :-D

Here are the links-

Website: http://www.foodincmovie.com/
Where you can watch on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyagLY1Nem8


Even if this is not your thing, I think you'll appreciate the info in the movie since it touches on so many subjects.

Also another example, though its not mentioned in the movie, are the health stats for meat-eaters. The #1 killer in the U.S. is heart disease and men have a 50% risk of dying from a heart attack (thats one out of two...). The risk drops down 15% for vegetarians and 4% for vegans (from John Robbins Pulitzer-nominated book, "Diet for a New America": http://www.newveg.av.org/realities.htm -Just control F to "heart attack" but plenty of other interesting stats on there). Wow right? The meat and dairy lobbies are pretty strong. This is stuff I didnt know before going vegetarian. I did it purely because I love animals and didnt think my taste palate was enough to justify suffering and killing. But I was impressed by the stats afterward. The stats are also ridiculous when it comes to colon cancer (risk increases by like 300% if u eat meat) and other cancers too. I know that for energetic reasons in Pranic Healing we recommend people go vegetarian when they're severely ill, but didnt know there was all kinds of medical evidence that correlated with it.


I'm on month 4 of being a vegetarian and am REALLY enjoying it. I'm currently at the weight and in the shape I was in when I used to do modeling. But back then I had to work really hard at the gym and count calories. Now I've simply cut out meat and try to stay away from processed foods as much as possible (which is easy because I have no desire to put it in my body after all that) and exercise at least 20 minutes a day, which might even be a walk around the block before going to bed on busy days- just enough to get my circulation and lymph system going (which is important too). I make it a point to eat at least half my meals raw (the book "Raw Food, Real World" is AWESOME if you are considering going raw or increasing raw fodos in your diets- it has 100 raw recipes), and I try to eat vegan when possible, but I'm neither a raw foodie or vegan, just vegetarian. And I eat as much as I want to and whenever I want to.

I feel healthier than ever, have more energy, more flexibility, my body is producing just as much muscle, and have even more inner-peace. :-D As I documented in the last entry, I felt a huge shift in regards to fear after about a month of of being vegetarian and realized it was because I was no longer putting into my body the fear and stress energy/chemicals that animals release when they are about to be killed and go into "fight or flight." Oh and during the last year I had experienced Kundalini Syndrome symptoms from time to time and that all has disappeared. Again if you are on a spiritual path, your physical body has to be able to handle all the energy you receive when you meditate! Thats one of the main reasons for the existence of yoga.

Also, if you believe in karma, going veg also gives you a great karmic boost. You reap what you sow... Of course everyone is free to eat animals. BUT if you CHOOSE to show mercy on the animal kingdom, then mercy is shown upon you. You get what you give. In Pranic Healing we're taught that when we're doing healings on people with severe ailments, we should advise for them to go veg so they can increase the mercy they receive. Law of Mercy-"Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy." And of course you are helping the environment on top of that. :-D It was the BP oil spill that triggered this shift in my life. I felt bad for the animals and realized that was pretty hypocritical since the # of animals killed by the oil spill were minimal compared to the estimated 9 million animals killed every HOUR so people can eat them. I immediately realized how out of integrity with myself I had been living in that area and decided to go vegetarian. I felt a huge burden just kind of lift off me immediately and miraculously I havent looked back once. Miraculous because I'd always been a meat and potatoes girl and strongly disliked the taste of all vegetables (I used to instanteously gag when I'd put any in my mouth and had considered hypnosis for it). So I'm still pretty amazed by this shift. ;-) And so I wanted to share with my readers. :-D You really can do anything.

Sending positive energy and lots of health your way!
J

How To Deal With Negative Emotions in a Healthy Way When They Rise Up

I’ve been really enjoying working through Shiva Wheeler's “When Your Voice is Authentic, You Don’t Have to Yell.” Every chapter and exercise is so incredibly short and simple, and yet every chapter has been very cathartic for me. Not sure if it’s a personal thing for me at this point in my journey or if the book is just on another level of awesomeness.

Yesterday’s lesson was on something that I find most people have a challenging time figuring out- how to deal with your emotions in a healthy way.

We all know you shouldn’t suppress emotions. If you do, they then get stuck in your energy body and chakras causing blocks and issues, eventually leading to physical disease. On top of that, when they get stuck in your system, they are then attracting more of the same stuff to you. So if you suppress anger, it gets stuck in your liver and then your energy field is holding anger and therefore attracting more anger to you. Same with distrust, heartache, fear, etc. Not good.

But at the same time many of us on a spiritual path, or even just a well-being path, try to avoid negative emotions like the plague. C’mon be honest, many are scared of negative emotions (hey "the only thing to fear is fear itself" didnt become a popular quote for no reason! People relate to it). We know negative energy attracts more of itself and before you know it you end up wallowing in negativity and things start going wrong and you feel worse and then more things go wrong and so on. When you’re feeling negative emotions you’re vibrating low and blocking your positive desires from manifesting, etc. Oh and since you know you’re “supposed” to feel peace, love, and trust, feeling anger or fear can make you feel like you’re messing up. We know feelings like anger, shame, and fear don’t help us any and we don’t want them! Anger steals your energy and can actually kill you, shame blocks your communication, fear restricts your freedom, and so on and so on. However, since everyone is a work in progress, negative emotions are normal. Just like your physical body has pain as an alert mechanism, your emotional body has negative emotions as its alert mechanism.

So people end up feeling confused in regards to how to deal with negative emotions when they rise. We want to avoid feeling them, but we’re not supposed to suppress them. And in the process of trying to avoid negative emotions many people end up suppressing them because they don’t know what else to do.

I loved Wheeler's guidance on the topic:

In modern psychology it is considered a healthy mark of progress to be in touch with your emotions. For both men and women the courage to feel emotions is but the beginning of the journey towards freedom. Feeling and acknowledging emotions while not solidifying them into one’s identity constitutes how to be an adult in handling their impact.

That’s a total gem right there. PERFECT guidance on the topic. So I’ll write it again on its own.

The key: Feeling and acknowledging emotions while not solidifying them into one’s identity constitutes how to be an adult in handling their impact.

Great, so how do you do that?


EXERCISE:

He has you observe your emotions in the 3rd person. And it’s actually pretty fun. Feels like giving a play-by-play of your life as its happening or being a narrator.

For the next 3 days, every time you start to feel an emotion or are feeling an emotion, DONT think or say “I'm angry” “I'm scared” “I’m feeling sad,” etc. Instead switch your words and thoughts to "This emotion is anger,” “This emotion is fear,” etc.

And then you just observe it go through you (its really just energy passing through you). Observe how it feels in your body and how it affects your body. Watch its’ effects on you like you’re watching a show. Stay detached.

Really energy should move right through u as long as you don’t identify with it & claim it as your own. It’s just energy passing through you, but when you identify with it by claiming you’re it (i.e. “I’m ___” ), then you’re making it part of you. And Wheeler says at that point you become invested in the emotion and then it doesn’t just pass through you easily. So just let it flow right through you watching it, knowing that it is NOT you. You’re not your emotions. Those are temporary things.

This strategy keeps you from suppressing because you actually identify and acknowledge the emotion rather than pretending it’s not there, but it doesn’t become you. From this detached perspective you’re better able to figure out what the emotion is alerting you to and how you should handle the situation/issue or what changes you need to make (as Rev. Michael says, “If vision doesn’t pull you, pain will push you.”).



My Personal Notes:

Funny that when I was a child, this was actually my strategy for physical pain. I figured out at an early age that if I observed physical pain and tried to figure out what the pain really felt like, its effect on me, and tried to describe it, the pain would decrease a lot. Detachment.

I started doing this exercise last night and am finding it useful and funny. As an example, of its application/effect- right when I started the exercise, I went into the restroom and a huge mosquito flew at me out of nowhere (the big flying spider looking ones). I immediately on reflex felt panic, screamed, jumped, and then stopped and said, “This emotion is fear.” (Identified it as a separate entity). Then noted how my shoulders had gone up, neck tightened, throat made a surprised sound, and a sensation was still traveling through my left lung. All the while the mosquito was still coming at me and I just stared at it and suddenly started laughing. I chose not to kill it or react. I just laughed at the fact that a tiny insect had made that wave of fear travel through my body and in a detached manner asked, “Why the fear?” And thought, “Because I don’t want it to touch me. But how many times has a mosquito touched you before? How many times has a mosquito bitten you in your sleep? Hundreds! And it was nothing. The world didn’t end. You didn’t even feel it. Yes, you think its gross for an insect to touch you, but its happened so many times- does it really warrant that fear? Looks like I've been holding an irrational fear of mosquitos I need to go ahead and release.” And I was just straight laughing at myself while sitting there with Mr. Mosquito. Please note that under normal circumstances I would’ve immediately left the bathroom and used a different one. And if I had been feeling particularly brave, I would’ve killed it (I think its gross to kill insects and try to avoid it). But last night I just chilled with it.

P.S. This exercise wasnt the cathartic part of this lesson for me, though I found it very practical and useful. There was another exercise where you wrote down your relationship to certain emotions and THAT was insight after insight for me- like 6 pages of it with major healing/shifts. Maybe I'll blog about it later.