12 Steps to Raw Foods Part 8

Having a healthy body can be instrumental in both finding and fulfilling one's life mission; otherwise instead of helping others, we will be the ones in need of help. Our body, our psyche, and our spirit are the only instruments we have for living; without them we cannot perform any actions and cannot accomplish any goals. Therefore, if we possess the best possible health attainable, our life mission can be performed better. People who have a chance to improve their health through better eating might discover benefits of much greater value than merely good physical health.

Considering all of this reasoning, I encourage you to now think of all the possible missions that you are going to accomplish by following a healthy lifestyle and choose one purpose as your most important target. I would like to clarify that "becoming a raw-foodist" is not a goal, but rather a means for reaching a goal. Write your main goal down. Read it out loud. Does your main goal sound exciting to you? I recommend that you learn your main goal by heart and repeat it as an affirmation whenever you need support. I hope this goal will provide you with strength, support, and inspiration for many years.

I would like to share with you another tactic useful for overcoming temptations. The following exercise helps you identify places and times in your life where you need to be alert and ready for a challenge. List in a column all possible temptations that might interfere with attaining your main goal. Try to remember all the places where you have been tempted in the last couple of weeks and list them all, even if you have to continue for several pages. To help you recognize your possible temptations, I offer some of the examples listed by students in my workshops: the coffee smell at the bookstore lunch break at work vending machines in the lobby commercials my friends eating chocolate mom's cooking returning from work after 5 p.m. hungry free samples in the store free candy at my bank pa.s.sing a drive-thru on the way home being inside a gas station partic.i.p.ating in a party popcorn at the movie theater being the only raw-foodist in my home Considering the potentially immense power of each tiny temptation, you want to be prepared to be "attacked" at any time. By all means, try to avoid temptations whenever possible. Take all tempting cooked foods out of your house, office, and car. Don't leave a hidden stash of your favorite cooked food in the house, because the thought of it will be chasing you until you eat this food, making it hard for you to relax or concentrate on your work. When we are hungry, angry, lonely, or depressed, we often think that eating our favorite food will help numb our feelings.

Try avoiding advertis.e.m.e.nts at least for several months. When advertisers promote eating junk food, they portray a good time where everyone is smiling. The advertisers leave out the negative consequences of unhealthy eating, such as sickness, becoming overweight, or depression. Most of the ads connect cooked food to happy social events. The advertisers attempt to create an image suggesting that if we eat the product advertised, we'll be as happy and fulfilled as the people appear in the ad. We all know the ad is staged and the people are actors, but we still crave the food and the feeling in the ad.

Now write your strategies next to each temptation listed. Try to subst.i.tute temptations with pleasant activities, rather than simply deleting tempting actions from your life (which isn't always possible anyway). Prepare specific strategies for the enticements you cannot avoid. Be realistic and don't place much of your hope on your will power. Following are various strategies used by some of my students: Coffee smell at the bookstore: I will order books online.

Lunch break at work: I will always bring a big, delicious raw lunch to work.

Vending machines in the lobby: I will recite a poem while pa.s.sing it.

Commercials on TV: I will watch only rental movies.

Commercials in magazines: I will ask someone to remove pages with ads before reading a magazine myself or read a book instead.

My friends eating chocolate: I will eat a fruit at the same time or I will say affirmations.

Mom's cooking: I will teach mom raw dishes, buy her a blender.

Returning from work after 5 p.m.: I will put on nice music.

Free samples in the store: I will stuff my mouth with raisins.

Free candy at my bank: I will use drive-thru banking.

Pa.s.sing a drive-thru on a way home: I will choose another route home.

Being inside a gas station: I will pay outside with a credit card.

Partic.i.p.ating in a party: I will excuse myself now. When I feel stronger I will bring my own dish to the party.

Popcorn at the movie theater: I will bring a bag of sliced fruits and veggies.

Being the only raw-foodist in my home: I will designate a part of our kitchen as a temptation-free zone.

Denying ourselves little pleasures can be frustrating, especially in the beginning. Try to concentrate on the positive side of your transformation to raw-food eating. Remind yourself often that while you choose to miss a party, you are gaining qualities of much greater value than the quick pleasure of eating. While eating healthy, you are constantly receiving the precious gifts of good health in many different forms: vibrant energy, clarity of mind, good-looking skin, sweet breath, improved vision, and countless more. Most importantly, you are coming closer and closer to your main goal.

Research has demonstrated that if we keep avoiding daily temptations, we eventually develop an automatic (subconscious) response to them and stop noticing temptations altogether.3 When you have built some resistance to temptations, you may go out to restaurants alone or better yet, with a friend. You may bring your own dressing and some raw crackers or little sprouted seeds to put on top of the salad.

To make going out easier and more enjoyable, I recommend using a "restaurant card." My friend Jonathan Weber invented this card a long time ago and it has since served thousands of raw-fooders. You can make your "restaurant card" approximately the size of a business card. Present it to a waitress when she takes your order. This card saves me unnecessary complications when I go out to eat. Instead of lengthy explanations of what I can or cannot eat, I simply hand my card to the waitress. My experience has shown that most restaurant chefs find this approach to be helpful and appreciate a chance to be creative. Thanks to using my "restaurant card," my dishes always reach my table attractive and delicious. Print many of these cards and give them away to all your friends. When waitresses report the growing number of requests for raw foods to their managers, raw-food dishes will appear on the menus of many more restaurants.

Jonathan's Card

After a couple of months of staying on a raw-food diet and deliberately handling your temptations, you will notice that you stop paying attention to restaurants and any cooked food in general. You might also get the false impression that your attraction to cooked food has disappeared, and you may feel tempted to eat or try small pieces of cooked food once in a while. That is probably the most deceptive enticement of all. I have seen many people unwittingly terminate their raw-food diet with one such bite. I recommend that you try to forget about cooked delicacies altogether and instead keep cheris.h.i.+ng and approaching your main goal.

Step 6

GETTING SUPPORT.

"Man is a child of his environment."

-s.h.i.+nichi Suzuki Humans have been challenged by temptations since the beginning of time, or perhaps since they experienced their first pleasures. The ancient Greek poet Homer created a perfect metaphor for temptation-the Sirens. In Greek mythology, the Siren is a creature with the head of a female and the body of a bird, and it lives on small rocky islands. With the irresistible charm of their songs the Sirens lured mariners to their destruction on the rocks surrounding their islands. In his epic poem The Odyssey, Homer described how the main character Odysseus conquered the Sirens (temptations) using his intelligence and the support of his crew. Forewarned of the Sirens' seductive musical reputation, Odysseus saved his s.h.i.+ps from the fatal songs. When they pa.s.sed the islands of the Sirens, he had the sailors stuff their ears with wax. Odysseus ordered his crew to tie him to the mast, for he wanted to hear the beautiful singing. When Odysseus's s.h.i.+p approached, the Sirens began to sing, their words even more enticing than their melody. They were promising to give knowledge to every man who came to them, along with ripe wisdom and a quickening of the spirit. Odysseus' heart ran with longing, but the ropes held him, and the s.h.i.+p quickly sailed to safe waters.1 I find this story meaningful. I doubt that Odysseus would have stayed on the s.h.i.+p had he not been tied to the mast. Without the tight ropes, he would have followed the Sirens and died, as everybody else had before him. He wouldn't have been able to stand the temptation by will power alone. I a.s.sume that Odysseus had unusually strong will power, since he was portrayed as a hero in a poem. Yet he ordered his sailors to tie him down. This is an important message for all of us: to conquer temptation, being a hero is not enough. One also has to be wise and not afraid to ask for help. At certain times, when we encounter an unusually strong temptation, we should seek help from outside ourselves, from another person or a group of people. We must "tie ourselves to the mast" ahead of time, before "pa.s.sing the islands of the Sirens." That is, we must seek support to avoid especially strong temptations.

I recommend that you get all the support you possibly can. Following are several ideas any beginner can use to organize support.

Go to raw-food potlucks or better yet, open your own house to weekly or monthly raw-food potlucks. You will have to do some cleaning, spend some time and energy, but the support that you will gain is invaluable. The two main benefits of a potluck are that it is free and everyone is challenged to prepare, decorate, and serve a dish. In my hometown of Ashland, Oregon, we have several ongoing small potlucks in different homes, and once a month we have a large potluck, open to all people.

Another popular way of supporting yourself is organizing a weekly "soup and salad dinner for five dollars." Buy any produce on sale, prepare a large bowl of soup, cut up some veggies, and make a jug of dressing. Then invite people from your local community to stop by and have dinner at your place. Put flyers up at the local health food store or place an announcement in the newspaper. You may do it once a week at a certain time, say 57 p.m. on Wednesdays. Put a jar for donations on the table. This event has many benefits over potlucks: people don't have to worry about preparing food, they have a social environment without having to tip a waiter, it is reasonably priced, they could always afford to bring a friend, and the host makes a little cash. We have kept this event going in Ashland very successfully for long periods of time.

Begin teaching cla.s.ses about raw food. If you don't want to teach the theory, you can teach food preparation. After only two weeks on a raw-food diet, you will be capable of making at least a couple of dishes, maybe almond milk, live soup, salad dressing, etc. Share with others how to prepare these basic dishes. You could charge money or teach for free, because remember, you're doing it for the sake of support.

Subscribe to raw-food magazines.* They usually contain the freshest news and most current ideas on many important raw-food issues. There are so many different writers sharing their encouragement, personal experiences, and viewpoints. Raw-food magazines give incredible support. I always read them cover to cover.

Search the Internet. There are many websites devoted to living foods. Many of them have personal ads, bulletin boards, and chat rooms where you can meet a raw buddy or find raw-food communities near you. Following is a list of some popular websites: http://www.goneraw.com http://www.living-foods.net http://www.rawfamily.com http://www.rawlivingfoodresources.com http://www.naturesrawenergy.com http://www.treeoflife.nu http://www.arnoldsway.com http://www.RawRawGirls.com http://www.rawfoodtalk.com I recommend that you sign up for a couple of e-newsletters. Following are the websites where you may find some of the most helpful newsletters: http://www.arnoldsway.com http://www.TheGardenDiet.com http://www.rawfamily.com http://www.alokhealth.com http://www.alokhealth.com www.chidiet.com Goto raw food lectures, not only to listen to the speaker but also to communicate with other attendees-I am not sure which is more important! For this reason, I favor going to raw-food festivals, where for one flat fee you can listen to many distinguished speakers and share valuable conversations with hundreds or thousands of other partic.i.p.ants, enjoy gourmet meals together, and find new friends with similar life interests or sometimes with the same health issues. Following is a list of several popular raw-food events: Vibrant Living Expo, annual, California, USA. For more details, call: 707-964-2420 or visit: www.RawFoodChef.com.

Raw Spirit Retreat, annual, Oregon, USA. For more details, call 503-650-4447.

The Fresh Festival, annual, United Kingdom. For more details visit: http://www.fresh-network.com/festival/index.htm.

Raw World: International Festival of Raw Food Enthusiasts, annual, Costa Rica. For more details visit: www.rawworld.org.

Raw Spirit Festival, annual, Arizona, USA. For more details, call: 928-708-0784; 928-284-0759 and 928-776-1497.

To create a more supportive environment around you, maintain close physical proximity to people and groups that are a.s.sociated with your main goal, as well as with staying on a healthy diet. For example, signing up with your local jogging club will bring you in touch with runners who are also interested in health; therefore they will indirectly provide support for you. You may become involved in activities with groups of people who have related or similar interests. They might reinforce your motivations and provide an environment that has little or no temptations. Following is a list of various ideas from my students: Become a member of the local YMCA.

Visit the farmers' market weekly.

Become a member of a local CSA coop (Community-Supported Agriculture).

Partic.i.p.ate in local Earth Save groups.

Travel to a raw-food festival once a year.

Grow an organic garden in the back yard.

Get a pa.s.s to a swimming pool.

Sign up at a fitness club.

Partic.i.p.ate in a ma.s.sage workshop.

Get involved in U-pick activities at local organic orchards.

Become involved in vegan potlucks.

When staying on a raw-food diet without support, you may feel that you are the only raw-fooder in the whole world and even that you are weird. At the same time, the support of even one person can make you feel as though half of the world has already adopted this way of eating. Keep in mind that by staying on raw foods, you too are providing support for others.

*Living Nutrition magazine, published in California. More information at: www.livingnutrition.com. Get Fres.h.!.+ Magazine, published in the United Kingdom. More information at: http://www.fresh-network.com/getfres.h.i.+ndex.htmhttp://www.fresh-networkhttp://www.fresh-network.com/getfresh/index.htm.

Step 7

GRAt.i.tUDE AND.

FORGIVENESS.

"Grat.i.tude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others."

-Cicero When we adopt a raw-food lifestyle, we may feel deprived of our habitual pleasures, especially when we watch others enjoying cooked delicacies that used to be our own favorites. Being hungry, angry, lonely, or depressed at that moment could add even more frustration to our feelings of misery. I would like to share with you a method that can help eliminate feelings of deprivation from your life forever.

We all have different perspectives on life. Some of us feel that life is becoming increasingly more frustrating, especially considering all the natural cataclysms and political challenges. At the same time, others view life as a totally beautiful and enjoyable experience. Initially, I thought that our opinions on the fairness of life depended on the level of our material wealth. Later, I met some poor people who were content with their lives and wealthy persons who were deeply upset about their lives. While watching many people caught in a material pursuit (including myself), I developed a strong interest in the true origins of people's contentment in life. I came to the conclusion that there are two opposite perspectives on life: the materialistic perspective and the grateful perspective.

The materialistic approach to life guarantees discontentment and frustration, as there is no objective limit to the acquisition of personal possessions. There is no constant measure that could be marked as "enough." At the same time, only the very basic possessions that satisfy our essential needs such as food, clothes, and shelter can bring us a sensible feeling of contentment. The majority of items beyond the basic needs convey very little enjoyment to their possessor.

Contrary to this, grat.i.tude inevitably leads us to becoming aware of the unlimited wealth that life holds for every one of us. Grateful people tend to be happier, more optimistic, more satisfied with their lives than their less grateful counterparts. Michael E. McCullough, a professor from Florida, provides experimental evidence that grat.i.tude leads to improvements in psychological and even physical well-being.1 McCullough's groundbreaking research demonstrates that "people who place too much emphasis on materialistic pursuits-people for whom obtaining wealth and material possessions takes priority over meaningful relations.h.i.+ps, community involvement, and spirituality-tend to be unhappy people. In general, they are dissatisfied with their lives, and tend to experience high levels of negative emotion. They are at risk for a variety of mental disorders. In contrast, grateful people-people who readily recognize the many ways in which their lives are enriched by the benevolent actions of others-tend to be extraordinarily happy. They experience high levels of positive emotion and are generally satisfied with their lives."2 Psychology demonstrates three main reasons that may lead people to higher materialistic pursuits: insecurity that is formed when people don't have their basic psychological needs met, such as safety, competence, and connectedness.

lack of confidence formed from being raised in a family in which the parents were divorced or separated.

materialistic themes that flood modern society in the form of advertis.e.m.e.nts, compelling people to unconsciously a.s.similate money-oriented values. For example, television frequently presents unrealistic media images that reduce many viewers' life sat-isfaction.3 Being constantly exposed to a vast variety of advertising and financial challenges, we may increase our materialistic perception of life. According to McCullough's research, gratefulness is such a powerful approach to life that it may reduce people's materialistic strivings.4 I invite you to apply this valuable information about the power of grat.i.tude to any situation in your life. Below, I present two different approaches to watching another person consume a cooked delicacy.

The materialistic approach: What is that heavenly smell? Oh no! It's pizza! Look at how they are enjoying it. How come I am not allowed to enjoy it? Am I a monk? They don't look as if they are going to die. Can it be true that I will never again in my entire life be able to partake of such a pleasant meal? Oh, how lucky these fellows are! I wish I could enjoy pizza now as they do! What torture, poor me. Oh, that aroma ... it brings tears to my eyes. So many of the sweetest memories come to mind, the best times. Now they are over. E-eh.

The grateful approach: That smell is oddly familiar. Wow, pizza. I had a lot of it in my life! More than one could dream of. Now it is time to take care of my health. Yeah, health is my priority now. All these people eating pizzas will be delighted to discover a healthy diet in their time. I am grateful that I am on a healthy diet already. I do feel a lot better. I am so glad that I will not have to be sick again. In only fifteen minutes I will be home. What do I have in my fridge? Those Ha.s.s avocados I bought yesterday should be perfectly ripe today. It will only take a couple of minutes to prepare guacamole with lemon, tomatoes, and jalapeno. Uh, my mouth is watering! I have fresh romaine lettuce, tomatoes, and a giant organic mango that will be so yummy and nouris.h.i.+ng. Oh, I am looking forward to my raw dinner that will leave me feeling light and wonderful. I greatly appreciate what the raw-food diet is doing for my body and mind. How fortunate I am! What a blessing life is.

Practicing thankfulness is the most effective coping technique that I am aware of. To develop a grateful att.i.tude, we need to practice one simple activity-notice the positive sides of events in our lives. The very best way to do this is to keep a grat.i.tude journal. Buy yourself a notebook and start writing three to five grateful notes daily. I think that we should be grateful not only for the positive but also the negative experiences. Often it is the most painful events in our lives that shape the qualities in ourselves we value most. I met a person who kept his grat.i.tude journal for ten years. He claimed that his life turned from misery to happiness, thanks to his journal. Other people keep their grat.i.tude journals until they develop a subconscious, ongoing mental pattern of thankfulness. In one experiment, writing notes of appreciation led to increases in high-frequency heart rate variability in partic.i.p.ants. The high-frequency band of the heart rate power spectrum is believed to reflect the input of the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system to the heart and is related to a variety of beneficial mental and physical health outcomes.5 The following exercise will help you to experience the powerful s.h.i.+ft in how you feel from practicing grat.i.tude: Write or say three things that you are grateful for right now and carefully observe your feelings. Describe or write down your feelings.

Thankfulness goes side by side with forgiveness. Grateful people who are accustomed to seeing the brighter side of life are most likely to feel empathy towards the person who hurt them and be able to forgive the offender.

Research by the Gallup Organization found that 94% of Americans have prayed for forgiveness at some time.6 Therefore, forgiveness appears to be important to nearly all of us. Like grat.i.tude, fostering the quality of forgiveness is vital for experiencing a good life. Forgiveness requires giving up long-held resentments and negative judgments of transgressors, and sometimes it even requires the ability to be grateful for the hard lesson received. Forgiving transforms bitterness into a neutral feeling, or even a positive feeling, making it more feasible for us to feel happier.

In addition to having a positive impact on our happiness, forgiveness brings us better physical health. It may reduce depression and anxiety. Scientists recently discovered that when people ruminate about the offense they suffered, they experience a short-term increase in cortisol, which can result in mood swings, lack of motivation, loss of muscle, and loss of appet.i.te.7 Therefore, feelings of revenge or rumination can seriously undermine our ability to stay on a raw-food diet and consequently inhibit the healing process itself. On the other hand, practicing grat.i.tude and forgiveness can make your life on a raw-food diet more enjoyable and will have a positive impact on your health, your mood, and your life in general.

Step 8

ACTUALIZING.

DREAMS.

"Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson Raw-fooders often say that raw food is not merely a diet but a lifestyle because it transforms most aspects of one's life. In addition to improving health, staying on a raw-food diet awards us with more time, more energy, and more money.

Time. Perhaps you will save the greatest amount of time by not getting sick and going to the doctor now and in the future. Furthermore, you will gain two to three hours per day from needing less sleep and no naps. The third big time saving will come from less cooking.

Ironically, most people believe that preparing raw food takes a long time. In my opinion, the only process that consumes time is learning to use the equipment: blender, processor, juicer, and dehydrator. The preparation process itself in most cases takes minutes. Raw cuisine totally excludes such time-consuming procedures as preheating the oven, baking, boiling, steaming, frying, sauteing, and of course was.h.i.+ng and scrubbing greasy skillets, pots, pans, and the stove. Your sparkling clean stove is just sitting quietly in the corner of the kitchen, always cool and spotless, covered with jars of sprouts or a large cutting board. Was.h.i.+ng the dishes after a raw-food meal also takes only minutes.