I have always seen the recognition of our feelings as a way of connecting with our true and authentic selves, rather than seeing them as something we need to “overcome” in this life. 

Life without feeling, to me, is a life only half-lived, and to abandon the texture and colour that feeling gives to life, is to deny the depth and beauty of our own existence.  (I talk about this in much more detail in my DVD “The Emotional Aspects of Healing“)

Many spiritual teachings aim to go beyond feeling, to a place of joy, peace and surrender - and as I have spoken about before, this is a wonderful inspiration and guide - but not necessarily a way to live every day.

Our feelings can have very important messages about the way we are living our lives, and to work on bypassing the feeling rather than understanding it’s core, we can miss important signposts for our life.  In one of my favourite books “Riding Between the Worlds” by Linda Kohanov, she writes about this subject:

“…yet this is precisely the behavior that many religious leaders and holistic healers promote, as McLaren found during her search for a more soulful way to approach her feelings.

In order to “be more spiritual,” she strained to be emotionless and non-judgemental,” to “have only joy in my heart.” But this proved to be a dead end: “I saw quite clearly that happiness and joy could become very dangerous if they were trumpeted as the emotions of choice - as the only emotions any of us should ever feel.

I can’t count the number of people I’ve seen whose lives imploded after they disallowed the protection of anger, the intuition of fear, the rejuvenation of sadness, and the ingenuity of depression in order to feel only joy.

In short, I’ve found throughout my life that what we are taught about emotions is not only wrong - it’s often dangerously wrong.”

Part of healing is reclaiming our ability to feel and understand the wisdom behind our “negative” feelings.  In my journey as a practitioner, I am quite certain that healing can only take place when we explore this side of life, and that food, herbs and supplements will only take us so far down the healing path.

Just something to keep in mind as we explore this fascinating roller-coaster called life!

Following on from the topic of my last blog post, I found this video of a talk by Mark Bittman, where he explains in a really great way, what is wrong with what we eat.

Maybe not what I eat :-) or maybe even not what you eat either - but he speaks in a very down to earth sensible way about what the general public eats and what the problems with that are.

It is an enjoyable video to watch and Mark Bittman makes some great points - if you’re interested in learning a bit more about food and health, then I would encourage you to have a look at this one.

Mark Bittman - What’s Wrong With What We Eat..

This is an wonderful quote that I picked up from the Raw Power website www.rawpower.com.au  

 “An individual who eats the typical foods found in so-called “civilized society” who then changes to a raw-plant-food diet can discover energy they have never known. Eating a balanced mix of raw plant foods restores the body on a molecular level, building strong cells, radically naturalizing the body, raising alkalinity, and grounding the person in the natural world.

Every person is a work of art in progress. Either one can become progressively more beautiful, or one can follow the fate civilization has set out (mis-education, wage slavery, decay, illness, and an untimely death). Each action one takes determines which of these two destinies will be achieved. What we eat helps to guide our path. Eating determines what level of health our body will experience. Every bite of food put into the body should add to our strength, spirituality, and beauty. Each meal becomes part of who we are at the deepest level.”

- David Wolfe (A Leading Pioneer in the Raw Food Movement)

I have a fascination in all things unexplainable and this story certainly fits into that category.  I think the essence of this story is what is important, not the actual facts surrounding it.  Messages of love, tolerance and acceptance never get old with me…

Mellen-Thomas Benedict is an artist who survived a near-death experience (NDE) in 1982. He was dead for over an hour and a half. During that time, he rose up out of his body and went into the light.

Curious about the universe, he was taken far into the remote depths of existence, and even beyond, into the energetic void of nothingness behind the Big Bang.

Eminent near-death experience researcher Dr. Kenneth Ring has said, “His story is one of the most remarkable I have encountered in my extensive research on near-death experiences.”

The Near-Death Experience of Mellen-Thomas Benedict

In 1982, I died from terminal cancer. My condition was non-operable. I chose not to have chemotherapy. I was given six to eight months to live. Before this time, I had become increasingly despondent over the nuclear crisis, the ecology crisis, and so forth. I came to believe that nature had made a mistake—that we were probably a cancerous organism on the planet. And that is what eventually killed me.

Before my near-death experience, I tried all sorts of alternative healing methods. None helped. So I determined that this was between me and God. I had never really considered God. Neither was I into any kind of spirituality. But my approaching death sent me on a quest for more information about spirituality and alternative healing. I read various religions and philosophies. They gave hope that there was something on the other side.

I had no medical insurance, so my life savings went overnight on tests. Unwilling to drag my family into this, I determined to handle this myself. I ended up in hospice care and was blessed with an angel for my hospice caretaker, whom I will call “Anne.” She stayed with me through all that was to follow.

Into the Light

I woke up about 4:30 am and I knew that this was it. I was going to die. I called a few friends and said good-bye. I woke up Anne and made her promise that my dead body would remain undisturbed for six hours, since I had read that all kinds of interesting things happen when you die. I went back to sleep. The next thing I remember…. 

You can read the rest of the story here

Many a time I see a patient in clinic that suffers from quite severe food cravings that they have been unable to control.  Often it is a craving for carbohydrates in any form, whether it be a bread, sugar or alcohol addiction; or it may be for chocolate or other types of dairy products.

There are any number of reasons why people crave certain foods, or have addictions to them, but there are a couple of common physical reasons why.

Frequently when someone complains of cravings or food addictions, when I do their iridology examination, I find that there are signs that they have a very low production of stomach acid.  Upon questioning they will reel off a list of digestive complaints such as bloating, gas, reflux, indigestion etc.  What is happening here is a classic example of the person not absorbing nutrients out of their food due to a digestive problem (You can read another blog post on this subject that goes into more detail here).  The cravings are the body’s way of encouraging greater food intake to try to obtain the missing nutrients.  When we correct the digestion and the deficiencies, the cravings also reduce.

Another common reason for food cravings, and especially addictions to carbohydrates, is adrenal fatigue.  The body is searching for energy in any way it can get it, and the carbs help to produce a short burst of energy, that unfortunately doesn’t last.  This sets up a vicious cycle of unstable blood sugar levels that boost you up, then crash you back down, leaving you feeling even worse each time.  The answer isn’t in a short term sugar rush, but in supporting adrenal function, balancing blood sugar levels and managing stress so that you can easily make it through the day without fatigue.

Allergies can also cause what is termed “allergy addictions” whereby you actually crave the food that you are allergic to.  I find this most often in gluten intolerances, where the person eats wheat based bread at every meal, and feels quite ill without it.  It only takes a few days to break this cycle, and once the substance is out of the system, the cravings are no longer there.

We often see our body as “the enemy”, something we have to fight with to remain healthy.  But if we remember that our symptoms are just a pointer to the real underlying cause, we can investigate and correct the cause, not just the symptom.

In food cravings and addictions I don’t think I have ever found the cause to be a lack of willpower.  That’s just not it.  Cravings are just a sign that there is an imbalance that we need to discover and address. 

Real healing is about understanding the language of our body and the meaning of it’s words – when we can do that, we will be able to truly heal in a way that is gentle, easy and nurturing.