by natalia | Sep 24, 2008 | Uncategorized
Have you wondered why many of my blogs seem to have nothing to do with food and diet when you come to this website predominantly for nutrition and diet information? If so, I’m happy to take this moment to explain.
First, the whole reason for cleaning up the diet is to free yourself of concern over what to eat and how to stay healthy so you can enjoy greater contentment and clarity and be more present in your life. This work is not just about healing physical imbalances and looking more attractive. It’s about establishing the very foundation of a richer, more evolved lifestyle.
Second, once you have made this way of eating part of the natural rhythm in your daily routine, it’s time to clear the emotional and mental blockages. Cleansing and empowering your other energy centers will make it easier to release any remaining issues around food.
Third, the specificity of the diet has been fully covered in my books, web content, audio release for women and, finally, in my latest book which will be coming out this spring, Detox for Women. However, the universal laws of the body (which recognize health as clean cells) are what matter most, not the minutiae of new nutrition facts that just distract us from the core truths.
Nonetheless, the minutiae are what many people are seeking. “What’s new in health?” and “Should I be taking a super-food or macca powder or MSM?” are the kinds of questions I’m frequently asked. Try not to fall into this trap. By all means, read and study as much as necessary to digest and assimilate the information, but once you learn the core physical laws, I urge you to stay focused on the method of cleansing. You who have followed this work are no longer “seekers”—you are implementers and adepts. This work is simple and eternal: awaken and release the waste based on your transition level.
Food has become a social obsession in our culture. I’m trying to set people free of that obsession rather than feed it. This is why I have shown you how to detoxify intelligently and how to keep food simple and delicious so you can enjoy what you eat. Once you’ve mastered these practices, they should no longer occupy your mind—just as should not have to focus on multiplication tables once you have memorized them. It will become a natural way of life, your body will respond with health and vitality, and you will discover that physical cleansing is just a gateway to more creative endeavors.
One reader recently told me she wished I would hold lectures like the major raw food proponents. Since they were actively speaking and she was hungry for more diet information, she allowed herself to be swayed by their fervor that “raw is the law” and can be eaten in any quantities and in any combinations. Now, of course, she was feeling unwell and heavy and she wished she had not listened to them. Fortunately, since our conversation, she has remedied her mistakes and is feeling great again!
I caution you strongly to weigh the messages of these fervent raw food lectures or other dietary messages with what you have learned here about natural law and the “awaken and release” technique underlying intelligent cleansing. I might do more lectures in the future, but for now the information is here for the taking. If you have discovered that it works for you, don’t compromise by changing it because someone can speak convincingly about the virtues of a product or other detox program.
I cannot tell you how many raw food business owners (particularly women) come to me saying they are not feeling well—they are feeling tired, bloated and constipated rather than experiencing the “high” of the raw lifestyle despite their strict adherence to it. I explain why and show them how to fix their imbalances, addressing food combining, the density of the foods they are eating, the importance of some cooked vegetables at dinner, and bowel cleansing. They inevitably look wide-eyed at the mere thought of steamed broccoli or a baked yam and begin to salivate, but then quickly interject “I could never” because they have been preaching a 100% raw food diet to their customers.
The idea that in order to reap the benefits of raw food you must eat 100% raw misrepresents the whole purpose of raw food and ignores transition completely. When 100% raw food fanatics take the leap and indulge in some cooked vegetables, they immediately feel better, their bowels start working again overnight, and they become energized and lean. They are stumped…how could this be? They thought cooked food was evil.
Remember, a person who can get up in front of a crowd and convince you that something is true doesn’t necessarily know the truth. While a lecturer may not be deliberately trying to mislead you, he or she might be wrapped up in a particular agenda and belief system that is not for your highest good.
Politicians, religious leaders, sales clerks, and motivational speakers at large are usually very convincing, and health enthusiasts are no different. But common sense tells us we must be highly discerning. There is a lot of information out there and countless self-proclaimed experts who are vying for your mind and yet know nothing about the true laws of nature. Please be discerning with all that you hear, even with what I tell you. Measure everything against the highest good that you know.
If you have fallen into this trap, remember that the truth will always wait patiently for you to return to it—but it’s not going to chase you either. When you’ve had your fill with all the information floating around, all the sales pitches, all the complicated nutrition advice sending you to this supplement and that super-food powder and that micronutrient, the truth will be here in its simplicity, without any pomp and grandeur, waiting for you to rest your weary dietary confusion on its shores.
Until next time, I remain…
Your dedicated servant,
Natalia
by natalia | Sep 16, 2008 | Uncategorized
Many of you have heard the saying that our body is a temple. What does this mean exactly? The original concept carries a Biblical connotation because there is a text in the Bible which reads, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) But the concept is not the exclusive domain of scripture or religion of any origin—it predates them. It is about the true purpose of the physical body.
It is essential for seekers of health and happiness to realize that health occurs only when the physical body is clear enough to function in its intended role for the Spirit. Health is not the numbers on a medical checkup sheet or the number on a scale. Health is when the physical body supports the Spirit’s journey through the world of form. The body is a vessel for the Spirit’s expression and experience in the material world. Therefore, when the body is clogged, the Spirit’s experience becomes compromised. The body becomes a liability rather than fulfilling its intended purpose as a vehicle for exploration.
Through the body, the Spirit is able to see, hear, touch, taste, emote, challenge physical boundaries, experience physical endurance, interact with others, and so much more. If you contaminate the body, you contaminate and handicap the Spirit. This accounts for so much of human suffering in contemporary society, but it is completely reversible if you simply know-how!
I have often wished for a way to do more than educate and motivate people who are suffering, but we each must do it for ourselves and undertake to free our own Spirit—by literally helping it to re-member itself (put itself back together). I can help show you the way and guide by example, just as others have done for me. Once your vessel is clear and functional again and your Spirit can flow freely, you will discover your inherent power.
The Spirit, or Being, experiences the world of form through a system made up of the following four components, or energy centers:
1) The physical body (cells, tissues, organs, blood, lymph)
2) The will center (action and reaction stimulated by motivation)
3) The emotional/heart center (feeling and expressing feeling)
4) The mind (thinking, projecting thought)
We are truly healthy only when these four components are clear and functioning in the best interest of the Spirit (which is really the fifth component of Being). We need to cleanse them in this order, for as each component is cleansed, the next one automatically shifts for the better.
In my practice today, I rarely encounter a person who is clear on all these levels. Most of my clients are out of balance in the physical body, the will center, and the emotional center, and a growing number are also imbalanced in the mind center (or on the mental plane). What I have discovered is that reordering/cleansing the physical body has a dramatic healing effect on the other centers—so much so that I strongly encourage making deep tissue cleansing a first resort, or at the very least a tandem process with any other therapies, for those with imbalances in the other centers.
Hence, I have always stressed that it is more important to cleanse the body than to undertake talk therapy or other therapeutic modalities. We can make the most efficient strides by addressing the body’s distortions first. As the body clears, many of our emotional and mental disorders (anger, aggression, frustration, jealousy, moodiness, poor focus, etc.) also disappear. Any remaining imbalances, we can assume, are not directly related to the physical blockages, but rather rooted in our present or past life experiences.
We can trace the origins of our imbalances further back than within our own lifetimes. The corruption of the will center (the solar plexus energy center around the navel; the center of action and reaction), emotional center (the energy center in the heart), and mind (the energy center in the brain) occurred over eons of generations living out of alignment with our true nature. (Some refer to this as “the fall.”)
Once out of alignment, we made more and more choices that further alienated us from our true origins. We started mistaking harmful behaviors and substances for appealing behaviors and substances, and in our distorted rearview mirror, we lost track of the path back home—which now appeared boring and difficult compared to the material indulgences ahead. We were like kids in a candy store, grabbing all the colorful sweets by the fistful, not pausing to reflect or anticipate the stomach aches until after we’d stuffed ourselves sick!
Eventually, however, we were consuming these unfit substances with regularity, disturbing the flow of our life force energy (Spirit) and deeply contaminating our cells and tissues with indigestible waste. The consequent stagnation of the Spirit manifested in slower metabolisms, organ dysfunction, and bacterial imbalances…which, of course, led to moodiness and a dramatic loss of vitality.
We passed along these physical, emotional, and mental imbalances to our children, who in turn would pass them along to their own children, and so on. Over the generations, the collective imbalances have intensified into much more severe manifestations of physical, willful, and emotional expression—such as extreme illness, abuse, depression, repression, and rage. We’ve learned that in order to feel good, we must consume “candy” and seek approval from the outside world. We are like drug addicts, mainlining toxins into our bodies.
At this stage, mankind has completely lost touch with its self-sovereignty. When the snowballing imbalances reach the mental plane and the mind becomes increasingly distorted, we turn to medical experts and institutions. However, when we try to fix mental and emotional disorders through drugs or traditional therapy, we ignore their root cause: a physical vessel being thrown so far off course that physical imbalances penetrated the emotional plane so deeply, they wound up on the mental plane.
In a generation so mired in physical and emotional imbalances, it is high time we take an honest look at the origins of these imbalances. As we cleanse the physical organism first, allowing residue of blockages to dissolve, our actions tip back into balance (the will), our emotions heal (the heart), and any mental disorders (the mind) finally lift, leaving the body clear and harmonious for the Spirit.
Self-help books, psychology, chakra balancing, and other new age therapies can help support your efforts, but they will not get to the core of your imbalances if you do not use them in tandem with deep tissue cleansing. Clearing the muck out of the physical body through cell/tissue cleansing is the necessary first step, and it will work wonders if you proceed intelligently.
Once you cleanse the physical body, you can correct any remaining imbalances by cleansing the emotional or will centers. If you attempt this in the reverse order, you will spend untold time and effort to heal many ills that only need physical cleansing. My friend and colleague Gil Jacobs will tell you it happens all the time: someone will get on the colonic table feeling irritable and upset about some outside circumstance, and then, when the waste and gas pressure have left the body, feels happy, calm and untroubled. So much of our emotional experience is due to our physical obstruction!
Remember, your body is a vessel of your Spirit’s journey through this life. Cleanse each level of the Spirit, starting with the physical and working your way right on up to the mental plane, clearing all the blockages to the pureness of your true Being.
In Divine Balance,
Natalia
by natalia | Sep 15, 2008 | Uncategorized
Now and then a subject comes up that captures my attention so much that I have to drop everything—all of my projects and daily plans—to address it. This happened to me today as I read “The Bipolar Puzzle” by Jennifer Egan in The New York Times Magazine. In this article, Egan investigates portraits of families with children diagnosed as bi-polar/manic depressive. She reveals the day-to-day battles, including explosive fits, sibling trauma, deep family pain, confusing doctor visits, ever-changing diagnoses, and multiple yet mostly ineffective attempts at medicating with Ritalin, Risperdal, Depakote, Lamictal (both anti-seizure drugs), psychotropics, and Lithium.
These stories do not have happy endings.
The painful mental and emotional imbalances that are manifesting in children today are beyond the scope of psychiatrists and medications. As I always say, pain is a call for change, so the greater the pain, the louder the call for change. The common childhood imbalances (diagnosed as ADHD, bi-polar/manic depressive, and hyperactivity) clearly show that significant changes are in order, but the necessary changes are often difficult for parents and doctors to recognize or accept.
Let me spotlight five truths that lead to the kind of disconnect that inevitably results in our children’s emotional and mental imbalances. We must recognize these critical pieces of the puzzle if we are to protect our children and their futures.
1. Love with a capital “L” is the primary ingredient: Let’s understand what this really means. Of course, everyone says, “I love my child.” But few people today recognize that Love is a vibration, a pure current of energy. You give and share Love when your body harmonizes with that vibration. When most people say they love something, what they mean is that either they admire it or would like to be near it to feel more complete, safe, or powerful. To these people, I would say: Do not mistake Love for not mutual need or mutual admiration.
Most people were not Loved properly by their parents so they don’t know what unconditional Love really feels like. How can you consciously give Love if you don’t even know what it is? When you emanate pure Love, everyone around you will receive it. You can amplify this current and direct it as you wish, to connect with others.
In order to tap into the pure current of Love, you must clear the cacophony of combative currents—including anxiety, fear, strain, impatience, and selfish intent. Not an easy task, because most people are wired by the modern world to carry these kinds of currents on a daily basis. How can children possibly be calm and harmonious when they swim in the energetic field of their parents’ inharmonious lives?
We want happy, balanced children, and yet children absorb and reflect their parents and their environments. They carry through their very DNA the experiences of the family lineage just as they do their hair, skin, eye color, height, and bone structure. Let us not overlook our emotional genes!
Love is essential to human development. Add to this fact that the drugs used to correct emotional imbalances don’t actually dissolve pain, but only suppress it, just as a cold suppressant only relieves symptoms temporarily. Human pain is powerful, explosive, and should never be suppressed. Suppression only sets the stage for much more acute emotional pain and mental imbalance down the line.
The only true course of healing is for parents to begin the profound process of dissolving their own emotional pain and social programming, which block the Love vibration from their children. How do you do this? Put aside time every day to reflect on why you act and react as you do. Write down all the social conditionings, inner pains, frustrations, fears, resentments, regrets, and hurts that may be directing your life in both obvious and subtle ways. See how they block clarity and harmony in your life.
Also, you must gradually wean yourself off stimulants (such as white flour, sugars, alcohol, nicotine, drugs, etc.) that you are addicted to and which block free, self-directed choice. If you don’t want your children to be victims of addiction, the change must start with you.
2. We must honor the sacred “fourth trimester.” I adopted this wonderful concept of “the fourth trimester” from the essential parenting book. The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff. In the first 100 days following birth, a baby needs nearly constant contact with its mother (or other loving caregiver, if necessary). The baby must adjust from about 40 weeks of total security and warmth in the womb to the lonely world of cribs, rockers, and strollers. Ancient cultures understood that the 100 days following birth are sacred, and in many traditions, such as in Tibet, the baby was never taken out of the hearth of its family home during the first three months of its life.
In our culture, infants are almost instantly thrust into car seats, malls, and strangers’ arms long before they are emotionally ready to absorb the violent energies of the modern world. We argue that our lifestyle makes this a necessity, but too often the price we pay is an emotionally and mentally imbalanced child. As so many parents are discovering, there is no miracle cure—the drugs are not working (in fact, they are highly toxic and cause other imbalances) and therapy can only do so much. The inconvenience of honoring the “fourth trimester” is miniscule compared to that of trying to rebalance a child who has been thrown off balance from the moment of birth.
3. Proper feeding according to natural law is essential: Nature’s design is perfect. Breastfeeding delivers the ideal food to the infant and offers the essential closeness the mother and baby need to share their love and connect with each other’s essence. Granted, women today do not have the purest breast milk and are not always calm when they breastfeed, but it remains the best option available.
Follow up with a proper toddler and childhood diet of consistently clean, unadulterated foods. Feeding your child formula, soy, and rice cereals will lead to gas, intestinal distress, and addiction, which will likely translate to fatigue, moodiness, and hyperactivity.
4. The perils of television are insidious: Watching the occasional episode of children’s shows like “The Smurfs” or “Dragon Tales” is probably perfectly benign in the large scheme of things. But in most households today, the TV is a constant presence. Children are watching shows that cultivate a herd mentality, and even worse, they are absorbing commercials that are filled with subliminal messages designed to program their minds.
I let my own kids, ages 6 and 8, pick among videos that I feel are appropriate and that they really enjoy (such as Annie, The Wizard of Oz, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Mary Poppins, and many other movies that are rich with imagination, sharp wit, and good humor). Sometimes, I’ll even find a show they can watch on TV—but only for an episode at a time, to shield them from the barrage of commercials. But I strictly limit them to one show or video per day.
Believe it or not, this does not have to turn you into an overly controlling, “mean” parent, as long as you explain to your kids what the parameters are and, with older children, why you have set these parameters while their friends may have different ones. My kids have always been agreeable to this approach. Children like direction and they like to understand your logic. If you are sensible, they’ll usually appreciate it in their own way—even if they grumble a bit!
5. Video games create and contribute to imbalances: Just about every family in America has video games. The children I know who are suffering from the worst emotional imbalances play with them all the time. Video games are absolutely poisonous: they steal our children’s time, their imaginations, and their energy, and they wreak havoc on their brain waves. If you have a child suffering from attention issues, hyperactivity, or any of the more acute imbalances mentioned above, you must wean your child off video games. The lifestyle that includes video games tends also to include unfit foods, disconnected emotional relationships, over-emphasis on test scores and appearances, and other misguided modern approaches to parenting. Now before you throw your son’s Gameboy at me, give it more thought!
If you have children, consider these five points at your own level of awakening to conscious parenting. Let’s not forsake our children’s mental and emotional health for our illusions of progress. Raising children is a bigger responsibility than having the income to support them or knowing how to strap them into a car seat (though those things are very important, too!). The responsibility of parenting starts with understanding the human being, knowing what supports its growth and what undermines it.
We must offer our children a continuous current of pure Love by embracing them throughout the months following birth, keeping their cells and tissues clean with natural foods, and protecting their minds from the insidious programming of television and video games. This is essential for balanced human development. Instead of relying on endless, conflicting research studies and toxic medications, let’s prioritize these basic truths of good parenting. That is the surest way to restore order where there is disorder.
With love and devotion to our human family and all our children,
Natalia
