LESSONS

Morning, Folks,

When you're raw, not everything is always AMAZING. Sometimes your heart is heavy, like mine was yesterday. I'd have some conversations with friends and family that led me to feel sad, worried, down. My brother is depressed. It's his birthday and he's unhappy with his life. My father is depressed. My brother and I, we're both unmarried, haven't supplied him grandchildren yet. My friend and I had a disagreement that's kept me up at nights, reviewing what happened. My mother feels overburdened at home and worried about money.

You just have to remember...that God never gives you more than you can handle.

So, I was hungry last night and made myself a banana cacao coconut shake for dinner. I dissappointingly winced at the first few tastes. My heavy heart had discolored my outlook. "Man, this is dissappointing me," i told Cliff. "This shake tastes like shit."

I didn't feel like fixing the shake, though i could have, by adding dates for sweetness. I let health reign over taste because it's better for my health the less high glycemic i eat. It was fine.

Cliff and I talked about what was troubling me, and as i did, the shake miraculously tasted better and better, the better i felt.

It was a lesson that raw food only tastes as good as we'll allow it to. I made the 'best' of my shake, you know, lemons into lemonade type of thing, and ended up appreciating it's taste instead of lamenting it's lack of one. My attitude had changed.

It was also a good lesson in taking responsibility for my own happiness.

This whole week, i've had to confront long buried hurts that have surfaced with the cleaner diet. And my heart is heavy with many burdens from loved ones and friends. It's a wierd anxious feeling.

I'm not so used to this, being so in touch with how I feel. I'd become used to being numbed by cooked food, numbed to my emotions and the pains of others.

I do a meditation in the mornings now because it helps me to release the burdens to God, without having to numb myself with food to do it.

Being present to life (because of my clean food) means i'm present to the joys of life, but also to it's pains and sorrows. I'm in a cleansing mode. As my body cleans, my heart, mind, psyche clean. I wake up sometimes in the middle of the night troubled about friends, family, life. I'm not numbing myself anymore. It's the price you pay for waking up.

Today, i'm raw 11 days because I finally took responsibility for my health. Going raw again, for good, has enabled me to overcome my 'lower self,' and to operate from my higher organized, disciplined self. I also want to and to have the energy to move forward again in my life, finally, and i'm making overtures. I have a job interview tuesday. I'm singing in NYC on Thursday. Things are percolating. I'm not hiding.

Basically, I was tired of suffering. The longer and longer I allowed myself to stay in a state of limbo with cooked, the longer and longer i stagnated and suffered. I was lying to myself. I was in a serious state of denial.

When i finally made peace with the fact that my unnatural desires for degraded food were ruining my life and my health, i automatically had the supernatural power to stop, I stopped missing it, stopped craving it, stopped eating it. I knew raw was my destiny years ago and i've re-embraced that outlook today. Thankfully.

I'm so grateful, even if I have to 'feel' now to achieve it.

xoxo michelle joy