Well, I thought I would put this in an email to Raw Mom Summit participants, but it’s definitely worthy of a more open, public forum. We’ve received countless testimonials and life-changing stories in response to the Summit. It’s been an exhilarating week and we are so fortunate to have touched as many people as we have with this project.
But it wouldn’t be honest if we told you it was all roses and daisies. While we’ve had a few crusty critters that weren’t too impressed, we’ve also had some legitimate, thought-provoking concerns and questions that I feel are worth of addressing here.
I got some feedback that I wanted to share with you.
Contraction and Confusion
“I am getting very confused w/ all of the conflicting information that these people are putting out there. David Wolfe talks about super foods and Paul Nison completely disagrees w/ him…
I think this is a good way for us to get to know these people more, but why does everyone have their own opinions that conflict each other? I guess that’s the real world. I’m just 3 months into the Raw food diet myself and am feeling much better, but I would like to know more about what to eat and when, etc. I guess what I am taking away from all of this is that I need to trust my body more.
I love this question because at some time or another, we all asked it as we started off on the path to discovering the raw food diet. Even those of us who have been at it for more than 5 years are still stuck swinging back and forth between the myth and the maca.
“Listening to our body” is in my opinion somewhat incomplete as a suggestion. If I were to listen to my body right now I would be wolfing back a 3rd helping of the carob fudge cake that I made last night. The body can process toxins, suffer from deficiencies and respond to emotional and physiological signals of all kinds. The body can be a bit of a trouble maker, sometimes, if put in the wrong circumstances and conditions. But that’s the qualifier… putting it in the right circumstances and conditions, your body becomes a tool enabling you to assess and observe the reactions taking place inside the body.
Just this week I received an incredible inspiring email from one of our participants on the 6-Week Deep Tissue Detox. After months, years of beating herself up about her food habits, even after weeks of feeling totally unproductive and disappointed with her progress on the 6-Week Detox, all of a sudden something CLICKED! Check out this story:
The Missing Link:
“So anyway, the six weeks went by with me on the sideline watching and feeling like a failure. When you started promoting the Rawmomsummit, I sat at my computer and cried. I wondered how in the world I would ever get this fertility thing figured out when I can’t even manage to use the tools that come my way and I get all freaked out about having had cancer and maybe I shouldn’t have kids anyway and on and on. That cry fest spurred me to give it another shot but luckily for me, I had another trip planned just two days later. I rounded up all the detox calls I could find from the emails you sent and loaded them all on my mp3 player for the road. They ended up on my player in a very random order so I just listened to whatever I came to. First up was the liver detox call. Dr. Ritamarie started talking about those people with the MTHFR gene deficiency (my husband and I both have it – him homozygous and me hetero) and the GST mutation that the other 50% of the population has (I don’t even need the blood test to be POSITIVE I’m one of those too). Somewhere near Eugene, Oregon a light went off in my head that illuminated: HOLY @RAP, I’m missing some of the tools that my body needs to be able to detoxify itself and those tools can be added in the form of supplements, get off your damn high horse and take some of this and see if you feel better.
Once I realized that there might be something missing inside my body, I felt a huge wave of self forgiveness and optimism at the same time. My husband has two copies of the MTHFR1298 mutation and taking active B vitamins changed his whole life – could taking NAC and Lipoic acid do the same for me I wondered?
I listened to all the other calls I had with me and I burst in the door and pulled out all the supplements that naturopaths and even MD’s had given me over the years.
I poured through the literature to add to what I learned on the calls and I made my supplement order. I’m very happy to report that 4 days later, I’m feeling completely fulfilled on smoothies with a little extra protein added in, I haven’t had one blood sugar drop, no shakes at all, only one tiny caffeine headache, my liver is starting to agree that it could calm down and my brain is cranking along like all cylinders are actually firing, thanks to sleeping 4 nights in a row! Although only a few days, this is the longest stretch I’ve gone without self medicating with food since I first tried to go raw and I haven’t had to white knuckle it a bit.
I skipped some of the juicy stuff in the interests of keeping this post reasonably long, but the message is that sometimes there’s something (some variable or piece of information) that is missing that helps explain your particular health condition or circumstances. The only way to figure it out is by informing yourself and educating yourself as much as possible about what’s worked for other people and how the body works in general.
We have this, “Who’s right, who’s wrong?” attitude sometimes and it reminds me of being the daughter of divorced parents. I remember vividly feeling split in two as I tried to figure out who was “right” and who was “wrong” when it came to the arguments my parents had about money. I spent a lot of time and caused a lot of pain trying to pick sides only to realize that neither was “right” nor “wrong”.
There ARE different raw food camps and it’s a real pity that some people need to pit and pitch themselves against one another. If we consider the number of people on the planet that share our same values and interests, it’s quite an embarrassing shame that some people feel the need to insult others and make them “wrong”.
You are the only one who knows whether raw cacao is good for you or not. But inform yourself about it, then try it and see. We don’t need to read sinister agendas into other people’s projects and programs. Evaluate people based on their actions. What do they DO to make the world a better place?
We only have our point of view–the position from which we view the world. When you hear someone insisting that their way is the “right” way, run in the other direction.
I know people deathly allergic to kiwis and others that can eat them by the pound and have no reaction at all. Each of has to consider the uniqueness of our situations. These are just SOME of the factors that come into play in determing your overall health equation:
- physical environment
- seasonal availability of foods
- history of eating patterns
- emotional trauma
- genetics!!!
- budget
- physical fitness level
- social commitments and conditions
- interests
- preferences
- passions
- frustrations
just to name a few!!
So, your primary objective for your adventure in health is to inform yourself. Learn as much as you can!! I’ve received stunning reports and exclamations of gratitude about every single call we put together. I don’t know which guest will speak to you personally, but chances are good that some of them will. Just like this client who had her moment of “illumination” I don’t know what lights will go on when you take the time to listen to these calls.
We’ve done our best to bring together the wisdom and experience of some exceptional people and we hope you do what you need to take advantage of these calls.
Today’s the last day and we’re leaving the calls up for a little bit longer, just to make sure everyone takes advantage of the finish line.
Love and hugs,
Tera