Breaking the addiction – Raw food diet trial to promos (4)

No one really knows this but i’m about to reveal a secret. I have a serious addiction to a drug. That drug is cooked food.

Mmm after the last post i’m just ate two bananas, fruit-veggie juice, and now am munching on lettuce with mixed nuts/dried fruits. I never knew celery tasted so salty until i drank the fruit-veggie juice and found it pretty salty. After eating, all feelings of weakness disappeared.

MM anyway, i read steve pavlina’s posts on his raw trial and it struck me how much my addiction to meat and cooked foods is similar to the addiction of smokers or drug abusers.

MEAT ADDICTION

i remember when i tried to stay off meat. It worked for awhile, but there were just so many temptations. Chicken, beef, pig, duck…brr…I decided to take fish…

then my mom bought a whole pack of duck meat and i decided it was a waste to let them rot

then i decided since i already ate duck, what the heck, lets take the rest of them. So down went chicken and pork. The only meat i’ve avoided since that time was beef because of all the horror stories i’ve heard about it and it was easy to substitue it with chicken.

Then i had my three day fast. I had an addiction to eating. I ate for appetite, not for hunger. During my three day fast, i broke it here and there with a tiny bit of fruit and honey, but the cooked foods were really tempting. After the fast, i immediately went back to eating cooked foods, as well as gorging on chocolate buscuits and snacks. And during the doughnut sale in school, i probably ate 10 donuts or so within those 3-5 days.

Right now, cooked food and common snacks are a similar addiction. My class is a really very generous class, and keep sharing sweets and snacks. I love them for it but hate them for it. I now understand the true meaning of a love-hate relationship.

This is a challenge isn’t it? Smokers and drug abusers probably have the same addictions. They probably experience the same cravings, and probably worse withdrawal systems. So cool, going on this trial will give me an idea of how they feel, and how hard it is for them. Its really similar. Imagine a person trying to quit smoking and compare him with me.

Both of us experience detox (withdrawal) systems. Holy mama, my thigh just had a really obvious vibration

Both of us have cravings

Both of us are tempted by the things around us

Both of us must have significant willpower

Both of us can use tools around us to help us. Nicotine patches, juice processors.

All addiction-breakers! I’m with you!

Thoughts about Raw diet to promos (3)

This is my third update and i’d thought i’d share some more insights i’ve gleaned.

One thing to do is to always take things with a pinch of salt and that’s what i’m planning to do. The Natural Hygiene discounts other alternate healing modalities which i disagree with. Their interpretation that dreams are primarily the “guardians” of our sleep, making sure we get the rest even when external noises distract is also plausible, but my experience with dream interpretation and lucid dreaming tells me there’s a lot more than what they think.

However, after reading the relevant parts of the website (i skipped the parts on teaching other people how to fast, lessons for various diseases, extremely long explanations on why meat is bad etc), i’ve also gained more insight with regards to steve pavlina’s raw food trial.

After going 30 days raw, he found that he experienced symptoms of nausea, fever, mental fogginess and that he stank really badly of onions. WHen i first read the trial, i brushed it as the effects of the sudden transition but it makes more sense this time. His defenses went extremely high during the raw food trial and when faced with the toxins in the cooked food, it could quickly and effectively eliminate all those toxins. Normally, our defenses are probably suppressed and weakened, allowing the inake of those toxic foods. Feelings of nausea, fever, and all those were his body trying to prevent him from eating and directing its energies to healing the body.

His trial also had some similarities. He felt itchy!

Some of the things i feel now are tingling in some parts of my body, itchiness, and a feeling of emptiness. As time goes on though, the feelins of itchiness and tingling are more obvious whilst the emptiness less so. I also have an increase in dream recall without trying (except for perhaps intending), and had a few lucid dreams which hadn’t occured for a few weeks. Also, yellow-ish mushy-mucus is coming out from my right eye a lot more often; possibly a detox symptom. Oh and my sexual urges have subsided greatly. Partly because i feel weaker than normal (raw foodists say its a detox symptom), but in my lucid dream i didn’t have a sexual urge too.

I thought about the possibility of having another fast, but decided against it. I’m plannin to eat mooncakes and a fast may be inappropriate in terms of transitioning. Also, after the september holidays, i don’t think i want to feel weak while studying/playing soccer. When i eat my raw fruits/vegetables, the weakness goes away. However, to allow greater detox during the holidays, i’m limitng the food intake. My body has more than sufficient food stores anyway. In short, its a mix between a fast and raw foods diet.

I was wondering if my eyesighr would improve with the raw foods and some synchronities occured. Steve pavlina reported his eyes looking clearer and less bloodshot, somethin i didn’t remember the last time i read it. I also came across some articles that talked about vision improvements after goin raw. Interesting, more motivation to continue this trial.

Today i ate less than usual. Just two bananas, a quarter-watermelon, some nuts,dried fruits.

Raw food trial to Promos (2)

Yesterday and today, i experienced some minor detox symptoms. Some parts of my body began to itch for a bit. Also, this morning i had mucus in my nose even though i didn’t have a cold.

The website i came upon states that the intake of water should be minimal; on an as need basis, if i’m on a raw fruits/vegetables diet. The reasoning is that fruits and vegetables contain very high water content 80%-95%. However, people who eat meat, salt, sugar and all those condiments do require the recommended 8 glasses of water because they need the fluid to flush out all the toxins in their kidneys. fruits and vegetables have no such problem.

So i tried it, and didn’t feel thirsty. I realised that a lot of my drinking is because my stomach feels empty and i try to fill it up.

Another thing i learnt is that the reason people have body odor, have stinky shit and pungent pee, is because of the high concentration of toxic wastes in their body and wastes. the meat and flesh that people eat usually decay and putrefy to some extent because the body doesn’t digest them quick enough which is probably why my sister’s shit stinks up the toilet for a half hour or so whenever she goes in there.

The first few days of the diet, i often felt a gnawing hunger. The website talks about the difference between appetite and hunger and after the three day fast, i can see how most of what we think of as hunger is actually appetite. A few days into the trial, i’m not really affected by the empty feeling i my stomach as i used to be. The “empty” feeling actually signals that the food has left your stomach, meaning digestion is quick and efficient. Heavy foods on the other hand take a lot longer to digest which is why we feel “full” for a long time when we eat them.

My mom is finally feeling the effects of years and years of unhealthy eating. She’s felt an itch over her body which went away after she consumed fresh (home-made) fruit juice. The commercial fruit juices do more harm than good because after concentrate, fragmentation and processing, much of the nutrients are wiped out. Then, additives like sugar, preservatives colorings flavorings are added in and all these add to the burden on your body.

Another thing i learned was how our tastebuds are very much drawn to foods we like. Naturally, we like fruits, even the most hardened of meat eaters likes fruits. But what about meats and soups? We don’t really like those. We only “like” them because of all the condiments one puts in and condiments are just that. Condiments are not food and in fact, toxic to the body. No one eats a tablespoonful of salt/sugar/garlic/soysauce/whatever! Its only made palatable when we mix it with other foods. Furthermore, these meats and soups have undergone processing. In their raw state, no one would find raw meat palatable.

Raw foods trial to Promos(1)

I haven’t announced this on my blog but i started another Raw Foods trial a few days ago, the aim being firstly to see whether the change in diet would lead to improved eyesight and also, to see whether i get the physical, mental and emotional boosts that Steve Pavlina and other raw foodists claim about going raw. It’s a good time seeing as how any improved brainpower will let me do better for Promos

This time, the first few days were pretty easy in spite of the temptations; free high-class cookies during Econs, free chocolate and chocolate cookies during teacher’s day, free nachos, but after the 3 day fast, resisting these temptations became much easier.

My diet is going to follow this website that i read. http://www.rawfoodexplained.com/. In summary, it explains why raw foods is the best food and how to optimally eat your food. There are probably hundreds and thousands of ways you could argue with whatever is written here, but it resonates with me logically and the only way to find out is to try it out myself (:

My diet consists of fruits, nuts and a select few vegetables; tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, celery. One principle the website states is that the foods that we eat must be tasty and appeal to us in their whole, natural state. Salt, sugar and all other condiments may appear to be tasty, but its extremely hard to force yourself to eat them as “foods” rather than taste-enhancers.

One of the greatest differences between me and my sister who has a typical diet of meat, a few veggies and fruits and lots of junk food, is that our shit smells different. Hers is far more pungent and infects the entire toilet!

I’ll be making an exceptions for mooncakes, something i decided before my trial began.

Not from this world

I’ve had this sort of feeling for a few days and its these few days where i’ve really felt that this physical dimension is not all there is.

As i walk on the streets, as i look around me, i see objects, gifts that are given to me. It’s a bit funny to see that i have a body…a hand that can open and close, an arm that can swing here and there…wooo…

and then i look at the world around me…this is an experience! a game! a piece of bread, a blade of grass, there’s an aliveness in them. I’ve never really experienced something like that in my past 10 years so i doubt many will be able to know what i’m talking about. But anyway, from my perspective, the world just looks like a gift that i’m fortunate to be in…these experiences i have, touch sight, smell, taste….all wonderful, all given to me.

And because i just sense that these things are a gift, that there is an aliveness in themm, i just know that the physical dimension is surely not all there is to life. It’s crafted in such a way to appear as the physical dimension, but it definitely isn’t the physical dimension alone!

Progress in presence

There are some fascinating things i’ve experienced over the past few days, and one of them is that i’ve felt more and more connected with the things around me. By staying very quiet, very still in my mind, i can sense a consciousness, something greater and magical in nearly everything; cars, nature, class bench, buildings. One time, i stood up and looked at my legs and was in a state of wonder that i had legs! How lucky i was to be gifted with these…things…legs!

Right now i’m also better at distinguishing the ego from my self. Whenever i feel hurt, inferior, superior, awkward, uncomfortable, angry, stressed, anything that is not an inner peace or joy, it is the ego. I assume all my thoughts are thoughts from the ego, so i stay aware of them no matter what and even if they aren’t, i still stay in awareness. It’s a bit like not liking a particular person and then realising i have an ego which dislikes this person, and realising that you are the awareness that is aware of this ego with this dislike.

I played football today and really enjoyed it. I stayed as present as i could during the game and got into the flow state and played in a state of non-thinking. Our team was pretty good, me zheng fab mj gino, all of us could defend and attack well but the thing i loved most was that we had great team spirit and constantly encouraged one another. There was no stress, no negativity, just plain play, fun and enjoyment- and then i think it was this that carried us to a pretty nice winning streak!

More pain

A few minutes ago, i went to my friends page and when i reached kai ye’s post, i immediately felt a sort of contraction, and felt intensely uncomfortable and awkward, not knowing if he’d react to my post or anything. It seems so normal for one to feel uncomfortable after criticising another person even if you did state that it wasn’t really his fault, but from another perspective, its extremely silly to feel uncomfortable expressing your own views.

And so it is, the insanity of the ego. Yesterday, soon after i posted my “The Pain-Body strikes back” post, iype talked to me on msn about it and i had an urge to go back and edit the post to make it extremely clear that i wasn’t finding fault with either of them but decided not to since that would simply be a reaction of the ego and it would diminish the honesty of the post.

Actually, a part of this post also goes to addressing that issue. That issue where i feel uncomfortable thinking that others won’t be able to read my post in a detached manner and avoid being emotionally caught up, and seeing as how i find it difficult myself, it’s probably true for most people. And then the other part, is a reminder and highlight of how insane the ego is“`

The Pain-body strikes!

Everytime i post, i normally do so in a really calm and composed mood because on the bus back, after taking a bath, any turbulent emotions usually fade. Anyway, today was really infuriating. We were playing court and iype was being his fucked up self again, and i don’t know what the fuck is his problem but he keeps bitching about me? Like what the fuck can’t he just shut the fuck up and play the game? I know my speech wasn’t really that well-received but did he have to drive the knife where it hurts by taunting me about it? “Loser can’t even give a speech” is seriously fucked up. and then because of it i got affected and then really wanted to just smack him or something. and then his silly dumbass friend kaiye got in the mood and began crowing and cawing, criticising and complaining about his teamates at like everything? complaining about the rain, the weather, bad passes, all that shit as if he was really good or something when really, he isn’t good at all?

Sorry, had to try a bing xiang to scare the two of them if they read this. But actually, this is what would have probably been in my mind the entire time before this year. This is what really happened…

So we played footie and iype was being his noisy and crazy self and was having fun taunting and teasing people. That’s just his personality and then when he started directing some of the taunts at me, i felt something rise up, like some form of energy movement came out and i felt a contraction in my body. Some pretty negative emotions came up and the more he taunted (he kept it up for quite a bit), the more came up and i was aware of the pain-body but still reacted to some of that. My reactions were nothing too drastic, just a sneer or something, and i just stayed present and allowed the feelings to be there and just felt them. They didn’t go away immediately, but just being aware that i don’t have to react to the pain allowed me to gain control over my actions. Negative thoughts did pop in here and there and later i also took issue with kaiye’s complaining (which is normal, but there’s nothing wrong with it).

See, the funny and insane thing is that, they were just being themselves, and it was I who took issue with what they did, or rather, my ego taking issue with it. Things just happened but in my mind, they were happening to me and i was making myself unhappy because i couldn’t accept what happened. And in some ways, i reacted to things that happened to me rather than respond. I get criticised, i react by being defensive or critical. I am upset, i believe i’m being slighted, i react by complaining in my mind. When you react, you just act out a certain pattern, there’s no real power and control over what you do. A reaction is automatic, unconscious whereas response means seeing things as they are, not being emotionally affected by things, and then taking action, action that is conscious, deliberate, and powerful.

Now, when all of that happened, i was intellectually aware of all of this, but emotionally, i still had some egoic structures and a pain-body (a body of pain that lies dormant and is triggered by certain actions) but because i was aware and conscious, aware that i was not my ego and not my pain-body (i felt pain but i wasn’t the pain), conscious enough to not react and be absorbed in my thoughts. What does this mean? It means that when thoughts like “why is iype so effed up” and emotions of resentment and anger appear, i have space to look and observe them in a detached fashion, not absorbed and identified with them. Another way of putting it is that I am not thinking those thoughts, rather, my ego/mind is thinking them, and that “i am feeling angry” but not “i am angry”.

So becauses there was “space”, a sort of distance between those thoughts and emotions, i could observe and see them for what they truly are; illusions. I didn’t get drawn into them, although they were present, but because i wasn’t drawn to them, i could remain present and play football as i did, unaffected by those thoughts and emotions.

When the taunting and pain-body triggered, i felt uncomfortable and unhappy and just kept quiet and silent…then as i felt more comfortable, as the pain subsided, i began regaining by true self again and began encouraging and making noise and enjoying myself. There was still some awkwardness when dealing with iype and kai ye but things weren’t too unpleasant, no nasty words or reactions were exchanged and gradually the animosity and hostility i felt subsided.

On the way back i wondered why that happened and then the realisation came to me.  Life was giving me a lesson, exposing the ego and pain-body that still lies within me. I can take it as a gift that helps me transmute my ego and pain into a more enlightened being or curse at life for being such a bitch. And if we take the former perspective, there truly is not good or bad. The bad is where you learn, the good is where you enjoy, and from a broader perspective, all things are good. Or rather, all things, just are the way they are.

The magic of court

Often, me and a group of friends play at the street soccer court in our school and its amazing how much magic there is. Somehow, everytime we go there, there are bound to have extremely funny moments, and just being there, playing, lifts our spirits. Good teams, bad teams, no team, no matter what you can laugh or just enjoy what’s happening.

When we’re there, we’re free to play, to experiment, to have fun, there’s a tremendous freedom there. When we’re there, we’d all like to win but the real fun comes in playing, not winning or losing. Today i played with a team with lots of brawn but not much skill and before i stepped in(i was a sub), that team was geetting pissed off, frustrated and they didn’t really seem to be having fun. I went in with the attitude of “let’s fuck around”, played our hardest but i think i lightened up the game because i didn’t really care how good or skilful my teamates were, i just played and played. And then magical things happen, we missed chances, they missed chances, we shouted, screamed, yelled, cursed, and things unfolded in such a glorious manner that i felt it was really fun even though we eventually lost and the atmosphere had also become a lot lighter and joyful.

And i think that’s just the beauty of life, when we live in a state of being, a state of this moment, enjoying and playing, the simplest of things, can make us extremely happy. Life turns and creates magic in our lives, transforming ordinary events to extraodinary experiences. There’s a joy in the doing where playing is primary and the result is secondary.

And this, this state of just being, not expecting to achieve anything, not needing to play well, not needing to impress, just letting yourself and life be the way it is, is something we can bring to our lives, to bring the magic of court into our lives and transform it into a miracle.

Experiences and thoughts: Practise of Now

As i mentioned in my last post, my practise of the Now was reignited by what happened on Ares night. I read through the Power of Now again, skipping the parts already irrelevant to me and listened to the Living the liberated life. The audio was a great help to me, especially where it said that when you are still within, silent, and present, you can sense an aliveness within you. An aliveness that you already have. An aliveness that can be felt and is always present, whether you are playing football, walking, eating, sitting down or just lying on the bed.

For those unable to feel this aliveness, they resort to external things to feel a sort of aliveness or stimulation. Through validation, stimulants, sensory-rich food, those are ways in which they attempt to feel the aliveness. When left with nothing to do, they become bored and restless…they need to do something and sitting there alone is insufficient.

Thoughts on Ares night came to me sporadically throughout the day, and as the day passed, the heaviness, seriousness, and pain of those thoughts lightened each time. Right now as i am typing this, i am wondering how i could have ever subjected myself to such needless suffering, and how easy it was to end the suffering!

Also, i realised that my previous practise which i thought was practise, wasn’t a truely deep practise. I wasn’t deeply silent or still as i was during the practise after ares night. There was some level of stillness and awareness of my thoughts, but not a deep enough sense of presence to feel that aliveness and peace within me.

When i ate, for once, i didn’t read a book or watch tv as i ate. I became intensely present, intensely silent and started eating. And as i ate, i noticed that unlike when i read a book, i wasn’t in a rush to gulp and swallow the food down and put the next spoonful before i had swallowed the previous one fully. I automatically chewed the food thoroughly before swallowing it. And as i stayed present, paying attention to how i picked the pieces of food up and put them into my mouth…there was some sort of connection. There was some essence, some aliveness in the food that we normally deaden and miss out when we quickly put it in our mouths and occupy ourselves with mind activity. And then a new realisation came to me- i wasn’t eating another animal’s flesh- i was interacting, playing with energy, consciousness, merging with the food. I wasn’t a separate entity taking away from another entity- energy was movin from one to another, just like how our cells move from one part of our body to another.

I lay on my bed and was just silent. Thoughts came in sporadically, and i just shifted back to the present moment. And as i did that, orgasmic pulses of…emotions? a sense of aliveness? whatever it was, i felt good- came to me…and i just rested there in that aliveness, in that present moment.

I looked at my hands- they weren’t my hands…or rather, i didn’t feel the hands belonged to me. These hands felt like a gift…wow i have this…and then the same to my body…my eyes, my muscles…they didn’t belong to me, they were given to me- and then i realised this was true gratitude…complete presence and realisin that you aren’t your body, yet you’re given one…how lucky how…wonderful

And then you think about the possessive people…or yourself possessing things that you take be yours…respect…skills, abilities…strength, power intelligence…and when you take them for granted, when you say yes this is me, this is mine, rightfully mine, belongs to me…then life doesn’t seem like a gift anymore- it seems like a burden where you have to work hard to get more of this and that and it becomes a struggle…striving for somethign that will make you alive…something that i don’t know…satisfies you, makes you feel contented

and when you view things from this perspective…how pitiful the world is! Politicians and criminals don’t appear evil or hateful anymore…on the contrary they are…pitiful…they live in a world of hate? of fear? always fearing that they will lose something…trying to gain something…and the people around them are probably like themselves so again, they live in fear of the people around them, not being able to trust, feel love, not being able to just feel the connection with others. Their lives are filled with tension…a sense of hostility- they have money and fame and all that yet they lack the things that truly matter…genuine deep-seated sense of peace, being able to talk to people genuinely…always they have to put up some front…not being able to be with other people. and of course, its precisely because they can’t feel this connection thatthey have no qualms about ill-treating people, manipulating them…

and we see this reflected in our lives too…we see taxi drivers as drivers rather than humans…humans like you and your friends, humans who long for a genuine recognition and connection…you see the president or prime minister as someone separate and forget that he too has human needs for love and security, contentment…

when you know this and you try talkin to fellow humans…strangers, you realise that its easy- extremely easy to connect and talk to them! Everyone longs for a genuine sense of peace and love…recognition from other humans…but of course no one shows it…seems insecure or desperate or…but that’s it…which is why i’ve found it incredibly easy to talk to people when i see them as humans rather than the roles they play…rather than a coach or a teacher, you see the person as a fellow human being-

and when the world…all of the world can be like that…how can there be conflict?