Been So Long

Sorry I've been away for a while. I couldn't post for a week because my phone line was having trouble. Accessing the Internet was quite slow. I have quite a few things to say, but I will break them up into multiple posts so they are easier to read.

I still feel great, even though I had a cooked veggie sandwich on Friday night, and I've been eating some of my family's cooked food. I can feel the difference. I have a stuffy nose now. So today, I'm sticking with green smoothies, since it's a Sunday and it won't be a high stress day.

I need to tell my Mystickal Voyage family that I am raw. (www.mystickalvoyage.com). I haven't said anything yet and I am wondering why. (MV is place that I do readings. A beautiful store to visit if you are in the Baltimore area.) It's a warm, friendly place that I love. Lori, the owner, is like a mother to me. And I am forever missing my own parents who live out of state. Cooked food is comfort food. Even though my stomach hurt after I had that sandwich, I'm attuned enough to myself to know really wanted something warm and comfy. I got it, but it cannot be a substitute for what I really want which is my loved ones around me more often. Emotional eating a is real thing. Food is love, culture, family, non-judgemental, and all-around an easy way to stuff down feelings.

So I found this email from Jinjee of The Garden Diet (www.thegardendiet.com) that I kept from May 26, 2006. It's about emotional satisfaction from live food.

"It can take time to be able to get your emotional satisfaction from living food. To some degree we all get a healthy does of emotional comfort from eating. Even if we are in the habit of eating cooked comfort foods, over time we can change the foods that give us these good feelings.

Establishing little rituals of place and time for the foods that you eat can help. For instance, sipping a smoothie while sitting in the sun, eating a salad in a beautiful bowl, chopping veggies with your children, preparing an elaborate raw taco or raw vegan sushi recipe and sitting down as a family, or drinking an after-work nut-milk-shake can all become soul satisfying habits!"

I would add, tell the people you love of your choice to be a raw vegan if even they think you are crazy; bring your own food when you visit places so you have something to eat, eat before you leave so you are not tempted to eat stuff you know is not good for you.

So for me, I have to tell Lori "no more chocolate" and if anyone sees me grab it, call me on it.I've been a raving chocoholic my entire life. Meat is no longer a temptation. Took about 17 years to get to that point, but I'm there. The final frontier is chocolate and sugar.... ◦

Been So Long