Knowing how to handle emotional intensity when going or trying to stay raw is one of the most important skills you will ever have to master on your raw food journey.
The reason being, because as you lighten up your diet, anything that does not serve you physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually will come up for healing, transforming and/or releasing. This happens because the human being is wired for an amazing level of health and wellbeing on all levels and anything that does not serve it, it will let go of once it is given something to displace it with that is of a higher nature.
Physically this phenomenon shows up as a surge in energy followed by a sometimes uncomfortable detox. Mentally this shows up as confusion and identity issues followed by a new level of clarity and awareness. Emotionally this manifests as unprecedented levels of natural unfathomable happiness alternated with feelings of emotional overwhelm, turbulence and crisis. And spiritually this shows up as asking bigger questions, feeling more at one with yourself and life itself and ultimately an experience of all pervasive peace and contentedness - and even bliss.
So going raw will challenge you to look at everything you have believed and taken to be true about food, eating, health and yourself so that you can re-choose the highest path for yourself and let the rest go. In this process, what I have come to call “raw turbulence” is a given.
So how to deal with these rocky emotions as you transform from one version of yourself to another?
There are a lot of approaches you can take, and I'll share a few in a moment, but the place that I suggest you come from and stay centred in the entire distance of your journey, is that of self-acceptance and self-love.
You see, warring with yourself during this transition is completely contradictory to where you are trying to go, not to mention who you are becoming. If you are seeking more peace, more balance, more freedom, more joy, more abundance, more energy, more love, more clarity, more connection and more bliss then you will not experience any of those things if you are not 100% on your own side.
Sure, as you make the transition across multiple worlds of transformation within yourself you will undoubtedly feel at odds with yourself, but less us be clear on the truth of this situation which is all about "who" you are dealing with.
The fact is that your raw transformation journey is about stepping more fully into the truth of who you are. I believe that going raw connects us more fully to our soul than any other way of eating. For this reason, any aspects of ourselves that we have taken on, manufactured, evolved or imagined into being that are not in alignment with our much deeper truth, will all come up for examination, healing and ultimately release. They simply do not serve where we are going and indeed we cannot get "there" with them on board.
Where the turbulence comes in is when we identity with these old outdated aspects of ourselves so closely that we believe them to be a part of who we truly are. Our ego mind struggles to hold on to them for fear of annihilation and will create inner battles of epic proportions within you in order to remain stable and "at peace". All of this is an illusion as you would not have this battle occurring if there wasn't already something within you ready to take its place. You cannot have a war without an opponent!
So learning to trust the process is vital. Staying plugged in to where you are going is vital, so you must be clear on what this looks like (spiritual mastery). Staying centred in the commitment to experience your truth is vital (emotional mastery). Being willing to travel through multiple worlds of thought, belief and confusion is vital (mental mastery). And being able to release all that is no longer serving you is also vital (physical mastery). What will make all the difference to how easy you find this is the level to which you stay on your own side and your ability to pay attention to positive changes as they happen. This way you will have evidence that what you want to have happen IS happening, and this will make it feel safer and more joyful for you to continue.
As you can appreciate, this is all about the inner rollercoaster that we experience on our raw food journey. This is where most of the action is happening, so it should never be ignored as it's the most real and all-pervasive influence on whether we are successful in our quest or not. There are also some very real practical steps you can take externally that will assist and support you as you travel through these inner worlds of transformation and revelation. It's these I'll be discussing in the next issue, and I can't wait to share them with you to complete both sides of this fascinating equation that is the raw food journey.
© 2011 Karen Knowler WOULD YOU LIKE TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR ON YOUR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Karen Knowler, The Raw Food Coach publishes "Successfully Raw" - a free weekly eZine for raw food lovers everywhere. If you're ready to look good, feel great and create a raw life you love get your FREE tips, tools and recipes now at www.TheRawFoodCoach.com.
Hi Karen - Do you draw any distinction between heavy emotions and niggling, more ‘subtle’ ones - or do you advise treating them just the same? Thanks.
Posted by: yoga london | September 20, 2011 at 12:18 PM