PASSIONATE EATING

You long for your body to express Health, your mind to be peaceful and happy, to have relationships that are closer, more honest, intimate, kind. You fall so vastly short of each of these that often they seem but ideals at best. Beset by unending and ever new difficulties you would give up entirely, but your own suffering drives you forward searching for some means to escape the misery and/or taste even more of the richness you know to be your very birthright.

Eating is one small aspect of living. Eating alone is not capable of giving you a fulfilled life. Yet, it is very difficult to have a fulfilled life without wrestling with your eating. The strength and wisdom you gain from your adventures in mastering eating seep over into your relationships, career and many other areas of your life.

To become more masterful at eating requires passion. What do I mean by that? Many of you may already consider yourselves to be passionate about chocolate, coffee, wines or gourmet foods. Yes, that is a certain passion. However do you control the passion or does the passion control you? Are you free or bound by your passion? Would you choose your passion because it adds strength, Health, Beauty and deep peace to your life; or because it adds mere pleasure?

I am speaking of a passion that is stronger than sensual pleasure. A greater pleasure in that it consumes all lesser pleasures. Not merely pleasures of taste but this Great Pleasure devours your less valuable thoughts, words, relationships and career. This Great Pleasure is a lover and will accept nothing less than your total devotion and surrender to her.

Such passion rarely is born overnight. It is a path. It is an aspect of your larger spiritual path. Progress on this path comes as a result of your communion with God. Note, I am certainly not saying that everyone who communes with God eats impeccably. I am saying that if you want to improve your eating because you see the goodness in it for yourself and those you love, then communion with God, Goodness and Love will be even greater factors for your progress.

For example, imagine that you are someone who loves sweets and you have tried for years to quit eating them and again and again you have failed. You are overweight, depressed, fatigued and your body is degenerating under the accumulated effects of poisoning. You believe that conquering (or seducing) your appetite for sweets plays a major role in regaining your Health. Yet you have repeatedly turned to your same old toolbox for change; force, coercion, shame, blame and guilt.

There is a higher, stronger, purer way. One that is simple and honest and true, full of love and forgiveness. Anyone can tread this way if they choose. In fact, everyone must tread this way. There is no other way. All paths lead to this one.

You begin (and end) by telling the Truth. First, tell the Truth about your present state. Admit all the pleasures you derive from it, the comfort and the ease and conviviality it affords you and how much you love all that. Then, tell the Truth about what you think it costs you. What is the price you pay for this in physical, mental, emotional, social, financial and medical costs? What does it cost you in self esteem, self confidence and self trust?

Don't allow yourself simply skip to "I know its bad for me and I know I should …". Should is as close as you can get to having no motivation at all. To fight the demons that are ravaging your body, mind and soul you need some real reasons to fight. You need passion. That is what our path to Health is all about.

I have found passion to be born of and inherent in the Truth. When you tell the truth about your eating, you see more clearly the absolute misery created by eating out of harmony with the laws of life. You experience that you literally "sell your birthright for a bowl of porridge." You know that the higher passions of real self love and appreciation, pride in your own appearance as a child of God, vibrant energy and immunity to disease, elude you on the path of short lived pleasures. You know that it hurts and your very soul screams for these higher passions.

Your soul cries, "It is not food that you love, but me. Be true to me, to my promptings. I love you. I miss you. I want you passionately. If you betray me I will slay you. I will steal from you everything you love most. I will do anything to have you."

Such is this path of passionate living. It is between you and God, you and Truth, you and Beauty. It will take from you and require of you everything that you think you must have and ultimately leave you only with the things you really must have. It asks of you all your heart, all your mind, all your strength. You must stumble lost through the desert wastelands, begging, even when hope leaves you. I know no other way. There are no simple formulas. This is a path of passion, of deepest love. YOUR deepest love.

Open your heart cry out from your soul for freedom from the prison of sense pleasures. Scream for the goodness you want. Throw a tantrum, make a scene, embarrass God. Declare publicly your devotion and faith to God, your certainty that She will deliver you from your misery and put Her on the spot. There are no rules in this game. Any way you get God to give you Her magical power to heal is fair. And, there are ways and hints that have been demonstrated over the centuries. Ways that work and save time. But the greatest is when your heart breaks open for something better; when, like the Buddha, you cannot go forward in life denying and being callous to your own suffering. Somewhere from the depths of your soul you reach out to God. You pray, beg, cry, and long to be taken to the path of righteousness, honor and integrity. You are willing to be stripped of all lesser pleasures that you might taste a bit more of the sweetness of being true to your own soul.

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HOW TO MAKE DIFFICULT CHANGES EASIER

The alcoholic, the smoker, the person who eats junk food or does not exercise, all find that the basic reason they do not change is that deep inside it "feels" to them like if they make the sensible wholesome changes that they will actually feel more miserable. The absurdity of this is obvious in the case of an alcoholic or drug addict and yet we do not see how we are ruled by the same "lack of sanity" in our thinking about many more wholesome lifestyle changes.

One piece of evidence that supports such "unsanity" is the fact that often when we begin to make some wholesome improvements in our behavior we actually do feel more miserable. There are definitely uncomfortable aspects to stopping smoking, coffee or sugar; to beginning exercise; to acknowledging our fear and self doubt.

Most people actually think that pleasure resides in chocolate or in coffee or in alcohol or cigarettes and that if they did not indulge these relatively toxic behaviors they would actually feel deprived. This is "unsanity" speaking. There is no inherent pleasure in these things, there is only the pleasure which we associate with them. Initially cigarettes and alcohol were anything but enjoyable to us and our body's natural defense mechanisms expelled them with a fury of coughing, choking or perhaps vomiting. However we practiced these unnatural activities and deliberately overcame the resistance of our bodies and minds and taught ourselves to associate pleasure with these "drugs." We have the ability to train our tastes and habits. If we can learn to like bourbon we can surely learn to find pleasure in natural foods and exercise. Br reflecting on this truth we can dispel the "unsane" fear that we will forever feel miserable and deprived without our destructive habits.

In the moment of such discomfort we can easily forget that it will pass. We will not forever feel this way. Our misery is actually our gateway to a lifetime of greater joy, more freedom and truer pleasures.

You will not forever crave the taste of chocolate, feel fatigued and irritable without coffee. Exercise will not always hurt. You will in a short period actually find pleasure in eating natural foods with less sauces, in getting earlier, in exercising your body. These are the ways you were designed to live, these are your natural ways. There is pleasure inherent in them.

Use your discipline of self-reflection to dispel the "unsane" lie that you will be forever miserable if you stop indulging your accustomed tastes and habits. You can teach yourself to find deeper pleasure and satisfaction in the ways of Health and Happiness.

Daily re-convince your "unsane" mind of the truth. Make your mind into your ally rather than your enemy. Your actions and your body will follow unfailingly. This is the way Healing occurs in Human Beings.

Reflect upon and write about the ideas in this paper and how they apply to your life.