Yes, Please!
Live a CHARMED life.
CHARMED
Daily Passage
Reflections
Many verses in Proverbs twenty-three are related to food and drink. I think of a book that I read not too long ago called The Pleasure Trap: the Hidden Force that Undermines Heath and Happiness by Dr. Douglas J Lesle, PhD and Dr. Alan Goldhamer, DC. Through at least twenty years of research involving clinical studies and major success with thousands of patients, these doctors suggest a strategy for wellness that involves an awareness of how we are drawn to food and drink and other pleasurable activities like a moth is to the light. Dr. Lisle describes what he terms The Motivational Triad: the pursuit of pleasure, the avoidance of pain, and the conservation of energy. He suggests that we as humans are evolutionally hardwired with this triad and offers proactive wellness strategies to people who are caught in this primal struggle called the Pleasure Trap.
We have come a long way from when Proverbs twenty-three was written. In present day America, many live like the ruler mentioned in verse one. In our society, where convenience and excess are defining characteristics, the basic instincts that once successfully insured our survival, no longer serve us but in fact are depleting our health and happiness. The doctors suggest that we become aware of these ancient and intrinsic drives and transcend them.
Not only do we need to be aware of how we are programmed to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and conserve energy, but we also need to take a good look at the nature of what we are ingesting. For example, we need to take a good look at what is lining the shelves of our supermarkets and check out what it is that is be pushed out through drive-through windows. Processed foods, high in fat, salt, and sugar, are fast and instant foods designed to please and do instant stimulate our tastebuds. These foods are high in calories. Not only do we not have to extend much energy to get them, but they are packed full of the calories we biologically seek. How could we refuse? We have created the ultimate immediate gratification set up, far removed from the trees of our paradise garden, and it is killing us.
Ah Amy, you might say. It’s not killing us. We may have some negative relationships with the foods that we eat, but it’s not that bad. Have you noticed, it’s hard to have a steady conversation when the subject of food is involved. But, I have become very much interested in food and am open to conversations about what I eat. A few summers ago, I took a few courses in nutrition. I was happy to find a program called Nutritional Studies through Cornell University, and I studied under Dr. T. Colin Campbell. His book The Chia Study was a game changer for me. When I read that text in the summer of 2015, my life changed radically. So, when I saw that his program was offering a certificate in nutrition, I signed up.
One of the courses that I took was entitled Diseases of the Affluent. What Campbell found through his extensive research, was that globally, those who had the means to buy the “best” of the foods that the world had to offer, “the delicacies of the king” described in Provers twenty-three, were also the ones who were battling chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancer. We he probed further, he discovered a direct corelation. Initially he was researching proteins to find a way to get more protein-rich foods to more and more people around the globe, but what he found was that the protein was at the root of many of our diseases. He followed where his research took him, and what he found - the garden of life.
Based on his discoveries, Campbell suggests that nutrition is key to health and that most people are not aware of what good nutrition looks like. He proposes a plant-based whole food diet. When we consider our drives to pleasure, to avoid pain, and to conserve energy, eating whole, natural foods that require more effort to buy, prepare, and eat may not be our first go to. But these are the foods that we are designed to eat. In their whole forms, the nutriational packages are complete. With fresh ripe, organically grown fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds we get everything we need and nothing we don’t.
As we close today, I will leave you with the last verses of Proverbs twenty-three from Peterson’s translation The Message:
Who are the people who are always crying the blues?
Who do you know who reeks of self-pity?
Who keeps getting beaten up for no reason at all?
Whose eyes are bleary and bloodshot?
It’s those who spend the night with a bottle,
for whom drinking is serious business.
Don’t judge wine by its label,
or its bouquet, or its full-bodied flavor.
Judge it rather by the hangover it leaves you with—
the splitting headache, the queasy stomach.
Do you really prefer seeing double,
with your speech all slurred,
Reeling and seasick,
drunk as a sailor?
“They hit me,” you’ll say, “but it didn’t hurt;
they beat on me, but I didn’t feel a thing.
When I’m sober enough to manage it,
bring me another drink!” (29-35).
While the focus here is on alcohol consumption, it can be applied to all to which we are drawn. We eat, and drink, and partake of things that bring us instant gratification and they always leave us bereft and wanting more. Often to avoid pain, we fill up on these things that promise escape or comfort. It is a false comfort. It is but a momentary escape. Today, consider all that you ingest. Everything. Over time, how does it make you feel? How is it influencing your day to day? Is it energy-giving or energy-depleting? Be honest. Rise above the traps. Turn to that that gives life. There is joy. The true pleasure that we seek is not in the momentary stimulation of our taste buds or in the deadening of our nerves so as to avoid the pain involved in living, but it is in feeling every ounce of what it means to be human and rejoicing in the life that we do have. Next time you say, “Yes, please,” may it be to life.
A list of the verses from the King James Version of the Bible from today’s reading addressing diet. I like to use the King James version here because it is in the public domain:
1 When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee:
2 And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite.
3 Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat.
6 Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats:
7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.
8 The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up, and lose thy sweet words.
19 Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the way.
20 Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh:
21 For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.
29 Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?
30 They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.
31 Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.
32 At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.
35 They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.
“First, nutrition is the master key to human health. Second, what most of us think of as proper nutrition—isn’t.”
― T. Colin Campbell, Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition
Eight Affirmations of Gratitude
I am grateful for the food I eat.
I am thankful for the hydrating drinks I drink.
I am thankful for the abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables that are available to me.
An give thanks for my health and total wellness.
I am thankful for my wisdom to choose life-giving foods and for my awareness of The Pleasure Trap.
I am thankful for farmers who grow organically.
I am thankful all the nutrients I am able to absorb.
I give thanks for writers whose commitment to their work and findings changes lives for the better.
Questions to Consider
How can I be more attentive to the way the foods I eat make me feel?
Where does my food come from and how does it’s production and processing affect me and the Earth?
How can I make wiser choices regarding the food that I eat and the drinks that I drink?
Blessings
Thank you for joining me. May your choices in life always be beneficial to your total well-being and the well-being of our Mother Earth. Love and light to you my friends. Namaste.
*Note:
CHARMED, is an acronym that I have developed, related to abundant living. There are seven letters, one for each day of the week. While I encourage you to touch on all of the letters on a daily basis, one letter will be highlighted each day.
In CHARMED, E stands for eat well. Click on the E in the card posted above and go to a page full of ways to nourish your body. I encourage you to peruse the page and try one of the proposed practices to get your charm on as quickly as possible.