Happy Thursday to You!
What a great day to celebrate the Majesty and Mystery of being Alive!
Speaking of the Mystery of life, I watched an excellent documentary on plant communications last night.
It highlighted many facts and suspicions about plant intelligence called: What Plants Talk About, on our local public television station.
It showed that they are very aware of each other, and have elaborate communication systems for communicating with insects and animals.
Scientists found a tobacco plant that changes the time of day it blooms, and the shape and structural characteristic of its flowers and other features to attract different animals and insects; it does this to protect itself against bug infestation.
The scientists were shocked and amazed to find that this plant can make radical changes in its structure in just six days. Previously, it was thought that changes in plants and trees took much longer to manifest.
They highlighted a specific type of weed that is taking over large areas of cattle grazing land and wiping out the grasses. The scientists said that this plant behaves like a carnivorous animal, excreting chemicals into the soil and killing all competitors!
There is a lot of very amazing information in the program that supports what I’ve been teaching my students for many years! But I didn’t learn these things from books or TV shows J. To see this amazing program, go to: www.PBS.org
I had a very jam-packed day of coaching yesterday, so my trip to the gym was quick. I did some squat-curls with dumbbells, some kettlebell rhythm swings, and a little play on my cable machine for 15:00, I had a quick cold shower and got back at it all. Felt great though!An apple a day keeps the doctor away! After all, movement IS LIFE!
TIPS FOR MAKING CHANGES: A Rainbow Bridge (Pt.4)
Making changes, particularly where there is addiction, is notoriously challenging for people.
Many parents, teachers, coaches, therapists and doctors make a big mistake by pressuring people into cold-turkey changes, often use leverage, guilt, and shame, and typically get very poor results.
In fact, the pressure of change under such circumstances often worsens addiction, guilt, shame, blame, pain, etc.
People who succumb to such pressure-cooker approaches to change often acquire another more favorable addiction; what was an addiction to sugar or drugs may now become an addiction to anger, violence, exercise, sex, work, control, etc.
I’ve seen this occur in many people that sought out my help when everything they tried seemed to fail.
Through a lot of trial and error, and a lot of study and work on myself, I’ve found that if we create what I refer to as a rainbow bridge, changes are more sustainable, without the guilt, shame and blame being an issue – unless of course you are in a relationship with others that love that way!
The rainbow is made of seven colors, and it bridges two points on the earth through its vibrant rainbow of colored light.
The rainbow’s base, low frequency color is red, with its highest frequency color being violet; red would be like the first step on a ladder, and violet the top step, or achievement of the goal/destination in the change process; the rainbow represents a bridge from where you are now, to where you want to be.
To exemplify what I teach my students in their CHEK Holistic Lifestyle Coaching courses, let’s apply the concept of the rainbow bridge to sugar addiction.
Our culture is dangerously addicted to processed sugar. Processed sugar is as addictive as a Type 1 drug, such as heroine or morphine.
Processed sugar strips the body of vitamins and minerals.
Processed sugar feeds pathogenic bacteria, fungus and other parasites in our bodies, which also rob us of our nutrition and fill our bodies with their excretions and many other chemicals.
Processed sugar was linked to genetic malformation and increased incidence of diseases, such as cancer, by Weston A. Price in his most excellent book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration (A MUST READ for anyone wanting to understand the essential truth of nutrition!).
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Additionally, processed sugar over-stimulates the brain and nervous system, leading to biochemical imbalances that cause a wide variety of psychological complications.
IF ANYONE TELLS YOU PROCESSED SUGAR IS GOOD FOR YOU, LOOK AT THE HEALTH OF THEIR BODY; THEIR SKIN, HAIR, BODY SHAPE, TEETH, CLEARNESS OF THEIR EYES, MOOD, CONSISTENCY OF PERSONALITY, SMELL AND RELATIVE NERVOUSNESS BEFORE YOU HIRE THEM TO HELP YOU OR BELIEVE ANYTHING THEY TELL YOU!
Addicts are very good at justifying and selling their addictions as a means of camouflaging their own confusion and/or diseases.
As an example of a rainbow bridge from processed sugar consumption, the first step would be to find an organic replacement. For example, if you are using organic desserts, you are typically getting sugar sources that have nutrition in them. We naturally love sweet things because in nature, the things that taste sweet turn out to be excellent sources of energy and nutrition, as well as many other beneficial qualities.
This simple transition allows a person to increase nutrition, while easily participating in the transition. They can still feed their addiction, but as increased nutrition is made available, they cultivate more energy and vitality to support the neurological and hormonal demands on the brain and nervous system, which are a natural part of any learning/change process.
The second step toward the goal of freedom from unhealthy amounts and types of sugar in my rainbow bridge would be to use organic dried fruit. It is:
– Nutritious
– Sweet
– Readily available, and
– Travels well.
By transitioning from organic desserts, like the organic chocolate above, you are minimizing other substances and more concentrated sugars that are often stressful to the body, and make it hard to balance your biochemistry relative to dried fruit.
As a person’s willingness improves, the dried fruit can be boiled in water and the water poured off. This will reduce the sugar content, while retaining the fiber and other useful nutrients. Each time you boil and pour the water off, the sweetness diminishes.
You can easily substitute dried fruit for sugar on cereals and other foods for sweetness that is sweet to the body-mind. Not destructive.
Organic root vegetables make a great next step in our rainbow bridge. They have plenty of nutrition, and sweetness, and can be prepared and crafted into a number of different, and very enjoyable sweet options. They also can be made into chips, dried, and travel well.
Natural, organic, raw sweet sources such as honey can be used in this phase, and in any phase if managed intelligently.
Again, raw honey and other similar products provide very good nutrients to the body and you actually get something beneficial from them, as opposed to being raped and addicted like you will be with processed sugar; worse yet is sugar replacements that are synthesized!
Our next step is a switch to whole food desserts. Whole food desserts are desserts made only with whole foods; preferably organic of course! This gives us a wider variety of sweet sources, which means a wider variety of nutrient options.
Most people today would have a radical health improvement if they ate whole food desserts for breakfast, lunch and dinner if you compared the nutrient profile of such foods to the foods they currently eat!
Imagine that! Dessert all day! I know it works because I’ve tested it to see how my body would respond.
Surprisingly, even as a protein type, I found that by choosing deserts with adequate food and natural sugars in them, and adequate quality fat, I could feel good all day on such foods.
However, I also found that they feed fungus so my experiment could only be short lived; eating organic desserts all day is a step backward for me, but, hey, I’m a man of testing before talking.
Raw food sources such as apples and vegetables are the ideal source for getting sweet satisfaction, nutrition, and life-force!
A quality raw food source of sweetness is a source of living energy and information. You are now consuming something that contributes to your well being on many functional levels, and doesn’t have chemicals in or on it (if truly organic).
The final step on our rainbow bridge is to learn to proportion your meals according to your individual needs, or what I call your Primal Pattern® Type.
You can learn to easily modify your dietary proportions of fats, proteins and carbohydrates using three different methods by studying my audio titled Primal Pattern Eating
This is an example of how I coach my clients and teach my students to do so as well. This process can be applied to any drug, food, or behavior as a general transition theme.
There is a problem among the natural movement people in that they often are so anti-drug, anti-sugar, anti-many-things, that they come on with a black and white approach. This is dangerously unrealistic, and sadly, immature from the perspective of being a coach or therapist.
For example, some have a no-hold-barred approach to things like tobacco, yet I’ve never met a single one of these people that knows anything at all about the many health benefits of tobacco, or has studied the medicinal benefits and/or alternative uses of it.
I have researched this subject extensively because tobacco is an integral component in many practices used by shaman (I’m a practicing shaman).
I’ve developed a variety of rainbow bridges and I’d encourage all of you involved in a change process of significance, or an addiction, to be patient, loving, and wise about it, or you can easily create more problems than good, including suicide!
Tomorrow, I’m seeing an elite athlete for coaching and conditioning.
Then I’m celebrating Ryan Hughes’ 40th birthday with him. Vidya’s making us all lunch and then I’m giving Ryan a little gift – I can’t say what it is because he often reads my blogs – sorry Bud, no peeking until the BDay Fairy taps you with her wand!
I hope you’ve enjoyed the blog today.
Have a great day enjoying quality sweets!
Love and chi,
Paul Chek
