Over the last few weeks I’ve been sharing all about Why I Eat Raw. There are many facets to this decision for me. Many of them have been (and still are) the physical benefits of eating this way. Simply put, eating raw foods is the most nutritionally dense diet you can eat!

But, as you may have read in my last newsletter, there are other reasons for eating raw. The mental, emotional and spiritual benefits of eating this way, make all of the difference. It’s powerful to realize that you can choose to eat in a particular way for powerful reasons beyond being hungry, or wanting to lose weight!

1)    The “real” you begins to emerge. As you continue to eat raw anything that is not you begins to fall away – physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually – from a cellular level on up. What do I mean by “anything that’s not you?”

If you are filling your body with high vibration raw foods, it’s literally like you are crowding anything in your body that is not of that same vibration. This happens at a cellular level. The cells begin to dump toxicity and junk as you fill them up with the live foods you are now eating. Over time this means you are literally changing your cells from the inside out!

The real you may have been burdened and covered up by: cellular toxicity; excess weight; pain and dysfunction in various areas of the body; negative thoughts; mood swings; anxiety and/or depression due to nutritional deficiencies; yeast overgrowth; blood sugar highs and lows; numbing out through food; disconnection from yourself and something greater; negative self-talk, and more.

As you clean up your diet and clean out your body at the cellular level, the healthy, vibrant, positive, beautiful, light, luminous and excited you can shine. She’s not weighed down by a long list of health concerns and exhaustion. Instead she’s nourished, detoxified, and energized! As a result she is able to do things that were formerly impossible. She is able to step into the potential that has always been waiting for her. She is ready to embrace her radiant possibilities!

2)    Greater ability to connect with your Self, your Soul and the Divine. Musically, I like to think of the Standard American Diet (SAD) as heavy metal. What I mean is it creates a lot of “noise” in the body, mind, emotions and spirit – so much noise that it’s hard to hear anything else! This “noise” that’s created by SAD foods shows up in the form of nutritional deficiencies, food cravings and addictions, emotional eating, disordered eating, and more.

It’s mighty challenging to tune into what your heart and soul are saying to you when you’re caught in the cycle of emotional eating, food cravings, nutritional deficiencies and disordered eating in all of its forms. Food – the thought of it, the war with it, the toxic beliefs that we develop in relationship to it – takes precedence over everything else.

When you’re in the throws of a food binge you’re not thinking about or able to hear what your heart is longing for and how you will satisfy that longing. You’re thinking about that bag of salty potato chips and that pint of ice cream, and how quickly you can put that into your mouth!

When you truly nourish yourself with high vibration and raw foods, and your relationship with food evolves into something that is loving and nurturing on every level (it is possible!), you liberate yourself from the distracting noise of low vibration foods. Raw foods offer liberation from “noise” and distractions that tie up our energy and keep us living unsatisfying lives.

Musically, raw foods are a lot like classical music. They are beautiful, colorful, delicious, and they help create an internal environment of health and higher consciousness. From this place it is much easier to connect with yourself and what’s really happening for you internally. From this place it’s easier to hear the soft voice of your heart and soul, and to receive guidance from the Divine.

“How can I connect more fully with my soul and its messages for me?”

One way to connect more fully with your soul and divine internal guidance is to consciously let go of what’s not really you.

When you do this, you also remove the barriers between you and your soul. This allows your soul’s signals to more easily reach you and for you to hear them much more clearly.

This is exactly what takes place in a Soul Reading with me. We make peace with the past so you can drop walls of protection you no longer need.

Many people have built a lot of barriers over the years and use a series of readings to release what’s separating them from their divinity. Some know it’s time for a private program because they’re ready to release the pain of their past and open to more of who they really are.  Your true self (or soul) has always been within you – the more you let go of the false the more you’re able to be true to your divine self and live who you really are.

3)    Greater access to your dreams and desires. When you can hear and are willing to listen to the soft voice of your heart and soul, a powerful thing begins to happen. You become aware of dreams and desires that you may never have been able (or wouldn’t allow yourself) to hear before. The potency of this should not be underestimated!

Imagine living a life without dreams and desires! They are the fuel for motivation and a keen source of inspiration. For many women, their dreams and desires are why they get out of bed everyday!

Now, imagine having greater access to and awareness of what your deepest dreams and desires are. Might you live your life a bit differently if you knew your deepest dream was to be a mother? Or a chef? Or a pilot? If you knew without a doubt that your greatest desire was to travel to Paris or create your own fashion line, how would that shift your thinking and your doing?

Consider raw foods as your ally in being able to discover and tune into your heart and soul’s deepest longing. The cleaner and clearer you are, the easier it is to know what you desire and require in every area of your life. Raw foods can help illuminate and activate your truth, and make that truth more apparent to you than ever.

Knowing your truth is imperative if you desire to live a heart-centered, soul-led life. Raw foods can help you do just that!

4)    Incredible resilience in the face of chaos, resistance and the unexpected moments in life. One of the most powerful and necessary attributes for today’s day and age is resilience. I don’t mean that you should put yourself in a bad place and find some way to put up with it. What I’m talking about here are the ways that life will inevitably throw us curve balls. How you respond to the curve ball changes everything about it.

When I was struggling with my health, dealing with mood swings and had a fairly negative and “poor me” attitude about life, my response to chaos, resistance and unexpected events in my life looked (and felt) like total collapse. I was so stretched and challenged by basic living that full out thriving wasn’t a possibility. The slightest change in agenda felt like my life was falling apart. I didn’t have the capacity to handle the unexpected and the unusual.

Today I am amazed at how resilient I have become. I’m not saying I don’t have meltdowns because sometimes I do. But I don’t stay there, or give up in the face of them. Instead I get really calm, really centered, and I find the one thing that I can do that will shift everything for me. I see challenges as opportunities for me to rise, evolve and grow. This has changed everything for me.

I have the internal strength and capacity to face life’s twists and turns. Eating raw foods have helped me to create the internal environment inside of me that can handle any situation as it arises. I have the ability to respond to life, instead of react to it. I can be the captain of my destiny, and that is a very good thing!