Raw Food Will Not Make Your Life Perfect
Raw food should come with a warning: This is fleeting.
(and this post comes with another disclaimer: it is still worth doing).
At first you will feel so good that it is utter insanity. The trees will hug you, the birds will serenade you, you will wake up with panache, an appetite for life like you’ve never known – better than childhood – in fact, you feel like you did as a child, and who doesn’t want to feel that? Your body is celebrating, you have so much to compare it to – your previous misery has lifted and WOW, life is AMAZING now!
After a while it just becomes normal to be happy, merging with your former self, just feeling better physically, calmer, better looking. But your expectations of always feeling 100% astounding will be dashed, and like the junkie, you will be searching always for that next ecstatic high-on-life, and many people will try to sell it to you, especially if it makes them a lot of money. The next superfood, the next amazing concoction.
I’m not saying that you will never feel that ecstasy again – you will. But it ebbs and flows. I get it all the time – but the parallel is when I get low, it is also extreme. Not as long lasting, like my previous days, but life feels overwhelming – not the act of living day to day, but just BEING ALIVE. Everything seems so poignant, so crushing, so impossibly beautiful, so damning, so frightening, so easy, so hard. Everything is magnified by thousands, and I just want to numb myself – so easy to do with food, and so many people do – though now I stuff myself with berries instead of Skittles. The overwhelm affects my ability to fall asleep, though I am a corpse when I do succumb – completely gone into the land of my brain, where dreams have become an even crazier landscape.
So am I missing something? Am I just not “doing it right” according to some self-appointed experts? I don’t know – I am doing everything I know to do, and no matter what, I still get depressed, I still get submerged into oblivion, and then I feel lame for being dramatic. And then I don’t care. I share, and will always share – it has always been the way I exist – the introvert that dresses herself in sequins and green braids, the loner who goes clubbing, the sensitive target with the leonine roar.
The last thing I want is to focus all of my energy on what I eat – I’ve done that for years now, and yes it is important to eat well (and I still believe raw is best, and what is keeping me sane), but I am at a point of just letting go, to some extent – the perfectionism, the strictness, the one-dimensional streams of neurons that could be creating meaning in my life, a purpose – they are all centered on food. I don’t want my brain to be thinking about these things anymore. I think I need a “food-thought” fast. I never used to think about food – but since it had such a profound impact on my mental health and general well-being (and my looks, too!) it has become an all-encompassing obsession. How can I make it even BETTER? I continually ask myself.
Eating raw is second nature to me now – I don’t have to “think” about it – but to worry about calories, and percentages, and all that – no thanks. I know to eat mostly fruits and greens, I know not to eat too much fat, and I know to keep well hydrated and get exercise. I know to get sunlight and B12. I know to be vegan. What else do I need to know? I think a while of being concerned with what to nourish yourself with is HEALTHY – but after four years, I am more concerned with other aspects of life that I have been NEGLECTING. No wonder I feel insane.
I highly recommend reading a book called “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle. All the info and principles you learn can be 100% applied to what you are going through. Check out some reviews or videos of the book/author at least. In my opinion every person on the planet should read it twice. I hope it helps
Thanks. I read that book years ago. I find Byron Katie’s method works best for me, but it’s hard to get myself into the headspace to do it when I feel most glum!
one way to fix it, and i’m not saying to do this regularly, but is to indulge. it doesn’t have to be unhealthy like skittles, but maybe make some chocolate pudding out of avocados and cocoa powder. not exactly what you eat as a rule, but once every couple months might give you that high again once you continue eating raw. just a thought. remember, i do not eat raw food as you do, so it isn’t exactly my expertise!