Sat Jivan Singh Khalsa

Who is the healthiest person you can think of? Take a minute to feel the frequency and the presence of that person.

For me, that person is Sat Jivan Singh, the director of Kundalini Yoga East in New York City. He is, I would guess, in his sixties, though only his gray beard gives it away. There is, unlike others I know in their sixties, a palpable glow about him, a lightness and a vibrancy to his presence that makes me feel uplifted just being near him. He radiates happiness and joy, he is in pristine physical shape, as flexible as a spry gymnast with the endurance of a long-distance runner. He can break a 104-degree fever by simply wrapping two fingers around his big toe in just the right posture, flexing the exact right muscles. He is powerful and skilled and kind. For me, he is the picture of health.

What would it be like to be that healthy?

Did you just say something to yourself along the lines of “It would be amazing, but…”

Good! Ok, so what were the “buts”? Those buts are your beliefs about your health. Those buts are the beliefs that are keeping you from attaining that level of health for yourself.

So today, take some time to write down all those beliefs – all the reasons why you think you cannot be as healthy as the healthiest person you know. Go as deep as you can – ask yourself what belief is underneath each of the ones you write down. Keep going until you feel you’ve reached your core beliefs.

If your experience is anything like mine when you do this, you’ll feel both liberated and repelled by the truth of what you really think. You’ll see, in black and white (or blue and white, or red and white, depending on the color of the pen you use) how your beliefs are running counter to the results you want for your life.

This is the first step to changing your beliefs.

Let me know how it goes for you.

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When I was younger, I lived my life under the pleasant assumption that if something was available to me – to eat, to wear, to play with – then the adults who run this world must have already made sure it was healthy and safe for me. I believed that this mysterious group of adults was benevolent and all-knowing, and that they had my best interest in mind, of course.

Funny, huh?

We’re Killing Ourselves

The truth is I may still have been navigating my life with this naivete if I hadn’t developed MS and believed firmly in the power of my own body to heal and get back in balance. But something interesting happened when I decided to begin eating for the purpose of healing. I realized that there were nearly no restaurants, delis, or cafes where I could eat a truly healthy meal! And with that realization came the startling understanding that our country’s eating habits were killing us, and there seemed to be a tacit agreement between those of us consuming the food and those of us providing it to do nothing, despite mounting evidence of the dangers.

At the same time, I began educating myself about what a healthy diet really means by exposing myself to naturopaths, nutritionists, and books and articles about what foods help us thrive and heal and live long, vibrant lives. Part of this education involved understanding the incentives that keep our poor dietary habits in place despite the knowledge of a far better way, among them greed, gluttony, and ignorance.

Everyone’s Doing It

Have you seen the recent commercials and print ads for Dunkin’ Donuts? They’ve adapted the slogan “America Runs on Dunkin’”. It’s a brilliant campaign. In four words they are telling you that the whole country’s doing it and you should too, and a donut and a cup of coffee will provide all the energy you need to get through your day. They’re not just approving of this diet, they’re highly encouraging it, and they’re using the social proof of all of America to convince you of its merits. When I see these commercials, it almost makes me want to run on Dunkin’! And I know I won’t be running – or walking – anywhere if I switch to the Dunkin’ diet!

I could turn this into a really long post, citing all the evidence and causal links between our diets and our diseases, but you can find that information easily online yourself. What I want to bring your attention to is how easy and dangerous it is to buy into the logic that because these foods are everywhere, they must be okay. Because they are not okay.

If you have MS, you’re lucky, because you’ll likely experience acute symptoms in your body within a day or two if you eat the standard American diet versus a healthy diet designed for self-healing and longevity. I can tell you that after three years on a healthy diet, whenever I deviate I feel it. But if you don’t have a chronic illness, you’re damaging yourself just as much, but maybe the cause and effect isn’t quite so fast and obvious. Diabetes, obesity, heart disease, cancer, alzheimer’s. The chances of developing these conditions are all multiplied significantly by eating a poor diet. By eating the American diet.

When Dunkin’ Donuts tells me that America runs on Dunkin’ I believe them. Oh I know it. And that’s the problem. America runs on Dunkin’ but should you?

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Photo by Rachel_R, Flickr

I talk about food a lot on this blog. The importance of a healthy diet, the benefits of discipline, and the ramifications of straying. Today I came across a blog of a nutritional counselor who spoke of a book called Integrative Nutrition by Joshua Rosenthal. Rosenthal offers a very interesting point that deepens and broadens my frequent “eat intentionally” message – the distinction between primary and secondary food:

Primary Food = Career, Physical Activity, Relationships, Spirituality
Secondary Food = What you eat

Rosenthal says that after years in his practice he’s noticed that there are those who eat horribly but thrive, and another group that eat with obsessive discipline and yet struggle to feel healthy. This begs the question: Where does true nourishment come from?

As always, achieving vibrant health is a delicate dance of many factors. But today I want to know how well you are nourishing yourself, and if there are areas of primary or secondary food that need your attention. Subtle shifts can create dramatic change in your health. What needs shifting? What needs nourishing?

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This person’s got a whole lotta sway. And that’s fine – as long as you’ve chosen the right doctor for you. Doctors hold so much authority in our culture that sometimes we may forget who is working for who. Your doctor is your employee, not the other way around, and if you’re not satisfied with his performance, you may and darn well should fire him and find someone better. I have a client who wanted to fire her doctor but she was afraid to hurt his feelings and afraid that he might call her to find out why. I asked her what she was more afraid of – experiencing the discomfort of facing someone squarely and telling them an unpleasant truth, or putting her health – her very life – in the hands of the wrong person.

Today I want to ask you a few questions to jog your thinking about your doctor and whether or not he or she is the right one for the job. Remember – inviting someone in to help you heal is a sacred role. Your doctor should honor that and honor you.

The Doctor Quiz

Do you and your doctor share the same fundamental beliefs about MS and how it should be treated?

Does your doctor treat you like an equal partner in deciding the best course of action?

Does your doctor respond respectfully and without being condescending if you disagree with his suggestion?

Does your doctor ask you what you think would be best for you?

Does your doctor make you feel like you are the only patient in the world?

Does your doctor take time with you to find out how you are feeling and what stresses might be effecting your life?

Does your doctor or someone in the office return your call promptly if you have a question or concern?

Do you feel comfortable with your doctor?

Do you feel like your doctor gets you?

Do you leave your doctor’s office feeling hopeful and positive and with a renewed sense of determination?

The Results

If you answered no to more than one of these questions, I advise you to consider finding yourself a new doctor. You deserve someone who you can answer YES to for all the above considerations. But part of deserving a great doctor is being willing to take the time and effort and potential discomfort to find that person. Sometimes you just get lucky, but more often than not, finding high quality professionals is the result of first believing you deserve it and then demanding that you receive it by doing whatever it takes to find the right fit. Your health is the only thing that really matters. Settle for a mediocre hairdresser (if you must, though I don’t necessarily advise that either). Don’t settle for a mediocre doctor.

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Photo by doc_otto, Flickr

This morning was Open Music Class at my four-year-old daughter’s school. I walked into the class five minutes late, holding my daughter’s hand on my left and my cell on my right, thinking I’d text or tweet if it should get boring. To my surprise, I walked in to find all the parents and kids organized in a circle, taking turns coming up with some bodily motion like clapping their hands or tapping their shoulders that the rest of the circle could repeat to the sound of the beat. After that, the music teacher put on a song that called out instructions. Bend your knees, twirl around, put your hands to your child’s and clap them like patty-cake, twirl around, bend your knees…

Do you know where I’m going with this? Here I am thinking I’m going to be passively observing a pre-school music class, when in fact I’m actually unknowingly being given an MS exam!

If you’ve been following my blog you know that a piece of cake recently succeeded in bringing me over to the dark side. I transgressed from my diet a couple times since as well (Pandora’s Box of sweets can sometimes be hard to shut) and have predictably suffered some mild symptoms as a result, one of which is some funky balance. So I’m bending like I’m being instructed to bend, and I’m twirling like I’m being instructed to twirl, but I’m noticing the clumsiness of my feet in stopping properly from that twirl. I’m noticing that it takes some effort to make sure my hands meet my daughter’s to clap. I’m noticing the way I don’t completely have faith in my body’s ability to follow the simple instructions being given. Meanwhile, I’m looking around at all these kids, laughing, moving with such confidence and ease, and suddenly I remember.

Do you remember?

Being a kid? The surefooted confidence that everything in your body works as it should? When I remember being a kid I think of swinging on the monkey bars in my backyard swing set. I was graceful and strong, the sun was shining, I made it across those bars every time, I landed my feet on the ground exactly where I aimed them. I felt the freedom and power of my body, the blissful ignorance that anything could ever impede it.

If you don’t remember being vital, and healthy, stop reading now, and remember. What does health feel like? What does it look like? Because it’s not enough that we don’t want to be sick. We must go further than that. We have to have a full sensory representation of health and vitality, of being WELL! When was the last time you let yourself remember how it felt to be inside that childhood body?

Go there. Remember. Now you are beginning to create a worthwhile goal in which to aim yourself.

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But I don’t like leafy greens. So I don’t eat them very often (at least not yet), even though I know I should. And so, the phrase haunts me at every meal.

You see, every time you put something in your mouth, you are either increasing the health of your body, or taking away from it. Every meal is an opportunity to effect real and significant change in your body. Every meal is a point for you, or against you. As people living with chronic illness, the quality of the food we choose is perhaps the most important decision we make, and we make it every day, several times a day. Our bodies only work as well as our individual cells, and our cells only work as well as they can with the nourishment we provide. If that nourishment is poor, our cells will, in the extreme, go haywire, and short of that, they simply won’t work as well as they should.

The Food & Illness Connection

I spend a lot of time reading the posts on various MS pages on Facebook. Hundreds of people post every day, every minute, so reading it regularly teaches me what’s going on for people with MS every day, throughout the country. And one of the things I’ve noticed is that I often see three or four-sentence posts where someone is complaining of a symptom and in the very next sentence they mention the cookies they are about to eat, or the great cake they just had. And I’m amazed at the unfortunate ignorance in our culture (and specifically in our medical system) of the connection between the food we eat and how sick we are.

Food, especially sweets, is a comfort thing for many people. When you have MS, comfort is typically not your primary experience, and eating a few delicious cookies can go a long way to make someone feel comforted or treated, if not satisfied, at least for a little while. So I get why there’s a resistance to acknowledging the food-health connection and why even if a person gets it intellectually, it doesn’t necessarily translate into a willingness to change their diet. Ultimately, I believe it comes down to how much tolerance an individual has for discomfort, because only when that threshold is reached will most people be willing to make a change.

Unless of course we’re riding on the same proactive bandwagon, which I hope we are, in which case making changes toward awesome health is a typical day’s work.

Every time I sit down to eat a meal and I am not eating leafy greens, I am aware that I’m making a decision on behalf of my cells and thus on behalf of my health. The healing journey is a constant evolution, a regular weighing in and assessing of where I can improve, stack more cards in my favor, and be even healthier than I thought was possible yesterday. Leafy greens are one of my last holdouts, but I can feel the seemingly unmovable earth beneath me beginning to shift, to ready itself for the era of the leafy green.

Will I see you there, happily eating lettuce bunches? Will I be taking you with me? Or will leafy greens be a staple of your diet someday, just not yet?

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I was wrong about that.

Chemicals make food taste flavorful and addicting. That makes people buy it. When people buy it, the companies producing that food get rich. Chemicals also make it so that products can be “instant” – staying on the shelves of the supermarket without spoiling and requiring little to no prep time to make, which, let’s be honest, you and I and everyone else appreciates. You get where I’m going with this? There is a very strong financial incentive to create foods with chemicals, regardless of the fact that these foods are toxic to our bodies. There is very little incentive to do otherwise. Even the produce we buy is chemical-laden, sprayed with toxic pesticides and treated to stay and look fresh on its trip from the farm to your market. We want tomatoes that look red and ripe and we don’t ask how they got that way. We want sugar-free gum and sugar-free soda, but we don’t know much about what’s in there instead, making it taste so good.

Our country as a whole has made a silent, collective decision to operate with the ignorance-is-bliss policy. Only there is no bliss, because everyone’s sick! If you have MS, you cannot afford to continue on this way.

As some of you may already know, diet and supplements are the primary way I treat my MS. I do not take any of the disease-management drugs. For the last two and a half years, I’ve eaten a diet free of sugar, gluten, wheat, dairy, soy, and red meat, and I do my best to avoid any meat raised with antibiotics and produce that’s not organic. It was challenging at first – and still is in some respects – but something magical happened at around six months. My body reset to this new way of eating, and suddenly, when I would eat something with sugar or wheat or dairy, I would feel an overwhelming urge to cleanse my system of it and get back to my pure diet. I could actually FEEL the toxicity in my system when I would stray from my diet and eat a processed food.

If you have MS, regardless of if you choose to treat it with the drugs or not, eating a clean diet is simply essential. It will have a profound effect on how you feel. Your symptoms will improve, your energy will increase, and you will begin to heal your body. Suzanne Somers said it well in her book Breakthrough: Eight Steps to Wellness, which I strongly encourage everyone to read:

“We are what we eat. I realize it’s a cliche, but that’s the bottom line. Good food feed our cells. Cells make up who we are, and reproduce themselves by the billions each day…unless we are in a toxic state. When chemicals and toxins are part of our diet and lifestyle, our cells malfunction and malfunctioning cells are what make us sick and cause disease.

Malfunctioning cells are an umbrella for every disease known to man. … It really doesn’t matter the name given to the disease, the reason you have the sickness is because your cells are malfunctioning.

The toxins in your diet make it impossible for your cells to receive the nutrients they need to be healthy and reproduce. Toxins essentially turn your lights out. You fade away, sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly. Toxins wipe out your hormones, and the process of accelerated aging and disease begins. Toxins will kill you, it’s just a matter of how soon.

To be healthy you have to take your food seriously. Yet, we rarely give it a thought…we are so used to having chemicals all around us. We mindlessly grab that handful of chips, packaged cookies, instant soups, or consume dangerous oils. Trans fats, hydrogenated oils, additives, and irradiated foods are making us sick and killing us.”

I’ll be writing more about Suzanne Somers and the work she’s doing in future posts, but for now I want to just say that she is a true pathbreaker – leveraging her celebrity for an excellent cause, bringing to the public first-hand interviews with cutting-edge doctors who understand how vibrant, kick-ass health can actually be achieved (hint: it has very little to do with allopathic medicine). She’s amazing and I’m gonna call this required reading for anyone who wants to be or stay healthy.

Photo by Valerie Everett, Flickr

Imagine this: You want to go visit your friend Melissa but you’ve never been to her house and she lives an hour away, in a town you’ve never been to. Chances are, when you get in your car the first thing you’ll do is program her address into your GPS, so that it can navigate for you the fastest route to get there.

Now let’s say that instead of punching in the address of Melissa’s house, you input the address to Bethany’s house, who happens to live 45 minutes in the opposite direction, and then hit the GO button, expecting to arrive at Melissa’s. But wait, you wouldn’t do that. No, you definitely would not, because that would be ridiculous. If you want to arrive at one location, you would never input the address for another. And yet, that’s what so many of us do every day, every moment, when we imagine our future. When we make pictures in our minds of the future we believe is awaiting us, we are giving directions to our body and our mind to move toward that – we are creating that reality.

Did you know that? Now that you do, and you consider the pictures you make of your future, what would you change? Anything?

If where you aim yourself is the direction you’re headed, where do you want to aim? What will be true of you in ten years? In twenty? Do you expect that you’ll be thriving? Agile? Vibrant and energetic? Or do you picture yourself using a walker? Or a wheelchair? Or if you are already using a walker or wheelchair, do you imagine that you’ll continue to get worse and worse?

I know if I talked to my neurologist for a few minutes and I wasn’t extremely vigilant in where I allowed my mind to go, I’d begin to make pictures of myself in a wheelchair, because that’s where he expects me to be in ten years. So let’s try that on for a minute. If I expect to be in a wheelchair in ten years, what would likely be true of me now? For one, from the moment I make that decision about my future, I am now already having the experience of powerlessness, deterioration, and desperation in the present moment. I feel hopeless, and likely sorry for myself. Perhaps I feel resigned to my fate. And in this mindset, since this is my “inevitable” future, the best I can do is take whatever drugs are available and pray they help ward off this future that I’m heading toward.

But what if I eschew the predictions of my neurologist and instead fix my attention on the people who HAVE healed themselves of Multiple Sclerosis? What if I imagine myself to be one of those people, living a full and healthy life despite my MS diagnosis? What must be true of me now if this is the future I am living into? Well just like in the scenario I described above, I begin to have the experience the moment I make that decision about my future, but in this case, the experience I’m having is that all the circumstances in my life are moving me toward health and well-being! I begin to experience myself as a potent force in the creation of my own life as I continually make decisions that are moving me toward health. I have a powerful desire to know how those who healed themselves did it. A world of possibilities opens up before me as I begin to research what is working for people. Instead of merely accepting the drugs my neurologist offers, I am considering other paradigms of medicine and healing that could possibly bring me toward my goal of robust health.

Does this sound like a bizarre way to think about your life? That’s because we’re not trained to think like this. Most people organize themselves historically, meaning they look for evidence in the past to inform them of what is possible for their future. That’s what my neurologist is doing – what most of the MS doctors and community are doing – when they predict and expect that I will end up in a wheelchair in ten or twenty years. But what we’re doing here instead is organizing ourselves teleologically – aiming ourselves in the direction of a potential future, like inputting the address of Melissa’s house, and pressing GO. What is essential to understand is that the future you imagine yourself living into will directly effect what you are thinking, feeling, and doing in the present moment. So right here, right now, do you want to feel powerless, hopeless, and deteriorating, or do you want to be a potent force of health and well-being?

You decide. And truly, you do.

Want more inspiration? Click here to read What Do You Want? or go back to the main page to Get Inspired.

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