The Raw Lifestyle is not just about food.  It is about gratitude, positive thinking, forgiveness, loving yourself and not judging yourself or others.  I have found that a huge percentage of the human population really do not like themselves.  Just listen to their “self-talk”, which so often is not kept to themselves but intertwined throughout everyday conversations with others.

• “I am so fat”
• “I will never get in shape”
• “I will never make enough money to pay my bills”
• “ I hate my life”
• “I am a bad parent, just look at the way my kids act”
• “I hate my job, but don’t know how to do anything else”

Other evidence of someone not loving them self is when they are constantly putting others down, or making excuses for their own bad behavior.  Someone who has learned to love them self for who she or he is – wants to build up others, not tear them down.  They aren’t threatened by other’s successes, but rejoice with them.  There are several places in the Bible where it says, ”Love others as well as you love yourself”, Matthew 22:37 The Message Bible.  This speaks volumes.  You’ve heard the saying, “Hurting people hurt people”? How many of these hurting people have really learned to love themselves?  Most of us don’t even know that we don’t.  I certainly didn’t.

Negative self talk and all the negative energy that goes with it is stressful and stress and health cannot coexist in harmony in our lives.  Stress does more damage to our physical and emotion well being than anything else in life. What thoughts roll around your head?  What things do you speak to yourself or to others about YOU?  It all begins with an awareness. From there, we can acknowledge what we know and start a new path in our journey.

My journey to loving myself, forgiveness, gratitude and having a positive attitude began with a Yoga class.  The instructor said, “Don’t judge your body.”  I wondered what that was supposed to mean.  He then went on to explain by saying, when we say, I can’t do this because I am too out of shape, or I am too old to bend this way, we judge ourselves.  He suggested we tell ourselves each day we are moving more toward optimal health and we are becoming stronger and more flexible and able to get in shape.  This one minute word of encouragement started me on a path of healing and wholeness that has helped transform my life.  At that point, lying on a Yoga mat, I found myself saying the very things he was suggesting we not say.  I started listening to my self talk over the next 24 hours and found it to be very negative, degrading, and even demoralizing.  Wow… and I actually wondered for many years, why I was so miserable in life, never realizing how negatively I thought of or spoke of myself.

Eating a 100% raw diet and having stinking  thinking, will not lead to ultimate health.  Having a positive attitude and even exercising while eating food void of life and nutrients, will not lead to ultimate health.  Body, mind and spirit were meant to work together in harmony to bring us to a place of balance and optimal health.

What do you have to lose?  “Raw, It Does a Body Good!”