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October 16, 2004
Unstructured, but nice
I think I hate unstructured days. That means I have to structure them. I only need one event or meeting or session booked, e.g. yesterday, in order to have something to schedule around.
It was kitchen appreciation day. All the kitchen staff went to the ocean or something, and students worked in their stead. They didn't do a bad job, either. Pumpkin pancakes for breakfast, nachos and other mexican-style food for lunch, and something weird for dinner.
I'm coming to the conclusion that processed/refined foods are "numbing", at least for me, and potentially for most people. Perhaps not exactly anesthetizing, but I suspect that they can cut us off from parts of ourselves, defeating attempts at self-awareness. Sympathetically it makes sense: eat whole foods, be a whole being; eat stuff that's been broken up into parts, get broken up into parts.
This would explain why food combining and general awareness of what and how I'm eating seem more important when eating a whole foods diet than not. "More important" = I feel the negative effects when I don't do it. I found myself asking, "Why doesn't food combining matter when I eat crap?" Why, when I leave the mountain, does my first meal result in a stomachache, but subsequent meals feel fine? Perhaps it's not that I feel "fine", but that on some level I don't feel much of anything.
I'm also noticing some potentially supportive evidence in other people. There seems to be a correlation between eating junk food and certain other behaviors; at least, I'm seeing them show up together in some people and not so much apart. The behaviors I see include rarely, if ever, using circle time to process, delve deeply, or express many emotions and a narrower range of emotional expression. Some subjective observations include different quality of touch (not present/distracted, inaccurate, and/or careless), and a predominating expression of what I often interpret as "false joy".
There are some obvious limitations to what conclusions can be drawn from my minimal and unintentional observations, but when I add them to my own personal experience and a possible underlying theory, I think I've got a good hypothesis. It would simply be a matter of a properly designed and administered survey on eating habits and somatoemotional awareness to confirm or deny the correlation.
I received my first deep tissue work ever. Intercostals, abdominals, psoas, iliacus, etc. My psoas were so happy to be touched, probably for the first time.
Supposedly, according to the Mayan calendar, we recently finished up a 13 day cycle of death and entered a 13 day cycle of creation and rebirth. In my lack of awareness of what was going on, I think I may have cut the death cycle short, hence stunting the new growth.
Oh well. Next time.
Posted by Josh A. at October 16, 2004 10:03 PM
Comments
Absolutely agree with you on the numbing effect of overly processed foods. I also believe that simplicity in diet is refreshing too. Despina observed yesterday that while she can eat all the ingredients in the banana cake she made with impunity, there were too many complexities in the combination in the cake and it affected her.
If you have yet to see 'Super Size Me' I recommend it.
R
Posted by: Ramsey at October 17, 2004 11:21 AM
Paul Pitchford is always talking about simple eating, especially for calming the mind. I have trouble doing it. Mmm... tastebuds.
Super Size Me rocks :-)
Posted by: Josh A. at October 17, 2004 05:49 PM