Still craving greens!

I am still craving greens! I can't get over this, it's weird. Tuesday and Wednesday I had salad for lunch AND a green smoothie once I got home, and I want more!

A couple weeks ago I sat in a Wendy's as a couple friends were eating. Since we were there and I was hungry and craving salt, I decided to get french fries. As I sat and looked around, I had the sudden, terrible revelation that I was surrounded by death. From the greasy french fries we shared and the chicken nuggets and burgers they ate that came from tortured animals raised in unsanitary factories, to the tons of plastic for windows, seats, ads, trash cans and the disposable, single-serving everything, to the overweight customers killing themselves with so-called "food"... Death. There was death everywhere. It was like one of those movies where suddenly the character realizes that it's all an illusion and suddenly sees the broken lights, rotten wood, and sunken skull-like faces behind everything and every face around them that looked so bright and normal a second ago.
I asked myself, then, what if I decided to make choices that affirmed life, in every decision I made? What food I eat, whether or not to buy something, what materials to use in my garden and house, even what hobbies I have and how I spend my time.
What if, every day, when faced with a decision I asked myself the simple question, "Is this life-affirming?"
And if the answer is no, then don't buy/eat/do that.
Choose the most life-affirming option in every decision you make.

I don't think it's a coincidence that my cravings for wheat products have dropped dramatically recently. I look at them and think, "My cravings are just a manifestation of emotional need - I should deal with the source, not the symptoms" and "This isn't nuturing to me, it will hurt me. Do I really want to eat something that will leave me hurting for far longer than it would give me pleasure?"

I am tackling the great (and difficult) emotional work and realizing that there is no wonder I was failing to improve my health the whole time.
-I could not access or make progress on locked-up emotional problems without moving and exercising my body.
-I could not exercise without tools and support in place to deal with the intense emotions released.
-I could not eat healthily because of emotional needs connected to food.
-I could not feel stable and happy emotionally because I ate food almost every day that made me subtly sick and ill.
-I could not exercise without pain when my body was full of toxins from bad foods.
-I did not have the energy for exercise when eating unhealthy foods, and without the invigoration of exercise, I had no energy to take the time to prepare healthy foods.

Every problem fed into one another. Buddhists have a word for this that translates approximately as the "interdependent co-arising" of phenomena.
It seemed so helpless, so pointless, doing little things when each little thing does so little toward improving the big picture of my health. But it's all connected through feedback loops, so a little healthier food means better emotional processing and more energy; more energy for exercise means less joint pain and sounder sleep; therapy for emotional issues gives the strength to make healthier food choices... etc. I have so far to go but after this long the progress I am seeing feels so wonderful!
And hard! Wow, this is exhilerating but also hard work! I am so grateful for all the ways I am blessed - especially, this week, all the loving support I am receiving from my husband.

Until next time, love and light,
Kasi