Tag Archives: Veganism

You Are, And Are Not, What You Eat

  By | ,
11 Comments

Photo by Cassidy Curtis

A few years ago, I spent 2 months as a raw foodist. The idea of eating that diet appealed to me, because all of the food was so fresh and clean, and it caused me to appreciate the flavors of fresh natural items without sauces or condiments. Ultimately, I stopped for three reasons. First, it didn’t do what I had hoped for the rheumatoid arthritis. Second, it was too difficult to maintain at work-function meals that I have to attend regularly. Finally, I was frequently being very very upset by claims made in the raw food community about health. The basic idea is that all disease comes from one source, body imbalances caused by toxins that we introduce through the body, primarily through food. Beginning with this idea, raw food “gurus” would make claims regarding prevention or causation of all manner of health issues, including the obviously food related, like heart disease or high cholesterol, but also things that don’t have that obvious connection, like all forms of cancer.

Yesterday, I was speaking with a woman who is undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. Recently, as she was eating a wrap that contained some thin sliced roast beef, one of the only things that appeal to her right now, a colleague approached and told her that she was “feeding her cancer,” and that she could provide her with a nutritional consultation to tell her how to stop doing that.

Two months ago, I was asked to review a book about veganism. The text was being re-issued for it’s 25th anniversary. I read the whole book, but it was a struggle due to the claims made in it. The author had made statements that were true and reasonable about a vegan diet’s positive impacts on animals, on nature, and on health. But then he repeatedly went beyond, as far as I was concerned. He made arguments that all health problems relate to eating meat. Cancer of all types and arthritis were both mentioned. Even AIDs was included in that discussion.

Claims like this, as far as I am concerned, are (pardon my language) crap. They represent wishful thinking, with absolutely no credible evidence. They negate completely the value of the science which has isolated causal factors for a wide variety of illness (and no, I am not saying that science is the only way to truth or that it’s always right, but it has to be just as bad to fully ignore it as to fully accept it). They neglect any consideration of all of the environmental factors in life besides food. They are also hurtful, not helpful. To tell someone who is suffering, “It’s your fault because of what you did in the past,” has no utility. He/she cannot go back and fix the past. How is that helpful?

Food matters. It is important. A healthy diet can have very positive impacts for any individual. It can significantly reduce many health risks, create better day-to-day health, help the body fight off infections and viruses, reduce the number of toxins you are exposed to, and make your life more enjoyable.

What it is not is a panacea. It can help, because there are many medical conditions that have been shown to be correlated with diet. But, correlation is not simple causation and a good diet does not provide 100% protection. We don’t have all the control over what happens to us, even if we wish we did. Food, like our behavior, comes back to impact us. You could call it karma. But, there are other things that impact us, like the environment around us, other people’s behavior, genetics, etc. There are raw foodists with medical issues. There are vegetarians with MS. There are vegans with heart problems. Heck, there are vegan marathoners with cancer.

So, eat a good diet not as a fool-proof prophylactic against disease. Do it to keep the body you are in as healthy as it can be, no matter what issues you are dealing with. Eat vegan to show your body, the animals, and the earth love. Do it because it feels right to do it right now, not because of some promise of a perfect future.

Fear, Guilt, Shame – Utility and Barrier in Yoga and Veganism

  By | ,
2 Comments

This week’s post brought to you a bit early by hurricane Sandy!

I’ve been thinking, writing, and talking (at a scholarly conference and in yoga classes) about fear, guilt, and shame quite a bit lately. And in those discourses, a theme that has wound its way throughout is that each has utility, but also can present a barrier to growth and wellness (n.b. I’m not going to provide the scholarly source cites here, but if someone needs them, let me know)  As we prepare for hurricane Sandy, taking the necessary precautions but attempting to avoid any freaking out about the situation, it seems a rather appropriate time to put these thoughts in blog form.

Fear is a part of our innate nature as animals. When we encounter situations that we perceive as threatening, the body and mind respond quickly to move into fight or flight mode. This gives us the energy we might need to get out of the situation or to deal with the threat. As we are impacted by things in life that harm us in some way, they are added to our bank of fear-producing events, and that helps to guide behavior in the future. Fear keeps us from doing things that are dangerous to us or to those we care about.

Similarly, guilt helps us to make choices about behavior. Guilt is a more social phenomenon, as it is built on societal precepts of what is acceptable, moral, ethical, and normal. When we stray from the bounds of acceptable, we are corrected in some fashion. From that, we learn what is acceptable and to feel bad (guilty) about straying, or even consider straying, from those expectations, and we use that information to make our life choices. Guilt helps to protect us from making choices that could be bad for others, or have serious social or personal ramifications for us.

Shame is connected to both guilt and fear, but is an entirely social phenomenon. We feel shame when we perceive that others would disapprove of our actions. The distinction between guilt and shame is slight, with the difference being that guilt is more about our own feelings that we are doing something wrong, and shame is about our belief that others would see what we are doing as wrong. While shame is probably of less utility, it does provide social protection that can be important in maintaining community relationships.

While these three facets of our humanity have useful roles in our lives, they can also be negative when they prevent us from the growth and change that is necessary for health, or confine us to narrow personal and social roles. In my life, they have unfolded in both helpful and negative ways in yoga and veganism.

I’m a vegan partly due to guilt and shame. Even from the time I was a small child, I realized that meat came from animals. I would eat hot dogs, sausages, ground beef, and lunchmeat without too much anxiety, but any food that came on a bone, or meat that was very chewy, presented a problem for me. When eating those things, I could not deny or ignore that what I was consuming came from the death of another being. I would get a piece of steak in my mouth and chew chew chew and not be able to swallow. Eventually, as an adult, I finally asked myself why I was continuing to eat meat if it made me so guilty and ashamed. It led me to a diet that has had benefits for me, my family, and probably a good number of animals.

At the same time, I could see how fear, guilt, and shame could become paralyzing in my dietary life. A while ago, a colleague pressed my diet choices, presenting some evidence of plants avoiding damage, and questioning whether I might want to think about how this could mean that plants have a degree of sentience. Similarly, I have had non-vegans lecture me on how the harvesting process inevitably kills insects. Stories of the dangers of soy can make it scary to consume that, as well. It would be easy enough to really take in all of this fear, guilt, and shame and become so conflicted that eating anything would be a trial.

In yoga, also, I have found fear to have its place. Fear of injury can prevent the ego from pushing me into poses that I’m not ready for, or that could be dangerous due to medical issues. Guilt and shame are not as useful, for me, in my yoga practice, but I will say that, now and then, it is feeling guilty about not practicing for a few days that gets me back on my mat. Thus, it can be a motivator in some cases.

Yet, fear, guilt, and shame can stop a person from growing and thriving in his/her yoga practice. I was speaking to a student the other day who has a strong yoga practice. She is dedicated to it and physically capable. But, fear keeps her from most inversions. And then she feels guilty that she is “being a baby” and not doing what she could do, and is ashamed when she perceives herself to be the only person in the room not kicking up to handstand. I know exactly what she is saying, because I’ve had this experience.

Sometimes, fear is not about “rational” or “real” danger.  For a long time, I felt very fearful in camel/ustrasana. I felt like I could not breathe and would begin to panic or not go into the pose at all. Clearly, I could breathe in reality, so there was no fear. And, even if I somehow really could not breathe in camel, I would have come out of it before I suffocated. More recently, I have found myself fearful of wheel. There is a little bit of the rational in this, because I am having a problem with my shoulders in the pose, but most of it is something emotional. It sometimes prevents me from going up into wheel even on days when my back and shoulders feel like they could handle the pose.

Guilt about yoga practice can be, sometimes in small doses, helpful to get us to the mat. But, beyond that, guilt may tend to prevent a practitioner from thinking through different possibilities of yoga. If I’m really busy feeling bad for not getting to a vinyasa class, it might prevent me from remembering that I can do some yin at home. If I’m not able or wanting to do any asana, guilt could get in the way of recalling that mindful meditation is yoga.

Yoga shame can be a powerful demotivator. When we start to worry about how our practice looks to others, and whether others think we are “good” enough or “dedicated” enough or “yogi enough,” it devalues the intrinsic good of the practice and makes it all about the public performance. All yoga practice is imperfectly perfect. It is the path and not the destination that is important, and shame can prevent us from remembering this.

Like so many things in life, fear, guilt, and shame are neither good nor bad. They just are. In any one instance, they can serve our goals and needs or push us further from them. I won’t say that the path is moderation (because, that too implies that there is a “right” level). So, instead, I will say that, when these feelings come up, they deserve some compassionate reflection, that we might use what is helpful to us and let go of what is not.

Namaste,

L

Be Not Deprived.

  By | ,
3 Comments

Photo: Helga Weber

In every moment of every day, we have a myriad of options for what to do. Even if highly constrained (let’s say bedridden for a day), we have choices about what to watch, what to read, what to think, etc. Every selection we make is also a deselection of all other available options. Every choice to do something is a choice not to do 1000 other things.

Most of the time, this passes without notice. But, in times where we feel that our choice is somehow limited, we focus more on the “not doing” than on the “doing.” We end up at work thinking, “I could be home right now, but I have to do this stupid work.” Or we are at home thinking, “I could be out with friends right now, but I’m stuck here.” We go on a diet and spend our time noticing that we “can’t have” a brownie or a cookie or chips. We are in a yoga class and thinking about that we can’t go into the advanced version of the pose or can’t get the bind. And so on, and so on.

In my yoga classes this month at Yogawood, we’ve been focusing on the yoga sutra, “Vitarka-badhane prati-paksha bhavanam,” which more or less means “When disturbed by disturbing thoughts, think of the opposite.” This certainly can be applied to the issue of focusing our attention on what we are not doing/having, rather than what we are doing/having.

The idea relates very well to the way that most of us understand our food consumption. We put an incredible amount of attention (individually and culturally) on what we can’t/shouldn’t/don’t eat. We ascribe to diet plans that are plans of exclusion (“no carbs,” “no fat,” “no meat,” “no sugar”) and celebrate our ability to not consume XYZ. It’s no wonder that many people find themselves unable to maintain such plans, as the very focus of the experience is on deprivation.

A noted scholar of communication, anthropology, and sociology, Gregory Bateson, wrote that “the only way to achieve a proposition which contains its own negation (“I will not bite you,” or “I am not afraid of him”) is by an elaborate imagining or acting out of the proposition to be negated.” That is, the only way we can think about, or accomplish, that which we are not doing is to think about doing it. So, when we focus on not eating carbohydrates, or not having fat, or not consuming animal products, we spend much time thinking about carbohydrates, fat, and animal products that we could be eating. And then we spend much time feeling deprived.

It’s a tough nut, because we are so conditioned to think about things this way, to focus on the “not.”

In diet, the “get around” for this is to put our attention firmly on what we are doing, or eating, or preparing. There is nothing wrong with enjoying food. That’s why we have tastebuds. Sure, food is our fuel, and that’s important. But, it’s not just our energy source. It’s a sensory pleasure. It’s a point of connection with others. It’s an opportunity for play, exploration, and delight. Food shouldn’t be an experience of deprivation. It should be an experience of joy and possiblity.

The first time that I tried to be a vegetarian, it didn’t go very well. I was pretty miserable. I couldn’t stop thinking about the coney dog that I couldn’t have, or the tuna salad that I would be eating if I could. It was not good. The second time, something clicked and I started to really investigate all the possibilities of  vegetarian cooking. I discovered vegetables that I didn’t even know existed and new ways of cooking things that I didn’t think I enjoyed. I got excited about the colors on my plate and how textures of food could combine. It made all the difference.

But even now, there are times that my mind wants to turn to what I “cannot” have. This most often, these days, crops up in the form of desserts or “junk” food. I’ll still sometimes tune into my thoughts and notice that I’m busy internally grousing and wishing (for a candy bar, or a piece of cheesecake, or a plate of fries). What I’m trying to do is to cultivate the opposite by:

1) reminding myself that the way I eat is a choice “to,” not just a choice “not to” – if I want to go back to eating ice cream, I can. That choice is still available to me. Of course, I would have to live with the physical consequences, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have the choice. No vegan police will come and arrest me if I eat a slice of cheese.

2) having something that I enjoy in those moments and focusing on it, so that I don’t feel deprived. If I want a brownie, I’ll go make a chocolate banana shake. Nope, it’s not as nutritious as a kale salad, but it’s tasty, and it’s not going to hurt me, and it means that I get to spend that time cultivating my feelings of joy, not of deprivation. If I want a cup of coffee and it’s 9:00 at night, I make a cup of decaf or some hot soy milk. If I want some fries, I put some in the oven. I’ve found that, generally, if I eat this way, my diet evens itself out eventually. I may go through a few days where I eat way more simple carbs than is a good idea. But, then I’ll spend some time looking at recipes or blogs with pictures of amazing vegetable and fruit dishes, and before long those are what I’m wanting and things start to come back to balance.

This principle can be applied to exercising (instead of thinking “I can’t run,” I try to focus on “I can do yoga”), abilities (not “I’m not good at small talk,” but “I enjoy listening”), and so on. I spoke about this same idea in regard to understanding of the self last week in my post I Am Worthy. There are always ways to think about what we can/are doing positively instead of simply focusing on what we cannot or are not doing.

If you read this blog regularly, or even if you read it irregularly but read the last post and this one, you know that I’m not always able to do this, but I am trying (see what I did there?).

You can too. Be not deprived.