I want to address a topic that many people may find uncomfortable. Many may find it easy to understand, as they are already integrated with this. I am writing from this perspective because this is what I have experienced.
Sometimes people - whether they eat healthy foods or not - see health as a concept. You can be putting into practice steps to be healthier, such as abstaining from certain foods and replacing these with better options, developing new patterns, etc, and still see health as a concept. You can be on a SAD diet or a 100 % raw vegan diet and still be missing the point. It doesn't matter what you do that you believe will help you, if you don't let it work You must be willing to let yourself feel however, whatever you feel right now in this moment. Giving yourself rules can be - will be - a hell of a lot more damaging that listening to your body and eating what it really wants.
Of course, this can be a huge challenge, because you may, for example, see a sweet, buttery decadence and automatically you are salivating, thinking about how good that would be to eat; you really think your body wants that desert. But you will learn that you only think this because what you actually need, what your body actually wants, may be an apple, or a mango, or some fresh juice or any high carb vegetable with natural, easily digestible sugars and easily assimilated nutrients; it may be as simple as being thirsty - you may truly just need a glass of water. (by the way, I highly recommend getting a fluoride/chlorine filter for your home, or if you travel, a portable water bottle with a filter inside.)
You may have given yourself rules to avoid foods that are GMO, or non-organic, or to only eat vegan, or raw, or local, or whatever. And these are great guidelines to follow. They are important, and you give yourself these rules so that you can be healthy, because you love you. That is a huge step!
Now, we need to look at what is actual and what is belief. It may seem backwards, but the actual thing is not whether the food you eat is either healthy or it isn't. That is the belief.
The actual thing is how you feel, whether you are nurturing and caring for your body, mind and soul with every action that you take. Say for example, (and I am using my own experience here) you are travelling and you are a raw vegan, or follow certain healthy guidelines, whatever they may be - so you are all ready to go. You are all prepared to eat as clean as you do on a regular basis, and then you get to where you are going, and absolutely none of the food there is organic. You will be here for over a week, and you can't bring any fresh fruit and vegetables with you, for whatever reason.
So what are you going to do? Are you going to starve? Are you going to whine and complain about it? Will that help you? Of course it won't. So you make some sacrifices; you let go of your beliefs about your rules and so forth, and do you know what happens?
Freedom. There is something so liberating about doing what you believed was impossible, about letting go of the idea that a way of being could be "wrong".
And do you know what? This is true health. This is what being healthy is like. This is the ultimate goal of any healthy, holistic lifestyle - freedom. There is nothing sweeter.
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