Month: August 2008

Raw Food Diet

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I first started to eat raw food back in 2005. I kept the habit for more than 6 months and then, after several weeks of recession, in which I ate everything including meat, I become a lacto-ovo-vegetarian. That vegetarianism was based on cooked food, which was more than 80% of my regular meals, and the rest was raw fruits and salads. I wasn’t a vegetarian before and I never thought I could become one. To be honest, I haven’t paid too much attention to my food habits in the past, and the fact that I started to eat raw directly, without going through a intermediary vegetarian period, has to do more with my friends than with my own decisions. At that time I started to be more interested in the occult and astrology. Ok, take the “occult” term very vaguely, and define it like something outside our normal cartesian system of thinking, do not imagine that I tried black magic or some other sort of underground manipulating things. The main part of this occult interest was about astrology and although I was an interested reader about astrology facts in the past, I never crossed the line towards a more systemic approach. But during that time I felt that my regular interpretation of reality and myself is somehow limited and maybe there are new ways of understanding what happens with me and with the world. There was a very intense feeling of the “beyond here and now” state, and that pushed me to seriously study astrology.  

But that was not the only thing I’ve done. I also started to read other spiritual authors, like Carlos Castaneda, don Miguel Ruiz, Osho and a plethora of motivational writers, like Og Mandino, for instance. It was an inner burst towards change and a more congruent approach to the way I lived my life. No wonder that during that period I started the relationship that eventually become my current marriage. I plan to write extensively on the spiritual, astrological and personal development topics, so I will stop here these ramblings, which only served as a context for the main topic of this post, which is raw food.

So, why raw food? What’s wrong with the cooked food? What are the ups and downs of being a raw foodist?

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Why Going To New Zealand

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Once my business completely sold and after all the other assets will be transformed into money, we will move to a new country, New Zealand. This announce made quite a bit of shock among my current circle of friends, business partners and relatives. For those of you who don’t know, New Zealand is almost exactly under Romania, the Eastern European country in which I was born and lived up to my 37th year. Basically, if you put a long enough sting into an Earth scholar globe, and start from Bucharest, it will go out exactly from the Auckland, New Zealand, the other side of the planet. I guess it’s more than 180 degrees of change, if you know what I mean… So the surprise and shock were understandable to some point.

Most of the people were puzzled by the size of all the involved changes and, most of the time unconsciously, made the assumption that the decision was a sort of escape, a “take the money and run” attitude, in which we try to move from a difficult country as far as possible. Living in Romania is hard these days, it’s an evolving country, and its evolution is accelerated. There is an incredible diversity of attitudes and people, from the consumerism and deception, to spirituality and compassion. The proportion of these ingredients varies drastically though, and this mix makes up for some pretty interesting rollercoaster. I was living here all my life, and for the last 10 years as an entrepreneur. It’s not easy, and I know a lot of people who got really sick and tired of all the moral problems like corruption, deceptive politics, economical instability, and ran as far as possible from them.

Well, is not my case. I know it’s difficult to live in Romania, but I’m not going away because of that. From some very practical approach, living in a new country, whatever country that might be, is far more difficult than living in a country you do know for more than 30 years. The main point is that I’m doing it out of intention, not out of reaction. This is a very important difference and I will try to make it as clear as I can below.

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Change management: it’s still you, only better

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Each and every personal development program gives you at least one big thing: a promise of change. It tells you that during this program or challenge, you will change your habits. That’s something pretty big. And, most of the time, overlooked or ignored. People tend to forget that changing is a difficult process. Not because you have to spend your time and energy to make it happen, but because it will shift your identity. It will, literally, make you another person. Are you totally in sync with this new person? Are you identical with the new you? Are you congruent in thoughts and actions?

Perhaps not. It’s trivial to know that because you do that personal development program in order to change something about you, and that something is something that you don’t have yet. And those things in the old new and those things in the new you will collide, sooner or later. At that moment you will have an identity problem. If the change is small, the identity problem wouldn’t be big, not even noticeable, most of the time. It’s like loosing 3-4 kilos, it will show a little difference, but not so big, many people won’t even realize that.

But if the change is big, like a total lifestyle shift, then the identity crisis will be for real. You will notice it and people around you will notice it. It will make you question yourself almost every minute. It will challenge your thoughts and values. It will be something really important. 

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