Health is such a complicated subject. And now a days a very commercial one. So many health products, supplements, diets, juices, super-foods are readily available. Each one promises to be the best thing ever. Take diets for example. Think of any food category and there is probably a diet centered around it. Heck, there is even a 30 bananas a day diet. Yes, you eat nothing but bananas. And I guess it might make you go bananas in the process but I have not tried it so I can't really comment. See this, this and this. But what I am concerned about is the extremes in all these diets. And there is "evidence" which supports their claim and they always have hordes of people who have basically turned from whales to supermodels with these diets. The paleo diet to some extent and some other meat based diets on the one hand are all about meat (and how our ancestors ate), while you also see the exact opposite with a vegan diet or a raw food diet. And there is the new in-thing to avoid - Gluten - the source of all evils. And I am (even currently) one of those who believe gluten to be the source of a lot of issues. (I myself have not reached a conclusion, but I know for sure that there are some foods that do not go well with my system resulting in inflammation - but I can't really seem to figure out exactly what foods. Bread seems to be one of them - so things that are baked. However I seem to be find with things made out of wheat flour which are not baked, perhaps it is the yeast in the bread that I am sensitive to.). I think the human body is very variable in this sense and what works for one might not work for another in terms of diet. The Masai people in Kenya and Tanzania are known to sustain only on meat and milk leading long healthy lives. On the other hand we have vegans, monks etc. who eat nothing but vegatables. And there are cases in both groups of extremely healthy people and extremely sick people. So maybe there is no one diet that is the miracle diet for all. Each one of us has a different set of genetics (unique infact), different digestive abilities, different food sensitivities. I guess we just have to find what our body really agrees with and stick to that.
My yoga teacher, who knows a lot about me and my story, recently asked me "what do you like about yourself, what is your true essence?". I gave the usual answer that I have been giving myself for most of my life - that I am kind, generous, helpful etc. etc. That was not the answer he was looking for. He said those things are in relation to other people i.e. these traits are what I think other people perceive me as. But what is really MY true essence and what do I like about MYSELF. He gave me a week to think about it. That did get me thinking. I talked to some friends about it over the week. I realised how much of my self-perception is dictated by other people. And it has been like that all my life. What I think of myself is really what I think others think of me. Or what I want others to think of me. But if I take other people out of the equation, what am I? What is my true essence? The more I thought, the more I realised that my true essence is creativity. Looking back...
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