Transform: Your Heart

transform ::  your heart
When you change your diet to change your life, you change your life to change your diet.

I was sitting across from macro author Sherri-lynn DeMaris one night at the Kushi Institute when she pointed to her eyebrows.

"They say in macrobiotics that this area represents my brother," She pointed to one side, "And this one represents my sister," she pointed to the other.  "As my health changed through macrobiotics, my FACE changed!" She laughed.  "But the crazy thing is, as these areas changed, my brother and my sister changed too."

Modern medicine treats illness like a tornado hitting a town.  It comes in, you try to minimize the devastation, and at the end you clean up what's left.  Natural healing treats it very differently.  It's a teacher, a lesson, a companion for a time, and a force for good if we see it that way.

I've been in a holding-pattern with my diet.  I eat as widely as I can to avoid breaking any of the "major rules," but I don't celebrate my food with a joyful heart.  I was stagnant before I came to Kushi.  But I met some amazing teachers in my life in the form of friends, chefs, roommates, and visitors, and I began a journey of transformation.

I know that many of my readers are Christian, and many aren't.  If you are a Christian, I hope that the passages I've cited resonate with you and contribute to your study.  If you're not, I hope that you'll take what you can from this, and share with me any poems, passages, or words of wisdom that resonate with you on the journey you're on.

--Take a look at where you stand today-- 

If you don't know where you are, you don't know where you're going.  If you've been putting off making good choices for yourself because you've "been sicker," or you're "not that bad," ask yourself if you know where you stand.  It's scary to take an objective view of things.  A lot of times when things are bad, we don't want to know exactly how bad. 

 It's the kid who's been skipping class all semester.  He won't go talk to the teacher because he's afraid of what he's done.  I do this sometimes with my medical bills.  I feel like I can't do anything about it, so why stress myself out?  But true courage is finding the calm in the storm.

"From the depths I called to the Lord...  The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head..."  Jonah 2:1-5

The day you stand in the storm and look out on it with a calm, centered heart is the day you are strong.

--Know that good is happening every day--

Good things are happening in your life, every single day.  If a person lives to be 75 years old, that's more than 27,000 moments to look forward to.  When you resolve to find one beautiful, funny, or happy thing every day, it changes the way you remember your day.  Two days ago, I went on a little road trip.  I got a horrible stomach flare-up while we were trapped on the highway surrounded by flashing lights and construction crews.  We were crawling for half an hour.  So we turned on some funk and had a dance party.  The flare-up passed, like they always do.  I was in a fantastic mood for the rest of the night.

When I don't believe that good is happening, I remember my faith and the Biblical promises that God makes to all His children.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11

A promise made by the Lord has weight.  It has meaning.  It means that even when I lose faith, He won't lose faith.  When my perseverance wavers, He is steadfast.  When I am fearful and alone and can't find joy, He will continue to bless my life and send good works until I am joyful again and my faith is stronger because He never lost faith in me.

My wise friend Amin says, if you are not happy this day, you will not be happy any day.  So let us be glad!

This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.  Psalm 118:24

So the way I see it, I've got about 25,000 things to look forward to.

--Open Your Heart--

This is the hardest.  There's a difference between having an open heart and an unguarded heart.  An unguarded heart is easily brought high or low by the emotions around it.  It's vulnerable.  You, the owner of said heart, can get hurt easily.

An open heart is one that doesn't belong to you anymore.  In macrobiotic meditation, we try to open ourselves to a channel and an energy that is bigger than ourselves.  In one of his books, Michio calls it "white light," and describes it as the intersection of heaven's yang energy meeting and mixing with earth's yin energy right at the center energy point, the heart.  This energy begins before we do and ends far after we end.  When our heart is open, it's like a transmitter.  The energy we give off isn't our energy, so we don't grow tired or spread thin.

Sometimes it's hard to mesh the yin/yang energy we talk about in macrobiotics with what people who were raised in the Christian faith believe.  I don't think the two are mutually exclusive.  I recently read a really great book about a Brown University student who goes to a Christian college for a semester, and he is blown away by the faith and goodness of one of his friends.  When he compliments his friend on his amazing heart, his friend looks at him, and smiles.  "I serve an awesome God."

There it is.  It's when we release ownership of our heart and are content to be the transmitter that we tap into what's real.  When I see myself as important, I am actually getting my feet tangled in a much bigger, better dance than I could have ever planned or believed.  This is something I'm still really working on.  It's hard to let go of that control.  In macrobiotics, we want so badly to see people feel better, to be the reason they got better.

But when we are still and calm in ourselves, our heart begins to beat to a different rhythm, and we realize that this is who we were born to be.