Oh no, I don’t eat raw meat! LOL. Raw foods is another way of saying I eat plant-based food like fruits and vegetables where there’s no cooking and no meat. But I am not 100 percent raw so I do allow myself occasional cooked food like pizza or chicken but not very often. I would say I’m about 80 percent raw or thereabouts.

It’s helped me tremendously. I lost 30 pounds, have more energy then ever and my health is fantastic. I’ve also had a lot of incredible life changes and feel closer than ever to God. It’s all because of the raw food diet where I’ve been focused on a lot of internal cleansing. Incredible experience!

Glad to have made you chuckle.

I certainly hope you intend to put that Vitamix to good use again! It’s a powerful blender and I use it every single morning to make power-packed green smoothies. It was the best investment I ever made and admittedly the most pricey piece of equipment for my kitchen.

Yes indeed, every single person leaves a memorable footprint in our lives regardless of whether the encounter was brief or lifelong. Absolutely! And let me take that further by saying we made a pre-birth agreement with every single person we’ve encountered. How is that possible for encounters that have lasted no more than a milli-second (like accidentally bumping into them on the street)? I have no clue! I guess we’ll find out for sure when we “go home.”

As for the dramatic change question, I have been undergoing a series of them ever since highschool graduation. Many of my friends from that era have slowly gone their own way and I have evolved in mine. It is marvelous to recognize that everyone we meet leaves a memorable footprint in our lives, regardless of how long we know them.

My philosophy has always been to share what I’ve done and then let the community pick and choose what works for them. I understand how the concept of eating “raw foods” can be somewhat unappealing to some but if they knew of the incredible benefits of at least increasing their intake of those kinds of foods and moving away from the typical SAD diet (Standard American Food), they’d be ahead of most of the population who are unaware.

I’ve always had the belief that it’s not my job to force anything I do upon people but merely educate them about what it’s done for me and if it reasonates with them, fantastic. I love hearing success stories based on what I’ve shared with them. It does not matter to me whether someone is 10 percent raw, 50 percent or 100 percent. Those numbers actually don’t mean much of anything because you could say you’re 50 percent raw but the other half consists of burgers, fries, refined sugar, etc.

I’m glad you echoed the “losing connections” thing - it makes me feel not so alone. Thanks for your input - it’s a joy to have you here. Peter.

Ned, I don’t remember where I read this but it made a very powerful impact on me. Since I’m going on memory on this, I am going to paraphrase it. Here goes…..

We do not need to worry about hurting other people’s feelings (bear with me on this for a second) because when we speak the truth about what’s true for ourselves, we need to let other people deal with it the way they know how and not shelter them from anything because they are fully capable of handling it. Their spirits are much stronger than we give them credit for. In other words, we don’t need to process or help them process their feelings. When we walk around being afraid of hurting other people’s feelings, we’re not helping them or ourrselves because as far as their concerned, we are treating them like they’re not capable.

but God has never given us more than we can handle at one time. We are all capable of dealing with whatever hand we have been dealt with and therefore because of that, it’s not our jobs to decide how much to tell someone out of fear of hurting their feelings. They can handle it - their spirit can never be broken.

Does that make sense? I typed all of that with my eyes closed and let the spirit work through me. I am paraphrasing what I remember reading somewhere.

So in other words, I am always telling people to tell me their truth and not feel the need to hold anything back for fear of hurting my feelings because for one thing, I have thick skin (so to speak) and for another, I am fully capable of handling what comes my way. If I can handle it, why can’t they?

Having said all of that, there is, of course, diplomatic ways of saying things. That’s a matter of courtesy but I have learned that we should speak up for ourselves and tell people our truths if need be without feeling the need to walk on eggshells.

This is an area I have a lot of difficulty with… letting go of people who are going somewhere else and not following where other people think I should go. Part of the problem is I don’t want to hurt other people’s feelings. The other part is approval seeking behavior. I guess that is really the problem overall: putting social acceptance above self-actualization. I feel a blog post coming out of this one.

I must admit the idea of a completely raw-food diet is not particularly appealing to me, but I am certainly interested in increasing my energy levels, waking up more alert and having greater clarity of mind. So I might follow some of your tips and add more raw foods to my diet (I particularly like the idea of replacing coffee with a smoothie).

And yes, I have also experienced what you have with losing connections with people who I was once very close to. As you say, it’s just part of the natural ebb and flow of life.

You said it rather eloquently. It’s a very strange place to be though - you feel sort of weird because things are different now and I just have to live with the new reality. This is not the first time it’s happened so it isn’t completely strange for I’ve experienced it before but it’s still a strange thing to go through.

I am comforted by the last sentence “As we change, new people are attracted to our new attitudes and new beliefs.” I have begun to see that happening already and so that’s encouraging. I thank God every day for helping me co-create new circumstances, new people, new events and a new way of life on the basis of the choices I’ve made in response to my inner intuition. I’m grateful for the new path I’ve set myself on and like you said, that can involve losing people along the way.

In the beginning, I wanted to drag her along with me every step of the way down the path that I have chosen. I soon realized that wasn’t fair or the right thing to do. I chose for myself and she has to choose for herself. We all want our friends to be as happy as we are. It doesn’t work that way. We all have the right to choose for ourselves the path that our lives will take. Sometimes that means that we lose friends. When that happens, we grieve and we move on.
As we change, new people are attracted to our new attitudes and new beliefs.