The EZ Secret: EZosophy With Anne Sermons Gillis

A good friend once told me that people don't want anyone to get between them and their food. Wow was she right. I see people eating all kinds of processed poisoned foods and they often say, "Well, you have to die of something." Over the years, some people I've known, who had terrible diets, have died and they died prematurely. I would have loved it had they seen that proverbial light and cleaned up their diets. I have seen a similar situation with people who have chronic diseases that could be helped by diet and exercise, but they love their diet and the way they eat. Changing food habits seems like a sacrifice. Food provides the missing meaning to life and without that fix, life feels intolerable.  

Here's where it gets interesting, when people begin to feel happier, have more self-compassion, and see life as beneficent, their diets change.  The change occurs from the inside out. It's not unusual to see people who start meditating alter their diets. I started meditating in 1973 and the more I got into, the more my tastes changed. I wanted food that was alive, unprocessed and beautiful.

One time my friend, Debbie Brown, was at my home. The visit went a little long and I invited her to lunch. I fixed our meal and we had a great time talking and loving the food.  She was pretty wowed, not only by what I ate, but the way I presented the food. She went home and decided to make her food beautiful and to be present for every bite. She lost 15 pounds. In her words, "I truly did learn the beauty of eating while sharing that meal with you.  I still remember the food we ate, the spices that danced in my mouth, and how special it all made me feel. Thank you for that gift and your gift of sharing yourself and your teachings with me.  A special time for me."

Oprah recently visited Fairfield, Iowa to practice transcendental meditation. She loved the experience and as a result many of her staff members began the practice meditation. It's an amazing practice, this practice of silence. The staff described astounding results, better relationships, more creativity, less stress - some even reported no more migraines. I would love to know how this affected their diets, but if I had to bet, some of their diets have changed.

So if all your efforts to get healthy or lose weight have failed, you may want to consider a meditative or contemplative practice. When the mind isn't frantically searching for what's missing and it learns to rest, food loses some of its allure as the hole-in-the-soul fills. As I mention often in the newsletter, an easier form of meditation practice is breath mantra meditation.  A simple breath mantra would be to breathe in to the count of 4 and out to the count of 6. You count silently. Maybe that is obvious, but if it were my husband, he would ask. Continue to breathe freely and easily continuing the in and out breaths. Do the practice daily.  Start with 3 minutes the first week, 6 minutes the next, 9 minutes the next, 12 minutes the next until you work up the 16 minutes a day. If you feel stressed during the day, just take a few measured breaths and notice how quickly your mind relaxes. Keep this going as a daily practice, and I promise you, life will become easier.