February 1st, 1998
THE EYES,THE WINDOWS OF THE SOUL PART TWO
What food can improve the eyesight?
Eyes like sunshine, warmth and bright colors, especially yellow and orange, which are vitalising colors for the eye. Eating fruit such as apricots, mangoes, papaya, peaches and vegetables like carrots, pumpkin and squash can have a beneficial effect for your eyesight. They all contain vitamin A. You can buy capsules with the herb eyebright and vitamin A. You can also bathe your eyes in eyebright tea, especially when they feel painful and tired. Black or camomille teabags or cottonwool patches soaked in warm milk will have a soothing effect on the eye as well.
At the Body, Mind and Spirit exhibition I recently had to work on a stall. My eyes were aching because I had not slept enough. I tested a set of pinhole glasses with small pads around the eye and a battery. With gentle vibrations the pads were massaging the acupuncture points around my eyes. I must say that it tickled a lot, but that was part of the healing process. The pain in my eyes had gone and I bought a set of those glasses straight away.
Meir Schneider was running an eye workshop at the festival. He made everybody run down the stairs out onto the street and look with closed eyes at the sun, gently turning the neck from one side to the other. This is a Bates exercise and is called sunning. If the sun is not shining, you can use a 100 watt bulb instead to look at. 5 to 10 minutes a day is enough.
Often I get clients who have sleeping problems. Either they cannot go to sleep in the evening or they wake up at three or four o'clock in the morning.
For some people not sleeping means worrying, arguing inside the head, feeling guilty or too excited about things. Thus counselling and psychotherapy in itself would be helpful for them.
Flower essences for the calming of the mind such as White Chestnut for ongoing thoughts, Clematis for "dreamers"or Rock Rose for emotional fear, Gentian for belief and Pine for guilt can be helpful.
Gems can be put on the forehead, the third eye or the heart. Good stones for the forehead are Beryl, Apophyllite, Amethyst, Topaz. Stones for the heart are Rose Quartz, Rhodonite, Rhodochrosite. Celestite can be used on the thymus gland (upper chest).
People who never remember their dreams are often quite sad about it. The dream life seems to be a different life we are leading altogether. Stone and flower essences for remembering dreams are Orchid, Mugwort and Azurite Malachite.
It is a good idea to start treating all the different parts of your body like children who are helping you to get on with your life. They want to be looked after, get attention, care, understanding and love, especially if they are not working well.
In these chapters I am trying to give you many ideas how to look after your Body, mind and spirit. But the main work has to be done by yourself.
The next workshop will be about eating, the stomach and the intestines.
WE ARE WHAT WE EAT
Seventeen years ago I came to London. I studied at the Gerda Boyesen Centre for Biodynamic Psychotherapy and I was introduced to Macrobiotic Cooking. I had a boyfriend who worked at the East West Center and spoilt me with macrobiotic food. In the beginning I did not eat it. But he cooked lots of delicacies to make me interested in macrobiotics. Since that time I always come back to it when I need to.
The macrobiotic style of cooking is based on balancing the meals according to the yin and yang qualities of the ingredients.
Some ways to treat food will make it more yang or yin. Yin plums get more yang when kept in salt for one or two years, frying tomatoes will make them more yang.
Our bodies always strive towards balance. If we eat strong yin food we afterwards crave for strong yang food. Meat is very yang, alcohol and fruit from warm southern countries are very yin. Salt is yang, sugar is yin.
Macrobiotics try to avoid eating strong yin or yang food. Thus they reach a balanced emotional state.
I always have some basic food in the house such as brown rice, miso soup, umeboshi plums, kuzu, whole oats, soya sauce and sea wheat. That's enough to balance extremes such as a bad tummy, sickness or constipation.
But it is not enough to start eating macrobiotic. You really have to listen to your own individual body in order to choose the right food.
Start with 1 to 6 weeks of spoiling yourself. Eat all your favourite foods, eat as much as you like too. Remember what you used to like as a child. Remember your favourite recipes and the places you like most for eating out. If you start feeling guilty, take the flower essence Pine. Rock water helps with strictness and perfectionism, Impatiens makes you slow down to enjoy the food properly.
Take lots of time to go shopping. Go to your favourite shops. Always buy the freshest food. Use your instincts and always buy things in abundance. Your inner child needs to feel safe and know for sure that there is enough food.
Take enough time to have tea in a corner cafe and read the paper.
Once you have come home cook your food slowly. Sit down comfortably on a decent chair in a warm room to cut your vegetables. Put some music on as well. For eating choose your favourite plate or bowl and fork. Take plenty of time to eat and chew. It is good to eat without distraction such as TV, reading, talking. Do not pick up the phone while you are eating! Practise self respect. Try to taste the food on your tongue and eat, chew and swallow it slowly, take a break and breathe. Find out if you really like the taste of the food. Only eat as much as you really want. Never think of finishing the plate just for the sake of it.
This first phase of the "Loving yourself diet" is not just for people who want to loose weight but also for the ones who always eat what they are supposed to eat and what they think is good for them. It is for those who are always concerned about doing things right or wrong. They sometimes seem to miss their individual inner instinct or intuition to find the right choice. Cerato is the Bach Flower essence for that particular state of mind which many of us are familiar with.
The next energy in balance workshop in Vauxhall will be run on February 2nd. the topic is "Reach out with your hands". We are working in a small group of 5-10 people. The week after, monday night February 9th "Love from the heart to the hands". The workshops are from 7-9pm, cost is £10(conc). More info on 0171 735 4513.