Elemental Eats is back. While I’m developing the website I’ll be posting here as well as my Instagram account @luxeruckus.

To read more from Jeff please visit http://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/read/essays-transcripts/the-roots-of-addiction/

He is a beautiful teacher and I have found him to be integral to my self-inquiry regarding food and fulfillment. His healing power truly goes beyond his words of wisdom.

“I remember when I was young, how I would come back from school sometimes, feeling lonely and sad and misunderstood, probably having been bullied or made fun of on the school bus, and would head immediately to the fridge or food cupboard, and, when nobody was looking, I would gorge myself on whatever snacks I could find. The food made the sadness go away, or so it seemed. For a few precious moments, I felt warm, satisfied, full – no longer empty and incomplete. It appeared that the food had made my “hunger” go away. It had filled the emptiness. And my stomach…

I did not really want food, of course, but love and acceptance. I was eating to make the pain of living go away. Even at that young age, I was eating to live! But of course, I had no way of articulating this at the time. I just felt hungry! I just felt the urge to eat. It was not really food I wanted to eat – it was love, and life. I wanted to feel alive. I was trying, and failing, to eat life. I was trying to eat myself.

This was a cosmic hunger – a deep longing to be met, to be held, to be seen, to be validated. And if other people couldn’t do it, perhaps the chocolate would. This was an expression of a deep, lifelong hunger to remember who I really was – as the vast ocean of consciousness in which waves of thought, sensation and feeling are deeply allowed to come and go. I was ignoring my true addiction – to remember who I was, and falling into an addiction to what I was not. It would take me years and years to realise this, and to begin to turn towards my pain rather than away from it, and to remember rather than forget myself, and to discover that who I truly am can never be addicted.

Later in my life, the addictions shifted to other objects and to other people, and then finally the whole thing was projected onto my search for enlightenment. Enlightenment became the ultimate addiction object. I lived and breathed spiritual teachings, until even they began to have side effects. But nothing satisfied until the whole cycle was broken, right where it had begun.

As individuals, we are all addicts, in the sense that we all run away from the moment to some extent. We all push away thoughts and feelings, try not to feel them, numb ourselves to them, distract ourselves from them, medicate or meditate or shop them away. For a while, it seems as though the food, the alcohol, the sex, the guru, the drug, the fame, has the “power” to take away the sadness, the pain, the feelings of loneliness and helplessness and isolation, and ultimately death itself. It seems as though the person, object or substance has the power to “fix” life. (No wonder we talk about getting our “fix”). But of course, soon the “effect” wears off, the “high” disappears, and there is some kind of comedown, some kind of guilt, and those unloved and unwanted waves return, sometimes more intensely than ever, and we are back in heavy identification. And then we crave the next release, the next lifting of the veil. And then we need more of the person or substance. And the cycle continues. What breaks the cycle?

Turning towards our discomfort rather than away from it, however crazy that sounds, is where the cycle can begin to be broken. Meeting these unmet waves in ourselves – the sadness, the loneliness, the fear, the helplessness – and coming to see that they all have a home in us. As the ocean of consciousness, we are vast enough to hold all of them. They are all allowed in us, but they cannot define us. And so turning towards our urges rather than away from them, finding a way to be with ourselves now without moving into “future”, that’s how the mechanism of addiction can start to melt.

Often when an urge arises, we either try to numb ourselves to it, try to not feel it, or we act on it. We often judge the urge and make it bad or wrong or even “sick”. But there is a middle way – this meeting that I speak of, this deep acceptance, this ‘being with’, without an agenda. Meeting an urge takes the urgency out of it and renders it timeless and – ultimately – harmless. Sitting with an urge, letting it burn, allowing it to be there in all its intensity, and then watching all those thoughts and images that come up – you know, the ones about the gorgeous chocolate cake, or the beer, the thought-movie of you happily drinking or eating, all your problems gone, those movies of imminent release and salvation and love and peace – and allowing them to be there too. And being with all of the sensations that come up, even the uncomfortable ones. And then also allowing the fear – that strange, primal superstition – that if we allow the urge to be there then we will end up “acting on it”, or it will “stick” and never go away, or it will overwhelm us. All the judgements whirling round. Feeling that we quickly need to “do something” about the urge. And beyond all this, remembering yourself as the wide open space, the vast ocean of life in which all of these waves are already being allowed. And knowing, then, that no amount of alcohol, or sex, or drugs, or chocolate, or words or pictures or feelings can give you this place of deep acceptance in this moment – for it what you already are, and have always been. What you crave on the deepest level is already here.”

~Jeff Foster

I’ve just spent the last two months in a mostly silent period of mostly solitude and long meditation. I’ve been so blessed to have this time. It hasn’t been easy and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. This is my last post here on elemental eats because I have completed what I needed to in order to regain my connection to food and to my own hunger.

Here’s what I’ve learned through experience and deep contemplation: there are two kinds of hunger, feed one but starve the other. The one you feed is the body’s need for fuel, true hunger. And true hunger has NO emotional quality to it. The one you starve is the hunger to consume. It, if you notice for a while, is a very similar feeling to hunger but it is ensnared with your emotions. You will notice with this false hunger that you are also experiencing some anxiety, some greed, some uncomfortable tension or emotion that is riding just below the sensation of hunger. And the foods you reach for will usually reflect that pattern somehow, whether chips or chocolate or lattes. This is NOT true hunger, it does not accurately reflect or gauge the body’s need for calories. So my liberating advice is to start paying close and relentless attention to WHAT it is that you are feeding when you eat. You might find that when you begin to eat it is from true hunger but as you take a few more bites your inclination is to eat a little faster or to continue eating even after you know you are not truly hungry anymore. This is the play of your emotions. When gentle hunger is spoken about it can sound abstract and when experienced it can be uncomfortable but if it’s any assurance, in my experience with it the opposite soon becomes true—it is much more uncomfortable to feed your emotions with food that your body doesn’t need. This is in NO way starving yourself but it is denying fuel to a part of your energetic body that no longer is serving your evolution. I still delight in food. My diet has become mostly raw and mostly whole and mostly vegetarian but this has taken me a year to accomplish as I worked through a large amount of emotional crap that I was ready to stop carrying around. My body, emotions, and mind thank me for this everyday by continuing, in leaps and bounds, to get healthier, stronger, and more clear. I was someone who loved to cook. I had every kitchen gadget known to man and was good at it. I can’t tell you what a relief it is to no longer feel that emotional pull towards the kitchen. It’s pretty funny, this process of letting go. I notice that many people around me are also having this experience with food and with all aspects of their lives. It’s a sense of having left the nest and there is nothing left to hold onto from the old life. Instead there’s a sense of flying free in a space that is infinite and far from empty, but is full of possibility and a sense of being cared for by an unfathomable Love. Here’s to finally leaping from that nest and finding that all along we were so much more than we thought, and to laughing with delight about it as we soar.

If it’s not fruit or nuts, this is about what my meals look like now. I seem to have finally reached the place where Prana is my primary energy source and I am able to easily distinguish between the emotional need to consume and the body’s need for wonderful calories. Because I find myself eating so much less now, fat has become an extremely important part of the diet. I use a lot of coconut oil and olive oil and nut oils as well as high fat foods like avocados and nuts. But the most appealing, highest Prana food seems to be fruit. I could almost live off of it. I let you know how that goes. My energy is so vibrant, skin is clear and glow-y. The remainder of my structural issues seem to be melting away along with the consumption force that I am allowing to fade by not feeding it. This extends to the rest of the life. It has been such a blessing to be here on Maui in an extended silence and meditation. An establishment of God in the Heart and a dedication to the Truth have been the most powerful healers. And the most wonderful thing is that it’s all in my hands. Food has been a great healer as well. When I started this blog I was cooking to heal the emotional body, but I was still overeating and muting the digestive fire. In just this short time of focus on food and how it makes me feel I have been able to discern the difference between true Prana giving foods and comfort foods. And I find eating is becoming more joyful and no less delicious! Ending this compulsion has also ended other consumptive compulsions and has moved me to an energy source that I didn’t know was possible for just a regular girl like me, it’s the stuff of sages and saints. This energy source is Love. I would not state it for the world to hear if I weren’t living it. My wish is that all of us find ourselves so completely able to let go into the arms of Divinity, of our own Divine Selves, in all aspects of our lives, because the results are astounding, dynamic, and filled with a sweetness to which no cookie can ever compare.

finished almond joy bars.

making almond joy candy bars with coconut, coconut oil, a little maple syrup, and salt.

Hello Lovelies! My posts may become more irregular as I am taking a lot of silence and solitude for a little while here in my cottage on the volcano. The blog is due for a reboot and I’m not up to it at this moment.

I do want to share something that I’ve been noticing so deeply and that is that the preparation and eating of food is a ritual that needs to be given proper due. So cook with love and bless yourself with eating slowly, chewing slowly and swallowing gently as you sit quietly with your awareness in your heart. Let each bite be an offering to the Divinity that you are and that sustains you. Leave the table after lingering as long as you can with yourself and your loved ones, still just a little hungry. That hot digestive fire keeps you clear and there is always a little snack to be had in a few hours! Be as loving and gentle with yourself as you can and eat what makes you feel good AFTER you eat it, rather than AS you are eating it, until there is no difference between the two. As always, I’m here for you and I can’t wait to share a good meal.

Peggy’s birthday cake weighed 10 pounds, I swear. It was a coconut flour chocolate cake with chocolate ganache and caramelized macadamia nuts. No grains, no refined sugars, ha! For an untested recipe it came out pretty well. I redid the cake recipe the next day to make a moister and more chocolatey cake. Now I’ve got an excellent egg-based coconut flour cake base!

grilled fennel is the only way I can eat fennel unless it’s just been picked.

pear frangipane tart.

Orange cardamom granola with yogurt.

The only store bought yogurt I really like is from the lovely Straus in Petaluma, CA. It’s a whole milk yogurt made with only milk, buttermilk, and cultures. It’s nice and runny and barely sour. My favorite breakfast is plain yogurt with home made granola and fruit. The granola is made with every possible nut and seed, cooked on the stovetop in a cast iron pan with coconut oil, then caramelized in maple syrup and fresh orange juice. I add a bunch of orange zest and some salt, cinnamon, clove, allspice, and lots of freshly ground cardamom at the end of cooking. It’s actually divine. I can hear the angels sing each time I eat it:)