Use the principle of love to deepen your connection between your mind and your body. Quiet your mind, turn your attention inward, and just listen. What do you hear? Does your body report any problems that need action? Do you feel any subtle emotions arising? What does your intuition tell you?
The principle of love helps you connect with the foods that are most naturally attractive to you. Pay attention to which ones feel intuitively right and which feel intuitively wrong. How do you feel about an apple? A hot dog? A bowl of rice? A stalk of broccoli? Do some items feel healthy to you while others don’t? Could you improve your health simply by doing a better job of honoring what you intuition is already telling you? Are you treating your body in a loving manner?
I (Steve Pavlina) feel most connected to foods that sprout from the earth itself, especially fresh fruits and vegetables. Items that emerge from a factory or a slaughterhouse feel intuitively wrong to me. I feel more loving and connected when I eat natural plant foods.
When I think about eating animals, however, I feel disconnected from empathy and love. I’m forced to connect with the reality of rotting, decaying flesh. I know that a living being has been violently killed before its natural life span is up, usually after being imprisoned its whole life under conditions any human would consider torturous. I know that slaughterhouses experience massive employee turnover because few human beings can stomach such work for long. I know that enormous amounts of resources must be expended and tons of waste produced in order to deliver animal foods to my plate. I see major incongruencies and unfairness, with some animals being valued as loving human companions while others are treated as edible substances, merely because of differences in taste and profitability. I see a living being that’s been reduced to a dollar sign.
The only way I can justify eating animal foods is to disregard my intuition and dismiss my conscience. Since I’ve committed myself to conscious living, I cannot possible do this. I’ve eaten no animal flesh since 1993 and no animal-derived products since 1997. I wish I could say that these realizations were the catalyst for those changes, but the truth is that I conducted a 30-day trial of eating no animal foods purely out of curiosity, and my awareness of the consequences of my food choices increased during and after the experiment to the point where I could never go back.
When I eat processed, packaged foods, I feel more foggy and disconnected. I see lifeless chemicals that may fuel my body but can never fully nourish me. I know such foods are marketed and sold based on their profitability, not their health properties, so these products don’t feel loving to me. I see falsehood promoted as truth, fragmentation presented as wholeness, and weakness pitched as strength. Eating large quantities of such foods lowers my consciousness and make me less of who I am.
What do you feel when you tune in to the foods you eat? Your impressions may be completely different from mine, and that’s perfectly fine. Listen to your own feelings, not the echoes of other people’s opinions. What does your intuition tell you?
Next, tune in and connect with your physical-activity patterns. What does your intuition say about your current exerciese habits, work activities, and stress levels? Do you reallly need an expert to tell you where you can improve, or does your intuition reveal the first steps on the path of positive growth? Are you treating your body in a loving manner?
Of the foods you eat and the activities you experience, which ones are most compatible with the real you? Which ones are incompatible? Does killing and eating living creatures feel good to you, or does it turn you off? How do you feel about fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes? Are you more naturally drawn to whole or processed foods? Can you feel the difference between loving and unloving choices? How do you feel about various forms of physical exercise? What do you perceive when you think about the physical elements of your daily routine, including your work?
Applying the principle of love to explore your deepest feelings isn’t easy. Nevertheless, if you wish to grow into a more conscious human being, you must follow those answers wherever they lead. Don’t deny what you know in your heart to be true. It’s okay if you lack the strength to change right now. It’s better to smoke a cigarette or down a glass of alcohol consciously, with full awareness that it’s wrong for you, than to lower your consciousness and disconnect from your intuitive feelings.
* Source: Personal Development for Smart People by Steve Pavlina