The
Art of Balance
by Morgan Jones
10 December 2002
Life is a
balance between taking on and letting go.
David Briscoe, founder of
Macrobioitcs America, wrote this phrase when I asked him to describe the
essence of his lecture called The Big Balance that he presents from time
to time.
David lives in Northern California and travels to Austin only a couple of times
a year. He lectures at many venues around the country, and he is usually the
most popular speaker at all the major macrobiotic conferences. David's gentle
and intelligent style, his ability to make complex issue clear and
understandable, and his practical approach to healthy and happy living in the
real world have won him praise again and again from those who have attended his
lectures. Listening to David is a great opportunity to hear one of the finest
macrobiotic teachers in the world today.
When I asked David to describe his first lecture, as usual he went right to the
heart of the matter.
Again and again I seem to discover that the important truths in this life
turn out to be pretty simple ideas. I don't know how many books I have read on
diet, nutrition, healing, spirituality, and the like over the past 20 yearsit's
a big number. But nowhere in all this reading did I ever find this one powerful
truth expressed so clearly and understandably.
We macrobiotic teachers work toward one simple goal: We want to help our
students and friends (who are, after all, one and the same) become aware of the
subtle affects of the hundreds of choices we each make everyday (most made
unconsciously), and how the residue of these choices can accumulate over a
lifetime to create, well, usour
bodies, our minds, and our emotions. This is the wisdom David has shared with
us, and we try to pass it on.
Accumulate. That's the operative word here. From my personal
observations, it seems to me that illnesswhether
you describe it as emotional or physical or spiritualis
the end result of accumulating stuff that isn't compatible with the human body
and human chemistry. In my own case, some of this accumulation was the physical
kind -- from butter and cheese and meat that clogged my arteries and intestines;
from baked flour products that turned into paste in my gut; from an excess of
sugar that turned to fat, made my thinking scattered, caused my hair to fall
out, robbed me of energy, made my vision blurry, and left me unable to turn my
ideas into actions. Andhow
do I say this without sounding too new-age?I
also accumulated a lot of emotional baggage that resulted in clogged thinking
and unhappiness that manifested as a lack of contentment.
What
you take in minus what you eliminate equals you,
David wrote.
Yep. That makes sense. But can it really be that easy? Is that all there is to
know and suddenly every detail of life is perfect?
Well, it wasn't that easy for me. I still had to work hard to learn how to
incorporate this idea into my daily routine. (The devil is always in the
details, no?) But after more than 7 years of using David's powerful compass on
my healing journey, I think I can say that I am on the right path. I've lost all
my excess weight; I have overcome my hypoglycemia so I don't fight to stay awake
in the afternoons; I have regained a sharp mental focus; my memory improved; my
eyesight improved; my low back pain is gone; as is the pain in my knees and
several other joints; I sleep 4 to 5 fewer hours per night but now have more
than enough energy to keep going strong from 5 am to 10 pm every day; and I am
infinitely more peaceful and tolerant and grateful than ever before.
I can't tell you for certain that this idea will be the last, best one for
guiding my efforts to improve my health, lengthen my life, and increase my joy.
But what I can say is, "So far, so good."
So now you might be thinking, OK.
For the sake of argument, let's say that Morgan might be onto something. Howexactlycan
I stop accumulating the stuff that clogs my body and my thinking, and howexactlycan
I eliminate the excess I have accumulated to this point in my life?
These are the questions David speaks so eloquently about in his Big Balance
lecture, and these are the very same questions we expand upon in our weekend
health conference called The Origins of DiseaseThe
Road to Recovery.
If you want to get a clearer idea of where disease comes from, how it can be
prevented or reversed, and how to do this effectively while living a modern-day
life in a high-tech world, please come and join us for the next weekend
conference. It might just change your life as it has mine.
Or, if you want to jump into the deep end of the pool of knowledge, you might
check the class schedule at
The Natural Epicurean
to see when Dan will next be offering her course entitled The Fundamentals of
Cooking for Disease Prevention &Reversal.
It's really pretty simple. As soon as you take charge, the healing begins.
Peace, love, and brown rice.