Category Archives: The Rose Program Insider Archive

Testimonial from Susan

Hi Natalia,
I just had an amazing visit with a friend and wanted to share it with you. Last spring I heard about a new nutritionist at my local Whole Foods. Always one to explore new ways to lose the same TEN pounds I have been trying to lose forever, I made an appointment to visit with her. Actually, I dragged my husband with me. He often humors me and goes on these excursions!

The nutritionist introduced us to your book. I was intrigued, as usual, and my husband really liked her and seriously considered her/your message. To make a long story short, we started your program in its most basic form, paying careful attention to not combine foods and eliminate dairy. We both immediately felt better and started to spread the word. I’m big on doing that.

Around this time our very dear rabbi was experiencing some significant health problems and I am friendly with his wife. I felt compelled to call her and tell her about “my food discovery.” They are an amazing couple and I wanted to be of help. Well, not only did she embrace the whole theory, she told all of England about it! She is from London and has a huge family there. They are all now converts to raw foods.

Now to the amazing experience. I invited my friend, the rabbi’s wife, over to juice with me yesterday. We had a marvelous time drinking one of my yummy juice concoctions and discussing how we are both so drawn to this way of eating. I might mention that she is the wife of a Chabad rabbi and keeps a strict Orthodox home. She was telling me how she has completely adapted her traditional meals by replacing them with innovative recipes. Her husband is thriving and her kids kvetch a bit that “there is nothing to eat,” but she is NOT budging. “They will all adapt,” she says. Talk about commitment.

Our visit inspired me to look more closely at all the reasons I tend to go on and off the program. I so admired her commitment. If she could make the lifestyle change for her and her family of eight, surely I could. Many thanks for continuing to share your information and insights and be such a conscientious messenger. Love your blogs!

Kindest regards,
Susan

Life Force Lesson #9: Realign, Reclaim, and Recharge

E = mc2. Remember this tenet of quantum physics originated by Albert Einstein? If E equals energy, m equals mass, and c2is the speed of light squared, this equation suggests that we can understand our bodies in terms of energy and light. Let this insight inform how you carry yourself. I call this “holding your flame.” Yes, your body, that sometimes hard-to-rouse-out-of-bed lump of flesh, is actually living light. And the very essence of light is fire. Therefore, you, my friend, are a living flame. Don’t ever forget it!

The Energy Body

The spinal cord, which is the core of the body, is the fire-rod axis, which conducts your life force. Running through your spine is your spinal fluid, whose essence is pure energy. If this energy were visible, you would see it move as a fluid light current following the donut-like pattern of a torus. Picture the light-energy flowing into you from the head (the crown chakra) while simultaneously flowing from below in the base of your spine (the root chakra). In this way, the current runs up and down the length of the spine until it reaches the opposite pole, then moves outward and around you to recirculate fresh energy.

Everything in the plant and animal kingdoms follows the torus pattern of energetic flow. It is the flow of all living things—from the smallest atom to the largest tree. You can even see this lifeline flowing within a carrot, an apple, or a Brussels sprout! The energy enters from both directions and flows into, through, and around the plant, giving it its life force and fanning its indwelling firelight. Likewise, from the macrocosmic perspective, the Earth, the other planets, and even the solar system follow the torus pattern, sending life through their cosmic pranic tube.

Like the Earth, when your core or inner axis is rightly aligned and moving energy in swift waves, harnessing both the negative and positive poles equally, your being will thrive. This is why physical and energetic blockages (e.g., through unfit foods, environments, relationships, and experiences) are so damaging. Disturbances in the energetic flow manifest in the physical body in the form of compromised energy and illness. Becoming aware of this is the first and best step you can take to revive your inner flame. How do you do this?

Take a moment to try the following exercise.

Exercise: Realign with Your Flame

First, I ask you to envision and sense your body as a living flame whose greatest intensity runs along your vertical axis. Feel its heat running up along your core.

Next, I want you to feel this flame’s power in the chakra centers of your body. Feel the power take hold at the base of your spine at your root, then feel the creative energy in the area halfway between your root and your navel. Then feel the life force energy awaken in that flame at the spot right behind your navel.

Next, feel your heart center surge with the power of this fire; allow the fire to rise into the throat opening so you can express yourself more freely. Feel the heat in your forehead as the flame rises in your brain, between your eyes, and then finally allow it to surge through your crown and upward, where it will connect with the more spiritual dimensions of your energy field. Notice how your posture naturally lifts, opens, and surrenders to the graceful flow of energy.

Instead of merely straightening your posture, note the effortless rise of your body once it embodies the flow of this flame. Notice that it does not cause you to stiffen. Notice how it lifts the middle of your spine and opens your shoulders like wings. Notice how it lifts and draws back your head back ever so slightly, like that of a swan or a giraffe. Hold your flame, feel it rise and emit its powerful energy all around you. Open up to its fullness. This is your natural alignment and your indwelling power.

Remember this as often as you can as you walk to work, shop for groceries, type e-mails, or undertake any other task. Notice how much clearer your communications and how much more centered your emotions are when you hold and embody your flame.

Reclaim Your Power Center

Real power is inner power, and inner power comes from wholeness. Your center is to your body what a nucleus is to a cell: the physical and operational center of your being, or the center of consciousness. Physically, your energy center is about an inch below and behind the belly button. There are several powerful points of consciousness in the body, such as the center of the heart and the center of the brain. When you are aligned with your flame, properly conducting life force energy, these all link up to create a powerful, interconnected center.

Every single person is capable of tapping into and activating this inner power. Once you fully engage it, you’ll be capable of unshakeable strength and confidence, no matter what comes your way. If you want to get the most out of this work, if you want to shape the life of your dreams, you must cultivate a powerful center.

Imagine your power center as a great control tower where all causes and effects of your life are spread out before you like a spider web. From that vantage point, you will recognize with astonishing clarity what is essential to you and what is counterproductive or superfluous; you will be able to observe the outcomes of all the causes you have set into motion, and choose your next steps accordingly. When you are your own pilot—calm, confident, and centered—channeling your own inner fire, you can rise above all the nonsense and navigate smoothly toward wholeness.

When we choose a path of higher living—including alternative choices about our consumption, our social conditioning, and our physical and psychological blockages—we initiate the journey back to wholeness. It all begins with your inner flame, cultivating its power from your center, and feeding its strength with every obstruction you remove and every broken piece of yourself that you put back together. In this way, the journey is ongoing becomes more rewarding over time.

Most people today do just the opposite: instead of cultivating their centers, they focus too much on externalities and burden their bodies with all kinds of obstructions that stifle their energy flow and throw their systems off balance. Their flames suffocate and become weak. They have no core strength—physically or spiritually. Thus, they are at the mercy of passing trends and social pressures that will eventually throw them so off balance that they will topple over. Real power is inner power. Never forget it.

Recharge with Sleep, Rest, and Meditation

There has been much discussion about rest and sleep in cleansing circles. The notion that you won’t need much rest comes from novice detoxers in the early stages of consuming more vital foods and juices. They experience the natural rush of energy from the life force in these substances, and the contrast to their previous levels of energy is remarkable. The burst of energy stimulates much creativity and productivity, sometimes making it hard to sleep. But beginners have initial experiences that dramatically change as they stay the course and their bodies rebalance.

The deepest, most meaningful healing is done when the body is resting and sleeping. Taking care to get lots of sleep (and even take naps or meditation-naps, where you lie down to center yourself and then allow yourself to doze) is essential to your cellular convalescence. You can expect your sleeping patterns to change as much as your body and your perspectives change over the long haul. Some nights you may have intense night sweats as toxins pour out of your body; other nights you may sleep more deeply and longer than you ever have since you were a teenager; and still other nights you will feel high as a kite from the pulsating chi, which may stimulate you to undertake all kinds of creative, productive projects in the midnight hour. Just go with it and observe, always remembering that rest and deep sleep do not betray weakness but support greater strength.

In addition, when you start to expand your consciousness, you may find you need much more sleep and time-outs. Growth is an extremely active process. When you are taking leaps of consciousness and your DNA is literally rewiring it’s programming, you might feel like you need to drop out midday for a deep sleep. This is very typical. If you can afford the time, take it and surrender to your body’s need for rest. It is critical to the process and will enable you to integrate your leaps of consciousness much more harmoniously. You’ll come out of it crisp and clear. Do not judge the need for rest. Just notice the benefits when you allow it.

This concludes our ninth lesson. In next week’s edition of The Rose Program Insider, we will talk about how to exercise freedom of choice in a world of false authorities.

Ana’s Lazy Girl Food Tip: Frozen Treats

Always find a way to satisfy a craving. Food should be joyous.

I love icy desserts. They are ideal for these hot summer months, but they can also be enjoyed year-round. Moreover, they are safe for yeasted and non-yeasted folks alike!

First, buy an inexpensive Popsicle tray. Then get creative! I freeze concoctions as simple as lemon-stevia water (which can even be enjoyed midday for those who juice until dinner, as it will not interrupt your fast) most days. But you can make easy fudge-sicles or frozen puddings as well.

Try blending coconut meat and water from two raw young coconuts with stevia and cocoa powder and pouring it into your Popsicle tray. Or freeze Natalia’s Pumpkin Pie in a Bowl Soup, or Doris’s Avocado Chocolate pudding. I’m telling you, anything can be a pop!

 

Recipe of the Week from Guest Chef Marlena Torres: Gazpacho

Marlena Torres is a certified clinical nutritionist and certified colon hydrotherapist in Lancaster, PA. She works with clients both locally and remotely, and also teaches an online course: Freedom From Emotional Eating. For more information and delicious, cleansing recipes visit www.marlenatorres.com!

“Spring in Your Step” Gazpacho

We tend to associate chilled soups with warmer weather and outdoor picnics, but gazpacho is delicious any time of year! This is a tribute to the spicy peppers and tart lime flavors that define traditional Mexican fare. This recipe is perfect for when you want a little “spring in your step.”

    • img-gazpacho2 big tomatoes, or 4 small tomatoes
    • 1 bell pepper
    • 1 small zucchini, or ½ regular zucchini
    • 2 tbsp red onion
    • 2 garlic cloves
    • 3 tbsp fresh mint
    • Small handful fresh basil
    • 1 or 2 packets stevia
    • ½ a lime, juiced
    • ½ a lemon, juiced
    • ½ tsp cayenne pepper (be careful, it’s spicy!)
    • Pinch of lime and lemon zest.

Blend all ingredients together in a hi-speed blender until smooth. Enjoy!

Serves: 2

 

Testimonial from Patti

Dear Natalia Rose Institute,

I do a fair share of traveling as a flight attendant with American Airlines. I pretty much stay away from airplane food and pack my own when I do travel, on and off the job. Natalia’s food recommendations for airplane travel have really improved how I feel when I’m working. I no longer feel bloated and fatigued by poor food combinations and I always start out the day with my green lemonade.
Cheers,
Patti

Glossary Term: Carbonic Gas

Carbonic gas occurs as soon as fermentation begins to take place. This happens anytime a substance enters your system and stays for too long. Carbonic gas invades the body on a deep cellular level, and creates a cleansing blockage in many ways: it prevents waste from moving freely out of the cells and tissues; it prevents waste from moving out of the colon, even during colon irrigation; and it prevents the body from contracting the way you would like. Apart from causing physical discomfort, it also becomes evident in the form of sagging skin, sagging facial tissue, thickened hips and waistline, and doughy musculature. You can begin to move this gas by making sure to keep your meals and newly awakened waste moving, through light-to-heavy, quick-exit eating. Anything that sits will ferment, so keep the focus on light and water-rich meals that are combined properly and consumed in an order that ensures movement.

Life Force Lesson #10: Exercise Your Freedom of Choice

Free will is the most important legacy we have from the Universal Spirit. We are constantly being presented with choices in life, “forks in the road” that lead to different places. Free will lets us choose. That ability to choose gives us the power to take our life in any direction we want . . . and create our future life.
—Jon Peniel, from The Children of the Law of One

The fundamental religion of this culture is that of human dominion, and it does not matter so much whether one self-identifies as a Christian, a Capitalist, a Scientist, or just a regular member of this culture, one’s actions will be to promulgate this fundamentalist religion of unbridled entitlement and exploitation. This religion permeates every aspect of this culture. This is a big problem, a problem big enough that it is killing the planet.
—Derrick Jensen

Freedom of choice is a concept that most of us in the Western world take for granted. We appear to have countless choices wherever we turn—whether it’s at the supermarket, the department store, the car dealership, a restaurant, or at nearly any other kind of retailer. But there is a difference between the illusion of choice and freedom of choice. How often do we pause to really think about what we’re supporting when we purchase, say, that cartload of groceries, or a new pair of jeans, or a cute new handbag? Does all this choice actually offer us real freedom or is it an illusion of freedom that sneakily enslaves us and harms many others? Well, let’s take a look at one such scenario.

Let’s say you want to buy a trendy new handbag by a big brand name, but you can’t afford it. So you go down to Chinatown, NYC, where everyone knows you can buy cheap designer handbag knockoffs. You figure most people can’t tell the difference between the knockoff and the real thing, anyway, so why not? Well, guess who’s busy making those cute little bags? Little children, particularly little girls, are being forced to manufacture them in terrible conditions. According to certain insiders, these young girls, ranging in age from 6 to 18, frequently get their legs broken so they cannot run and play. Driving this practice are shoppers, who come to the area specifically for this cheap specialty item, keeping it in high demand.

This kind of activity goes on day in and day out around globe, based on common consumer activities, and as members of modern society, we are all complicit. As much as we would like to pretend that we are not to blame for society’s routine injustices (whether wielded against people, wildlife, or the planet), the reality is that every single choice we make contributes either to the destruction of life on the planet or to the healing of it. It does us no good to palm off responsibility to others.

We must always be asking ourselves: Will the next choice I make be healing or destructive? Even if we are not ready yet to eat only local, seasonal foods or give up our cars to rely solely on public transportation, we can still start shopping for our veggies at the local farmer’s market, or decide to take the train to grandma’s house for a change.

We support whatever we spend our money on, and we cannot excuse our purchasing choices just because no activists are posting signs or picketing. It is our responsibility to research and understand where we are spending our money, energy, and resources—not just as a society, but as individuals. In fact, it is in our own best interest to do so, as members of the interconnected whole of life. We cast our vote multiple times a day, whether we know it or not. We, not some phantom authority sitting on high, are the ones with the power to destroy or heal.

Yes, the concept of voting with our wallets is simple enough to grasp, but it’s not always so simple to act upon. Why? Because our world is rife with consumer traps and snares that trip up even the most well-intentioned individuals. Even a pretty basket of fruit might have questionable origins. Still, we can and must continue to educate ourselves, in order to make increasingly informed decisions. Every life-generating step toward authentic health, love, and beauty makes a difference. Indeed, there are a lot of forces and false authorities working against this higher purpose, but that is all the more reason to reclaim our freedom of choice and learn how to wield it! We begin to do this by taking a moment to step back, dial down all the chatter, and start listening to the voice within.

Exercise: Clearing Your Inner-Space for Freedom of Choice

When we’re feeling powerless and inundated by the pressures of modern living—which, in today’s high-speed technocratic world, is the norm for most people—we become extremely vulnerable to all kinds of destructive habits, conditioned thinking, and peer pressure. Often this leads to such behaviors as binge eating and binge shopping, which only bring temporary numbing relief, but leave us feeling even worse and more powerless than before. The next time you feel yourself spiraling out of control in this way, before you completely cave or make another destructive choice, take a moment to try to quiet your mind, find your center, and honestly ask yourself the following questions:

  • How many different voices and opinions are ringing in my ears right now, and which, if any, are authentically my own?
  • Do I really need or even truly want this product that I’m shopping around for? Why am I agonizing so much over which brand or model to purchase? Are all these “choices” truly empowering me?
  • Will eating all this greasy food actually make me feel better, or is it just a mindless habit that supports the food conglomerate and leaves me feeling bloated and ashamed?
  • Why am I running myself ragged to attend all these social functions? Which of them are really important to me, and which are just a matter of keeping up appearances?
  • Why do I spend so much of my free time e-mailing, IMing, and surfing the Internet? Do they really make me feel more connected to others? What am I sacrificing by choosing to do this?

These are just examples of the kinds of questions you might pause to ask yourself. They will help you to realize just how fragmented and scattered your thinking can be (the natural expression of a fragmented self) and honestly reassess your choices before you make another one you’ll regret. As long as you sign away your power and let the world make your choices for you, you will perpetuate all kinds of suffering—others’ and your own. If you do not call upon your own highest authority, these riptides of consumerism and social conditioning will carry you off, farther and farther away from yourself, into dangerous waters indeed. Worst of all, you probably won’t even know it until it’s too late, because you’ll have fallen for the illusion of choice again and again.

So take the time to pause, breathe, center yourself, and weigh your choices carefully. It does require a vigilance and concentration, but exercising your freedom of choice becomes easier with practice, and is ultimately a lot less work than suffering the consequences of mindless living! Don’t squander your life on false values and aspirations. Take this opportunity to ask yourself the important questions in life—e.g., What kind of person would I really like to be? Which qualities do I want to cultivate? What do I most admire in others, and what do I most deplore? Where do I most want to direct my time, resources, and energies? How would I like to impact the world around me?—and let your answers guide your every choice.

This concludes our tenth lesson. In the next edition of The Rose Program Insider, we will talk about the healing power of patience and perseverance.

Ana’s Lazy Girl Food Tip: College Life

Dormitory Eating

For all you university students, dorm eating is tricky. Bringing your own mini-fridge or renting one is essential. Stock your fridge with organic dark chocolate, raw goat cheese, and decent Dijon mustard (you can bulk order all of these from www.healthwisefoods.com). Then add some long-life veggies such as cabbage and carrots (Goat Cheese Cabbage Rollups or Dijon-Stevia Carrot Dip, anyone? (Just add stevia to Dijan mustard, et voila!) The Goat Cheese Cabbage Rollups can sit for a while without loosing as much vitality as, say, lettuce. This way, if you can’t get off campus often, you can still have late-night study group snack options. Top your fridge with a bowl of lemons and avocados.

Dining Halls and Cafeterias

The salad bar is the obvious choice. You can make a giant pile of veggies with lemon juice and stevia, and smuggled goat cheese or avocado from your room. But don’t ignore the hot meals. Steamed broccoli, marinara sauce on Italian nights, and baked root vegetables are commonly available. Many meal service providers (including Flick) will offer a steamed fish option, or will make you a fresh omelet. If there’s a sandwich station, you can pillage the Dijon mustard, tomato and red onion supplies. Don’t be afraid to ask for simple specials. Many cafeteria workers will sneak a sweet potato into an already hot oven, offer a steamed veggie without oil if asked, or bring out fresh salad bar supplies when it has been depleted. And remember the power of many: I once circulated a (misguided) petition to get turkey burgers on the menu on burger night, and they obliged! If only I’d known about Sunshine burgers back then!

 

Recipe of the Week by Natalia Rose Institute Executive Chef Doris Choi: Delicious Soup Combo

Basil Zucchini Soup

Sauté:

  • ¾ tablespoon organic butter
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • Pinch crushed red pepper flakes (optional add-in for spicy flavor)
  • 2 medium shallots, minced
  • 8 cups zucchini, cubed

Seasonings for Broth:

  • 2 bay leaves
  • Handful fresh parsley
  • Pinch salt
  • Pinch pepper

Broth Water:

  • Enough water to cover by 1 inch above the vegetables when held down in the bottom of the pot.

Blending Fresh Seasoning:

  • Handful fresh basil

Garnish:

  • 1 zucchini, spiralized into “noodles”
  • Some fresh basil leaves for garnish

Directions:

  1. Heat the organic butter in a stock pot. When butter is heated, add garlic, shallots, and crushed red pepper flakes, if using. Sauté for 8 minutes until shallots are translucent.
  2. Add 8 cups of cubed zucchini and let sauté for 1 minute until zucchini starts to become soft. Add 2 bay leaves, a handful of parsley, a pinch of salt and pepper, and the brother water. Let cook until zucchini becomes soft and cooked, about 20-30 minutes.
  3. Transfer the caramelized shallots, garlic, cooked zucchini, and parsley to the bowl of a high-speed blender, such as the Vitamix. Remove the bay leaves (as they tend to get dry). Add 1 handful of fresh basil to the blender with the cooked vegetables.
  4. Begin blending, and transfer only as much broth from the stock pot to the blender with the cooked vegetables and fresh basil as you need to achieve a creamy-smooth consistency.
  5. On the side, spiralize one zucchini with the julienne blade of a spiralizer. Top each bowl of zucchini basil soup with some zucchini “noodles” and some fresh basil leaves as garnish.

 

Testimonial from Valerie

Detox 4 Women works. I am a success story. Lost almost all of the last ten pounds after years of trying. The question you asked about whether I have done everything right and still not lost weight was what made me go for it! I love the food, crave the goat cheese and some of the veggies. The wine and dark chocolate make it fun! Also, I eat out a lot and am enjoying it for the first time ever, eating high-quality fish and salads and not having to feel guilty. I am 50 and look 40. THANK YOU.

—Valerie

Life Force Lesson #11: Practice, Patience, and Perseverance

Softness triumphs over hardness, gentleness over strength.
The flexible is superior over the immovable.
This is the principle of controlling things
By going along with them, of mastery through adaptation.
—Lao-Tzu

Pursuing an alternative lifestyle is never easy. It often elicits floods of resistance from family and social circles, and requires great patience and perseverance in the face of obstacles. For me, it took more than twelve years of dedicated practice to reach my current level of self-awareness and self-sovereignty. I also had the help and encouragement of extraordinary teachers.

As for the floods of resistance, in my own case, I found that everyone had an opinion—mostly unsupportive, because my approach challenged their values. The obstacles grew based on how far away I veered from my expected course in terms of religious upbringing, social conditioning, peer pressure, and family expectations. But I knew that I had to face these obstacles and fully own my power in order to revive my authentic self, the one who’d been caged and silenced for far too long.

Take the Time You Need to Heal
Our work at Natalia Rose Institute is all about healing, nurturing, and growing, not quick fixes that have no lasting power and usually turn out to be more harmful than healthful in the long run. We are here to support true healing, in the deepest and most expansive meaning of the word—not to keep some kind of false peace with the body until all hell breaks loose again and another ceasefire is required!

We would get nowhere without patience and perseverance. My personality is naturally impetuous. I had to learn patience the hard way—by slamming into walls in my haste to achieve all my goals at lightning speed. I know for a fact that many of you are similarly wired because I read about it in your letters. Well, here in the Natalia Rose Institute community is one place where we serve ourselves far better with a healthy dose of patience and perseverance.

People tend to have a short memory when it comes to cleansing. They think after a week or so of juicing and eating only salads they should be clean. They forget all the soda, processed foods, hormone- and antibiotic-injected animal products, pasteurized cow dairy, birth control pills, alcohol, pharmaceuticals, and/or recreational drugs they’ve consumed over the course of their lives—not to mention the generations of compromised DNA they received through their lineage! The cumulative damage to our cells and DNA is profound, not something that can be shaken off after only a week, month, or even a year of cleansing. It takes years to rectify our deep-rooted imbalances and achieve a truly beautiful, clean-celled body.

Keep in mind that raw foods and juices alone are not going to bring you back into alignment. For example, eating all raw or strictly vegan won’t necessarily ensure that you will live better or longer than your non-raw, non-juicing peers. You will also need to remove internal obstructions consistently over time. Eating a cleaner diet is just one essential component of the larger picture. The removal of obstruction (both physical and mental) is the actual fulcrum of healing.

This is where the patience and persistence comes in! You can juice for a weekend and drop a few pounds, but your body will go right back to its old stats unless you remove the obstruction that the juice fast awakened—and then continue to awaken and release more and more of that obstruction. Those that stay in the game, awakening and releasing for months and years, are the ones that reach the ecstasy of cleansing. The extended journey is what eventually cleans and elevates the blood chemistry and unblocks the internal pathways, enabling Life Force to surge and conduct through your body. As the cleansing reaches those depths, the alchemy happens: the internal organs are revived by the higher-caliber blood, skin tissue reflects the strengthened internal body, and energy soars. This is the true meaning of rejuvenation!

Our work here at Natalia Rose Institute is not about covering up our physical imperfections. Rather, it’s about pulling back the curtain on all the internalized toxicity that you’ve been carrying around with you and spent years of your life trying to hide. If you are still new to this work, you probably have some very deep toxicity that will emerge in waves. Don’t be embarrassed. No one who matters is judging you. In fact, here in the Natalia Rose Institute community, we’re all cheering you on! This work only gets better over time. Don’t give up. Give your body a chance to regenerate itself from the inside out.

Stay the Course of Cleansing
Physical aging and deterioration accompanied by feelings of weakness and fatigue are not factors of how many times you have ridden around the sun, but of what you have accumulated as you have gone around the sun! If you cleanse and maintain an alkaline-rich diet of primarily fresh fruits and veggies, and you are still feeling weak or lacking power for your workouts, it is due to one or more of the following reasons:

  1. You are awakening waste without releasing it.You have awakened matter that your bowel cannot release on its own. Therefore, your center is blocked and the awakened poisons are flooding your bloodstream, making you feel ill and tired. You need either bowel cleansing or a less than perfect meal to help ease your bowel’s transition to clean foods—one or the other, but preferably the former.
  2. You are experiencing withdrawal symptoms.You are so addicted to the stimulation of cooked proteins, whey/soy/protein energy bars, coffee, refined sugar, flour, soda, etc. that your body is not coping with the change. The problem is that you’re having withdrawal symptoms—not that the clean diet is failing to deliver energy. You probably need to transition more slowly. People are often deceived into thinking they need meat when, after a week of a meat-free diet, they eat a steak and suddenly feel “energized.”This is a false fire! Acidic, dense substances can never give you real energy, only stimulation. To an unclean body addicted to the stimulation, continuing to consume such substances feels good and familiar. Stopping too suddenly leads to withdrawal symptoms and a feeling of weakness. Hence, people often associate a clean diet with feeling weak. This is why making a gradual transition away from the old foods, rather than going cold turkey, is so crucial. It will help you avoid many pitfalls!
  3. You are still a slave to the old mental programming. Mental programming is a powerful thing. For years you’ve been absorbing the erroneous propaganda that only calorie-dense substances can sufficiently energize you. You’ve also been conditioned to expect quick, linear results from health regimens. But when the average obstructed body undergoes deep cleansing, it must slow down to conduct internal triage. When this happens, you might grow impatient and lose heart, but I urge you to stay the course. It often takes persistence in the face of a temporary impasse to yield a major breakthrough. But you have to stick with it!

Keep an Eye on the Big Picture

The detox lifestyle is largely a case of mind over matter: work to reverse your thinking and align with the greater truth. Most of all, keep an eye on the big picture of cleansing. A clear body is an energized body. Arnold Ehret said it nearly a hundred years ago: Vitality = Power – Obstruction. However, “Power” may not have been the clearest word choice, so, with all due respect to Ehret, let me rephrase this slightly: Vitality = Electromagnetic Conductivity – Obstruction. In other words, when the electromagnetic conductivity can rush unobstructed through the body, you will experience uncompromised vitality!

Every time you’re feeling impatient or a little less energized than you want to feel, ask yourself how clear your pathways are and how well your cells are conducting the electromagnetic power. Even when you’re blocked, this energy is always lying dormant within you, ready to be unleashed. But you cannot expect your body to release all the obstructions and toxicity that it has accumulated over a lifetime and regenerate clean cells overnight. True healing requires visionary practice, patience, and perseverance. If the duration and requirements get you down, just consider for a moment the alternative—hospitals, medication, countless unsexy symptoms and a steady, disempowerment, and a general decline. Green Lemonade, raw salads, and colonics, please!

Do all you can to remove any blockages—physical and mental—and then feel your body come alive with the blissful vibration of life force conducting through you. Your authentic, revitalized self will begin to emerge like a butterfly from a chrysalis, and soon you’ll be able to take wing!

This concludes our eleventh lesson. In next week’s final edition of The Rose Program Insider, we will close with a meditation on our highest aspirations and the true meaning of beauty.

Ana’s Lazy Girl Food Tip: Relax & Enjoy

One of my biggest challenges with food and feeding myself properly has been emotional eating. I ate when I was scared, sad, lonely, tired, cold. And I ate to calm social anxiety, to celebrate happy events, and sometimes even to intentionally hurt myself when I was feeling like I’d really let myself down. Author Annie Lamott (one of my favorites) has called this assault eating, and I whole-heartedly agree.

Getting into a place of relaxation and calm before dinner is essential. Natalia always recommends a bath before a meal, and it helps tremendously.

If I don’t have time to take a bath, or if I’m out and about in the city and I am not able to run home it often seems impossible to get focused. Emotional eaters all know that once the ball starts rolling it only picks up speed if there’s no interception.

The quick and easy meditation that I recommend to clients is the one that has consistently worked for me from the beginning. It started as a non-religious way to say grace, and I have realized that gratitude and connection are the most important things for me.

I look down at my food (mostly vegetables) and close my eyes. I get a beautiful picture in my mind of where my food came from. I see a field of greens, tomato and cucumber vines. I can feel the hot sun, and smell the soil, and I silently say thank you. It takes only one minute, but honoring our food is a way to honor the body. A meal of those beautiful growing things is a wonderful way to tell yourself, “I love you.”