LIVE LONGER THE GREEK WAY!

I recently got tagged on FaceBook after one of my friends read an article called Secrets From The Island Where People Forget To Die.

My friend said, “Thought of you, Deborah, when I read this article. Sounds like your words of wisdom.”

Well, the island is Ikaria in the north Aegean Sea. The people there live well into their eight, ninth, and tenth decades. Yes, it is common to see one humdred year old Greeks in the market, gardening, enjoying life. In fact, heart disease, cancer, diabetes are rarely heard of on this island. So how is it that these people rarely suffer from the same illnesses that shorten the lives of the rest of us.

In her her new cookbook Ikaria: Lessons on Food, Life, and Longevity from the Greek Island Where People Forget to Die, Diane Kochilas sums up as six things which I totally agree with.

1. Eat locally, seasonally and sparingly. 

The octagenarians, nonagenarians and centenarians on Ikaria ate very little in their early years, because of extreme poverty. Now I’m not saying that people should starve, but clearly first world countries consume too much.

Traditionally, people of the Mediterranean eat very little meat. A goat or a lamb or a pig may be slaughtered for a holiday feast, perhaps two or three times a year. Family chickens were kept for eggs. The young roosters may be slaughtered a few times a month. Goats are milked and the milk is cultured into yoghurt and cheese. And if you’re fisherman or have something to trade with the fishermen, then fish is part of the diet. 

Everyone keeps a garden, which is basically xenoscaped as the island is arid. So people scavenged for herbs, roots, snails, mushrooms, wild greens. My husband describes picking dandelion greens from the park as a kid. His Greek father would sauté the greens- Horta – and we still cultivate these weeds today. Great for the liver and really tasty sautéed in olive oil, with a bit of feta sprinkled on top.

And the biggest factor is that there is virtually no processed food on the island, except in some restaurants.

2. Don’t rush through life. 

This is key to Mediterranean people, especially those my husband and I encountered in the small villages of Italy and Greece. The author describes the pace with which people move on Ikaria to be: slow, deliberate, unhurried, but with enough time to observe and live in every moment.

Once when we were visiting southern Italy, my husband and I were shopping for souvenirs in the coastal village of Amalfi. Suddenly all the village left their homes and shops including the shopkeeper where we were shopping and they all headed to the beach. We followed them to witness the most beautiful sunset on the Tyrrhenian Sea. People were holding hands and just enjoying the beauty. When the sun had set, everyone kissed and went back to whatever they were doing before. We asked the shopkeeper when he returned if this was a usual event.

 “Of course!” He exclaimed throwing up his hands in the Italian manner. “You stop and appreciate your beautiful life!” We have been slowing down ever since and I believe that has helped our aging process.

This slow pace allows us to be more in tune with our bodies. And that is key to maintaining our health. If you’re moving too fast, not living deliberately, rushing through life, then how can you possibly attend to your body’s subtle signals of dis-ease. When patients come to me with an illness, I always point out to them that their body is trying to communicate with them. If they want to heal, it behooves them to stop and pay attention.

3. Enjoy sleep. 

We sleep so much when we are on vacation. Well, living deliberately allows you to really sleep well. Take naps! Pay attention to your dreams. The centenarians of Ikaria relish their sleep. All older Greeks nap.

I recently read a study on bimodal sleep. We are meant to sleep in two phases. When we were in Italy and Greece if we didn’t sleep during the siesta time when all the shops closed down in the late afternoon, then we could not possibly keep up with the lively late night activities that the people enjoy. An afternoon nap is just when your adrenals need to be recharged. So sleep well!

4. Let things go.  

This is a lesson for us all. The Greeks say, "Don't hold the bad in." The negative feelings- disappointment, regret, frustration, anger, fear—slowly but surely tax our resources and feed dis-ease. Remember what we think becomes. So release everything that no longer serves you on a regular basis. My Italian grandparents used to say, “Never go to bed mad. Always kiss and make up.”

Celebrating life is a great part of Mediterranean culture. The Italians and Greeks love their wine. Grown in the heart of the land they love, the grapevines capture the love of the people turning sunshine into luscious fruit. The wine is good and strong and fuels lively celebration with much dancing!  

5. Walk.  Move. Dance.

When we were in Italy and Greece, we were amazed at how many old people walked. No wheelchairs, no walkers, no canes. Once my husband tried to help a tiny octogenarian with her groceries and she turned him away. My old Italian aunts were like that…believing that once they could not longer do for themselves they would die. So they insisted on cooking, cleaning, climbing three stories, walking to the market as long as they possibly could.

No gyms, no heart monitors, no fancy running clothes. Just walk as much as possible, every day.  You won’t believe how much exercise you get if you just walk. Once my father got us a couple of pedometers. He and I walked around Ojai and compared steps. I’m shorter so I had a few more steps. Just before dinner, he asked to use my laptop. While he was perusing his email, I went out to the garden to gather veggies for dinner, fed the animals, watered a few plants, folded clothes, and prepared dinner. At the end of the evening, we compared our pedometers, I had double the amount of steps than him. He thought I had taken another walk. “No, Dad, I just didn’t sit down.” So get up and walk!

6. Turn to nature’s pharmacopeia as your medicine. 

The long-lived Ikarians use herbs for the minor ailments and let their bodies heal themselves. Folk pharmacopoeia may be slipping away in many cultures but it is alive and well on the island where people forget to die.

One of the reasons I created Genesis Gold was because I could not gather all the nutrition my body needed from my organic American diet. Genesis Gold provides my body a potpourri of herbs from around the world to choose what is needed for healing and maintaining optimal health.

 

GENESIS GOLD - NATURE'S PHARMACOPEIA

Body Connections

What is this body which we seem so familiar, yet know so little of its wisdom? The body is the perfect vehicle for the soul in this third dimensional reality. It is through the dense, sensual physical body that the soul learns its deepest lessons and experiences its most precious gift. Creation is via the human body. The soul’s journey back to the eternal, to the infinite is through the human body. This earth and her human inhabitants are the most precious path in the infinite garden of creation. We are the Way.

Through the body do we realize our full human angelic potential. Within the temple of the body exists all the knowledge needed to make the journey. Through the body in relationship to other human beings with physical bodies do we experience the greatest gift of all, emotion. Emotion is the path to the soul, the body is the garden in which the path takes form. Matter begets reality through the biochemistry of the thought fueled by emotion.

The human body manifests for the soul’s appraisal symbolically. Spirit’s first garden is the body. The physicality of the body provides the fertile soul upon which thought sows the seeds of imagination and nourishes it with emotion. The quality of emotion and the clarity of thought directs the rapidity and solidity of the physical manifestation within the body. Disease and injury are born of fear, health and growth are born of love. Clear vision of wellbeing provides the matrix upon which the healthy, vibrant body becomes. Imagination fraught with horrific ideas of infirmity reaps a frail, sick, disfigured body.

The body, the garden/ the soul, the gardener. Thoughts are seeds, emotion is water which brings these seeds to life in the body. When we realize our full potential as the manifestors of our own physical reality, then we begin tending our body garden with compassion. We direct our thoughts to clear visions of vitality and carefully water these thought seeds with the waters of life giving emotion that of love.

Soon we begin to realize that we are manifesting our beliefs in the world around us. In the people who mirror our thoughts, fed by our emotions. We note that what we intend becomes. We become careful to think loving thoughts and to tend our vivid imaginations with care. We are like children in our magical thinking allowing our imagination to manifest to reality and playing in the garden of our making. We realize that we are co-creators in this life and become conscious of our power. We shed our egos as we release our fears and manifest in love.

First we come to love our bodies. We come to understand our bodies, deeply familiarizing ourselves with the miraculous nature of our physiology, the beauty of our anatomy. We begin to see the magic in creation and claim our right to brew the most delicious nectar of creation within our body cauldrons. With the up-regulation of the full genetic encodement, we begin to experience health and vitality. The brew is wrought from ingestion of all that is needed for biochemical symphony. Once the hormones are singing harmoniously, the DNA dances vitality.

We can heal anything if we imagine ourselves as healed vital beings and are in deep gratitude for our lives. We must choose life, vitality, health, happiness. We must choose love. Love is always one of the potentials, in fact love is at the core of every potential. By choosing love, we are given the choicest cut of life, rather than having to chew through the gristle of fear to taste the center of love. When we are faced with hardship, we are challenged to find the love within the pain. Illness as a blessing rather than a curse becomes the way back to our true essence which is that of love. Choose love, choose life, just choose consciously.


Keep Your Hormones in Harmony™ with Genesis Gold®.

Many Blessings,

Deborah