the journey begins, part 2

Hey everyone–here we go with Part 2 of how we got involved in Conscious Planet. Thanks for reading! I hope as we go you may find some of it interesting, informative, and perhaps even inspiring in some way.

When I got home from the Conscious Planet presentation with its founder, Charles, I was pretty excited, because I knew I was onto something important. This company was not only offering products which I felt intuitively were going to be helpful to me, they were also offering a philosophy and a potential business opportunity that was in line with my beliefs and values. Their mission statement says that the “Conscious Planet Mission is to raise consciousness by creating the ideal environment for health and well being through Products, Education and Opportunity.” Sounded good to me.

I knew at that point that I wanted to feel healthier, but it wasn’t until I completed a CP wellness quiz that I really realized the breadth and depth of what total health really means. Working through the questions was a bit of a sobering experience, actually. Yikes. I was less healthy than I thought. You can check out the wellness quiz yourself if you want (look under “products” and then go to “member tools” and you can print one out.) For those who don’t want to bother with that, I can tell you that there were many questions on different themes, with multiple choice answers. An example of one that was a bit of an eye-opener was the one called “Joy Level” where the answers ranged from 1. 0-20% = scared/angry; 2. 20-40% = trusting; 3. 40-60% = loving; 4. 60-80% = peaceful; 5. 80-100% = radiant.

I wish I could say differently, but I gotta tell ya, it’s been awhile since I felt radiant!

Although I had shared my excitement and interest with my husband Alexander, I don’t think he had really “got it” until he completed his own wellness quiz. He was a little sobered by it, too, and that provided the impetus for us to take the next step.

CP employs a woman named Dorothy who is a Master Kiniesiologist, Medical Intuitive, and Master Herbalist. She does wellness assessments for members who request it, in order to give people a personalized sense of their health challenges and a personalized “prescription” of the health products that could help. We decided to pay the $20 to join up so that we could each order a full wellness assessment, part of which involved sending in a hair sample.

During the introductory evening, my body had said “yes” to several of the products. When Charles had tested them with me he said that the Genesis product, which I had been quite interested in, was too strong to start with and that I should start with Catalyze, the digestive enzymes. I knew that the latter would be helpful, regardless, given my food sensitivities, so when I looked again at the list of products, I decided only to order Catalyze to start with, along with my wellness assessment from Dorothy.

I’ve chewed on my share of papaya enzymes over the years, when I’ve over-indulged in something and needed a bit of help with my digestion, but I’d never used a full-on digestive enzyme product before. It makes sense that they are necessary, and helpful. Enzymes are found in all raw food, are part of every catalytic bodily function and are a key to life. I learned through reading that enzymes are easily destroyed by processing, heating and chemical treating, thus rendering the body unable to digest the food without compromising its own immunity and digestive resources. The folks at CP believe that enzyme supplementation is a cornerstone to rejuvenation and healing. That made sense to me and felt right for my body.

Just to be clear, I have taken a LOT of supplements in my life. Over the years I’ve bought many different vitamins, minerals, and other supplements in the hopes that they would help me feel better. I’ve had many of them delivered by mail since my favourite vitamin shop is in a different city, so I’ve opened many boxes and pulled out many supplements. Thus, my experience when I opened the box containing the Catalyze digestive enzymes surprised me a bit. As unusual as this might sound, as I pulled out the bottle, I felt something that I would describe as sort of a rush of energy from it. As I held the bottle, I felt like I was holding something quite powerful in my hands. I certainly wasn’t expecting that feeling so was a bit taken aback, but I did remember the CP claim that they take into account much more than the simple nutritional content of the ingredients. Here’s part of what they say about that:

“Most companies use only nutritional analysis to determine their products, however we know a nutrition facts panel is not enough information to make a healthy choice for you and your loved ones as the body has the final say in what it uses. An example would be a raw almond and a cooked almond. Nutritional analysis shows they are identical, however if you sprout a raw almond and plant it, it grows and creates life, and when eaten is easily digested and readily utilized by the body. A cooked almond on the other hand cannot sprout, rots when you plant it and causes indigestion and the nutrients are not easily accessed by the body and in fact it is mostly treated like a toxin.” In the making of their products, they say they also take into account Vital Life Force Energy, homeostasis, and consciousness and appropriateness, which they measure in various ways. A bit radical for some, I’m sure, but pretty interesting, considering that science has proven for awhile that the essential nature of everything is energy.

I was excited to take my first Catalyze digestive enzymes, and started with two after my dinner. Interestingly, I felt a few detoxification symptoms in the night, but that did not last and by the next day I was taking two with each meal.

What was interesting to me over the next couple of weeks as I got used to the routine of taking them was that I would be going along in my day, realize at some point that I felt tired, and then realize that I’d forgotten to take my digestive enzymes during that meal. I could definitely feel a correlation between my energy levels and whether or not I had taken the enzymes, which was pretty exciting. When I checked out the Best of Raw Food Diet website recently, I read that it said that your body can create enzymes but the process takes a lot of energy and makes you tired–think about how you feel after Christmas dinner. Further, the enzymes your body makes are not as good as the ones that were destroyed in the cooking of the food. The food will not be broken down as well and thus will be harder to digest.

I’ll wait until the next installment to fill you in on the powerful results of our wellness assessments, and to talk a little more about the somewhat intimidating world of raw food.  Also, if you get intrigued at any point about what this company is offering in terms of your own health and in terms of a possible business opportunity for yourself, get in touch with one of us and we can talk to you about how we can all help each other in this endeavour. We think that the Conscious Planet model truly provides an exciting cooperative opportunity.

In the meantime, in the interest of inspiration, and in the spirit of the fact that we are all connected, and that I believe that the journey into total health involves every realm including the political, and that our taking control of our health is a revolutionary act, here is an awesome video by the amazing Michael Franti. You gotta let go of remote control…

Tamara