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Living Maxwell

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Organic Food vs. Organic Thoughts

As you probably know by now, I am pretty fanatical and passionate about organic food. It is what I love. It has a superior taste to conventionally-grown food.  Also, it is best for my health, the farmers’ health and the planet.

Given that I am so concerned about what I put into my body and my overall health, I have been thinking about this topic a lot lately: organic food vs. organic thoughts.

So, what do I mean by this?

Organic food is clearly the best food for me and is critical to good health. There is no doubt about that. However, when I have negative thoughts, feelings of guilt or doubt, or start beating myself up for a variety of reasons, is that negating the benefits of my organic food habit?

I wish the answer were that cut and dry where I could say “yes” or “no”. Food is very tangible. I can see what I am putting into my mouth and the ramifications are quite clear. Eating fast-food or conventional, fried, GMO food makes me feel sluggish, disgusting and pretty horrible. I know what to eat and what not to eat, have great control over my diet, and am certain that organic food is the most nutritious food a person can consume.

However, when negative thoughts poison my mind, it is not super-easy to turn them around into positive ones. Shutting off the negative chatter is much, much harder than cutting off the junk food (even though I don’t eat junk food) yet doing so is essential for my health as well.

One movie that changed my life forever was What the Bleep Do We Know and was one of the three things that helped me recover from 11 years of antidepressants. And, what that movie taught me was the power of our thoughts. Before seeing that film, I never realized that our thoughts impact our reality. My negative thoughts are not only attracting negative things into my life but they are incredibly detrimental to my health on a cellular level.

Are my destructive thoughts negating all of the good, organic food that I am putting into my body? It is impossible to know for sure but they are absolutely not helping.

However, what this conversation that I’ve been having with myself has done is raise my awareness about the effect of these thoughts and the impact that they are having on my health, from both a good and bad perspective. It is something that I have known for a long time but is a good reminder and keeps me in check.

Health is so important to me that anytime one of these poisonous thoughts comes into my head, I am going to think of this blog post to get me back on the right track.

Just as clean food is critical to our health, so are clean thoughts. I want both of them working for me instead of one canceling out the other.

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On a related note, I recently read a fantastic book by Dr. Maxwell Maltz called Psycho-Cybernetics. He was among the country’s first plastic surgeons and realized that changing a person’s physical appearance did not do much to change the way they felt about themselves. Dr. Maltz believed that it all started from the image that a person had of themselves. Turning around a person’s self-image was the essential first step to improving a person’s life, before surgery or before positive thinking.

His book is very compelling, it has helped me a lot and I suggest it strongly. Here is some rare footage of an interview with him on YouTube.

A message from Tradin Organic

Why Tradin Organic is Prioritizing Regenerative Organic Farming

At Tradin Organic, we believe that regenerative organic farming is key to growing healthy and nutritious food ingredients — for now and for future generations.

And in Sierra Leone, we have grown the world’s first Regenerative Organic Certified cacao.

Learn more.

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Living Maxwell

Personal

Do I Ever Cheat?

Last week, I was asked by a friend of mine if I ever cheat.

No, she was not asking if I ever cheat on women but rather wanted to know if I ever cheat on my diet.

While I was taken aback by the question and didn’t have an immediate answer, she followed up with “Don’t you ever eat a doughnut?”

“No, I never eat doughnuts,” I quickly responded. That was an easy one to figure out. The thought of putting a Krispy Kreme into my body never ever enters my mind.

The larger question about cheating, however, really got me thinking and this is what I came up with.

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A message from E3Live

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The best testimonial that I can give is that I drink this every single day, as it impacts my mood in an incredibly positive way.

E3Live + BrainON is certified organic, fresh-frozen AFA (Aphanizomenon flos-aquae) with a concentrated, aqueous, organic extract of Phenylethylamine and Phycocyanin.

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Living Maxwell

Personal

The Repercussions of Going on Antidepressants

As I mentioned the other day, there were tremendous repercussions for me going on Prozac during college. Yet at the time, I didn’t have any idea that they would be so disastrous.

What influenced my judgment to go on antidepressants was a real desperation to feel better. And to feel better quickly. Worrying about how this would impact my life 5 or 10 years down the road was of no consideration whatsoever. I wanted relief and I wanted it immediately.

These are the key repercussions:

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Living Maxwell

Personal

The Struggles I Faced in College and How I Handled Them

As I wrote about the other day, it was during college when I went on antidepressants. Each day was getting harder than the next. The sky was growing darker and darker. It was a major struggle just to survive.

I was overwhelmed with a variety of responsibilities — school work, in which I seemed to be drowning; the tennis team, which occupied several hours of my time per day, not including constant traveling to other schools for matches and tournaments; and my fraternity, something in which I was very actively involved.

With my voice becoming more heavy during each phone conversation, my parents suggested that I go visit a local psychiatrist to see if he could help. More specifically, they thought that antidepressants were the answer. After a brief chat with the doctor, he diagnosed me with a mild case of depression and believed that Prozac would indeed improve my situation.

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livingmaxwell: a guide to organic food & drink