These people are looking for real answers on how to be healthy and how to advance themselves spiritually. They are looking for ways to connect with nature and for ways to open their hearts so they can find and explore healthy new relationships with the important people in their lives. In all of these people, the biggest question that keeps surfacing is, "How?" They want to know, how do they do it? I get these questions all the time from reader e-mails. People ask me, "How do I heal? What is the recipe? What steps can I take in order to heal myself?"
This article is about one potent answer to that question, and that answer is, quite simply: Come to the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center in Patagonia, Arizona. Come here, and you will open a door to a universe of new possibilities that will answer these questions you may have about health at a physical level, a chemical level, an energetic level and even a spiritual level. It will open you up to new possibilities, and it will leave you with a memorable transforming experience that I honestly believe you would be hard-pressed to get anywhere else.
If you think that's some fairly nebulous language, I hear you. All this sounded that way to me, too, at first. So let's get specific, and let me take you on a tour. Join me, as I tour the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center as an independent, outside reviewer and explore the details of this place and how it can help heal and awaken you at many levels, even if you are skeptical that those things are possible.
What if there was such a place? And what if it was surrounded by gorgeous mountains and blue skies with puffy clouds and fields of natural grass that swayed in the breeze and had a very pleasant temperature year-round and organic gardens and fruit trees and walking paths? What if this place had none of the distractions of the outside world? No cell phones, no television, no internet, no air or water pollution, no traffic jams, no car exhaust and no industrial smokestacks. What if such a place existed? What kind of function could it serve for you as a place of refuge from the real world where you could have the solitude and the support, when needed, in order to find yourself, and in doing so, could unleash the healer within? Well, there is such a place, and that is the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center in Patagonia, Arizona.
This place exists, and I've seen it, I've lived in it, temporarily, and interacted with the people. I felt it at many levels, and I want to bring you this experience so that you can understand why this is the place to come if you're ready for a deeply healing experience. Here, the healing starts with food. You may already know that it's about live foods. Some people call them raw foods, but the preferred description here is living foods or live foods.
If there were nothing else offered here, the living foods alone would be transformative and potent. These living foods can change your world. From a holistic nutrition standpoint, these foods contain the elements, the energy and the nutrition that every human body needs to overcome chronic disease. I'm talking about major diseases like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, depression, osteoporosis, obesity, arthritis and joint inflammation. Every single one of these diseases can be virtually eliminated by turning to a raw foods or living foods diet. And that's just the beginning of what you'll find at the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center.
If you're skeptical about living foods, I don't blame you. I was skeptical as well, and that's why I came here. That's why I'm conducting my own 30-day live foods challenge, to try it myself. I encourage you to come here and try it, too. Raw foods are not what you may think. You may think that it's bland, that it's nothing but salads, that it's always cold food or that it's boring, but these are misconceptions. The foods you'll find here, and the foods that you'll learn how to make here, will absolutely blow you away with their texture, diversity, artfulness and taste.
Today for dessert I had a raw foods brownie with icing, and it had no refined sugars in it, no hydrogenated oil or soybean oil of any kind and no white flour. Nothing was cooked, and yet it was the most delicious brownie with icing on top that I've ever eaten. The taste was just so rich, and it had such tremendous depth; far beyond anything you could find in the grocery store or anything that's cooked. This is raw foods cuisine, and it just happens to be the healthiest cuisine you could possibly put into your body.
What if I told you that you could lose body weight and control disease by eating raw foods like raw pizza, raw lasagna, raw humus and, of course, a variety of salads and vegetables prepared with all sorts of different flavors and seasonings that you've never experienced in your life? That's why I say being here is like opening a door to a new universe, and, you know, it's almost a secret.
But right now, this place is not that well known. In fact, raw foods cuisine is a big secret across the country. However, once you taste raw foods, you can't help but expand your understanding of what food really is. Think about it; most people believe that if you eat healthy, it has to be boring or bland. When most people think of health foods, they think, "Yuck! I can't eat that stuff. I want my hamburger, my french fries, my soft drinks and my beef steak." For a long time, that's what I believed too, but I forced myself to become healthy by giving up those foods and moving into a healthy diet. Part of that is a letting go process, but the other part is discovering a new process.
I'm here to tell you that if you're willing to experiment and open your mind for a moment to the raw foods and living foods available here and across the country, you will never go back to eating processed foods or cooked foods again. There's absolutely no comparison between the two, and that's just on taste and depth alone. We have yet to get into the healing properties of this food, and this is something that, frankly, not a lot of people talk about here at the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center. However, it's one of the most interesting things that's going on here, and as a well-studied food nutritionist and food toxicologist, I can tell you that the foods being prepared and consumed here are the most medicinally potent foods this planet can offer.
For example, I'm seeing juices served for dinner here that have blood-purifying properties that cleanse the kidneys and actually prevent tumors through a process called anti-angiogenesis. In the raw foods brownie I ate today, I noticed there were dried goji berries on top, and this is a berry that has been traditionally used for longevity by Tibetans in the Himalayas. This in an extremely high-antioxidant berry from Asia that reduces free radical damage throughout the body and enhances nervous and immune system function.
I've seen a variety of green foods and rich, dark, green leafy vegetables that, as I know from thousands of hours of research, prevent every cancer observed in human beings: Colon cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer and so on. They provide a rich assortment of vitamins and minerals to the human body, which have all sorts of beneficial effects, like boosting the immune system defenses against invaders or enhancing mental clarity and concentration. So I'm seeing all sorts of anticancer foods, and I'm also seeing a great collection of low-glycemic foods, which are by far the best selection of foods for anyone who is hypoglycemic, diabetic or obese.
Low-glycemic foods are really the answer for people struggling with the disease I call "diabesity," which is diabetes and obesity combined. Here, you won't find any high-glycemic sweeteners or fruits. You won't find bananas or watermelons eaten here, for example, but you will find nourishing fruits and low-glycemic sweeteners like yacon syrup, agave nectar or stevia herb used in moderation. This is what the world needs in terms of food that will protect against diabetes and that will, over time, help boost insulin sensitivity, which is the beginning of a biochemical reversal of the root causes of diabetes. When you lose insulin sensitivity, you become trapped in a self-reinforcing cycle of obesity and diabetes, because your body has to keep making more insulin just to get the sugar out of the blood.
What most people do in the real world is consume liquid sugar, such as soft drinks and high glucose corn syrup. They eat sugar in their granola bars and their morning pancakes, and they dump it in their coffee, and so on. You won't find any of that going on here. Here at the Tree of Life Center, you are shown how to eat in a way that taps the greatest health potential you have as a human being. It is a way of eating that is also a way of living 100 percent compatible with the genetic blueprint you have in your body. In the science community, we now know that this way of eating activates all the genes that protect you from disease.
If you suppress your healing genes long enough, you eventually get diagnosed with one or more diseases, but when you come here to the Tree of Life Center, you are given an opportunity to experience a diet that activates all these healing genes. Then, your body takes over and becomes your best doctor, and it can perform microsurgery at a cellular level. It can rid your body of toxic waste and tumors. Your body can reconfigure your metabolism, heal your wounds, heal your emotions, reformulate your entire nervous system function and bring you out of the depths of depression, and it can bring you out of a state of cancer metabolism. Your body can bring you out of heart disease and actually repair your cardiovascular system. Your body has the ability to do this, and it is these foods that can unleash this healing potential that's inside you right now.
You can't get this experience from books, by the way, and it's very difficult to do this by yourself in your own kitchen because you have all these external influences. You have your friends, your family, the television, all those foods in your pantry and refrigerator, and you have habits. But when you come to the Tree of Life Center, you can make a fresh start. None of those influences exist at the Center, and, in fact, all the influences you get here are from people who can teach you how to eat in a way that dramatically enhances your health. You almost have no choice but to absorb their wisdom and start blending in with what they're doing. If you spend a few days here, you'll come out transformed one way or another. If you sign up for a juice fasting week or a healing foods seminar or anything of that nature, you'll come out as a completely different person with a new perspective, and you'll probably be a lot healthier, even after just a few days.
The Center is getting tremendous yields out of the plants � yields that are not traditionally seen, even in organic gardening. Sometimes they may get double or triple yields over what might be expected, because of the way they treat the soil and respect Mother Nature. This treatment is evident in all the experiences that you share here. Whether you go on a guided nature walk, hike a trail or participate in one of the food making classes held daily, you will gain a much greater understanding of how peaceful people can truly live in harmony with their natural environment by giving back to the earth just as they take from it. This is a healing lesson, because you cannot be a healthy individual if you are not simultaneously healing the earth and those around you. Even as a civilization, we cannot be healthy if we are destroying our environment. We can only heal ourselves as we heal the earth, and, inversely, we can only heal the earth if we heal ourselves at the same time. They go hand-in-hand. The Tree of Life shows us how to do both.
This community provides a valuable model for the cycle of renewable and sustainable healing that is deeply rooted in our nature as human beings and as creatures that have emerged from this planet. Let's be blatant about it here: We are children of this planet. Without this earth, we would not exist as human beings. We owe it to nature to honor the gifts that she has given us � gifts of life, food, sunshine and water � so that we may then go on to maximize our experience as conscious, lucid, spiritual human beings. Again, this is the place where you can grasp that lesson, where you can really get in touch with it and where you can observe or experience it yourself.
What's great about the Tree of Life Center is that the spiritual element is something that is available to you when you desire it and are ready for it, but it is never forced upon you. That is something I greatly appreciate here. There is no proselytizing, and no one is pushing any religion or spirituality. No one is pushing a certain New Age philosophy at all. In fact, being here is notably comfortable, and the people come from all backgrounds, countries, religions, cultures and healing modalities, and they coexist in a community that works.
The spiritual element here is powerful and available, but it is optional. You can come here just for the healing foods. You can come here just to sit in the chlorine-free hot tubs that are kept clean through the use of ozone treatment and effective microorganisms. You can come here just to get closer to nature or just to learn how to be a raw foods chef. Frankly, you can just come to get away from your day job in the city and make a life change.
Some people come here just to stop smoking, and they do it successfully while getting all the support and nutrition they need, because this is the place where you are welcome no matter what your background or level of health. If you are committed to doing something for yourself that makes a positive change, then you can come here and find the support, wisdom and experience that can help deliver that to you. You'll never feel trapped here, and you will never feel like anyone is trying to convert you to their religion, their philosophy or even their foods. This is not a place that is ranting about veganism or vegetarianism. People here just enjoy the foods, and they share them freely and enjoy them openly. There's just a lot of pure enjoyment here.
I think that is the perfect way to explain it. You shed those trauma and those distortions, and you shed the anger and the judgment that isn't you, because inside you are a healthy, self-healing, joyous being who has incredible gifts to offer to yourself, to others and to the world. That is what you really discover here. All of these other things -- the food, the meditation experiences, the nature walks -- are important, but what those things are all doing is really helping you find yourself.
It may sound odd to think that you could find yourself through such a cleansing experience. You might wonder, "How do you find yourself by changing what you eat? It doesn't make any sense." But it does, actually, because you cannot know yourself when you lack clarity, and you cannot have clarity when you're poisoning your body and your nervous system, including your brain, with toxic food ingredients, processed foods, dead foods and animal products from our country's corporate farming and food manufacturing system. Clarity of mind is impossible on that diet. By switching to the living foods here and really experiencing them firsthand, you gain a clarity that you may never have experienced in your life, and it is through this clarity that you can ultimately reflect upon yourself in a courageous and transformative way.
Sometimes it is a painful experience. Sometimes healing requires the removal of old traumas, memories and emotional experiences. That could happen here, as well. It is a safe place for it to happen, and it is a place that encourages you to let that go. Again, like the chef said, "You dissolve everything that you are not." Then what's left? By the time you are finished with your experience here, what's left is just you � the pure you, with greatly improved clarity, without diseases, often without the need for those prescription drugs that cloud your mind and without the need for addictive substances like sugar or caffeine.
What's left is just you. A new you, with a clarity that allows you to make decisions for your own personal awakening and evolution, rather than being a slave to your addiction, your habits or your past emotional trauma. You are left with just you � the pure, self-healing, joyous you. This can be shocking for some people because they don't recognize that person. They think, "Who the heck is this? This is not who I was when I came here."
Just to clarify, I'm not claiming that one week here, or one juice fasting session here is going to cure all your diseases, eliminate all your distortions or make you a whole new person. Four days will not do that. But what four days can do is open the door to the journey that can accomplish those things over time, as you commit to them and as you become willing to absorb those lessons and wisdom into your daily life. This can be the catalyst, and it can be an extremely powerful catalyst at that. It could even be a place you come back to in order to continue that awakening and evolution. It is certainly a place I intend to return to on a regular basis.
What if you're a grandparent and you want to spend time playing with your children but you can't today because you have chronic joint pain? What would it mean to you to be able to actually play catch with your grandson or granddaughter because your joints no longer hurt? What if you're battling cancer, and you think you only have five years to live? What would it mean to you to have a new lease on life and to realize you could live 20, 30 or 40 years more without pain, drugs or chemicals? What would it mean to live a life without being obese or diabetic? You wouldn't have to inject yourself with insulin several times a day, or prick yourself with a lancet to test your blood sugar level. What would it mean to wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and see that you're not carrying 80 pounds of excess body fat, to actually look and feel good about yourself, and know your purpose in life? How much would that mean to you?
These are the kind of things you can experience by making the changes I'm talking about here at the Tree of Life. These are some of the many benefits that are available to you. This is what you can walk away with, and, in my view, there's nothing more important in your life than healing yourself at all levels. It is only from that place of self-healing that you can heal those around you and that you can become a positive influence on family, friends and the planet. In fact, it is so important to heal yourself that there is nothing else that should be a higher priority. If you had to quit your job to come here and do this, it would be worth it, in my opinion. If you had to move across the country to come here and do this, it would be well worth it. If you had to lose $5,000 in salary, or give up a bonus, or give up a raise to be here and do this, there's no question about it; there's no comparison. You can't buy the results you get here. You can't buy them at any price, although some people try.
Some people think they can go to higher-priced spas and pay $1,000 a day and get all these treatments, massages, lotions and essential oils put on them, and that it will somehow transform their health. That's just an illusion; that's not healing. There is no true healing that happens from the outside; it all happens from the inside. It starts with eating living foods and bringing some life into your body. Plants are really just a concentrated form of sunlight and energy. Imagine taking some light energy into your body and realizing what that can do for you. That's what you get here.
This is the place where you take part in your healing. It is a place that requires commitment, but whatever commitment it takes to get here, I think it's a worthwhile investment. If you decide to come here and experience this, then for the rest of your life you will look back upon this experience as perhaps the single most important thing you ever did. That's how important this is.
I talk about how important it is to educate yourself about food. I talk about how important it is to get sunlight or drink more water, but all of that really pales in comparison to the importance of your own decision to begin a healing journey for yourself. Your family probably won't understand that decision; your friends will chastise you for it; your doctor may even say it's all hogwash, but so what? They don't know healing. They probably aren't healthy, and they � even your doctor � have never healed anyone in their lives.
If you can find the strength within yourself, and the faith to know that you are a healer inside who can overcome chronic disease and pain, then I think you have the strength to make it through an experience at the Tree of Life and open that new door to the healing universe within you. I strongly encourage you to do that. If you can't come here, find a place like it that might be closer to you, but don't seek out just any spa. Personally, I can only recommend this place. This is the only place like this I've seen firsthand. I've observed what's going on here, I've met the people, and I know this is the real thing. So do what it takes to get here, and your life will never be the same. You will look back on every experience before and see it in a completely different light, and you'll wonder, "Gee, why didn't I do this sooner?"