Human valuesGluttony
Overeating
Abstinence
Eating in moderation
Bringing our eating into balance requires us to eat little and often and do so in a social way. By not eating regularly (breakfast, lunch, tea) and socially with family or friends the way is open to binging on food and drink.
One of the most successful weight control programs is called weightwatchers. By making the weekly effort to visit the weightwatchers meeting the weight comes into order and it is possible for some obese people to steadily lose half their bodyweight!
Perhaps it is the social aspect of weight watching with others that causes self care and makes it easier. Hildegard provides a tip to weightwatching. When appetite for no reason prompts an unnecessary or extended meal to instead lick a diamond with the tongue. It doesnt have to be a real diamond. The beauty of the light reflecting off the diamond helps stimulate our reason and the need for self care.
Lets do a mental exercise. If we picture ourselves evolving we can picture ourselves as a worm (our gut with its gut brain - our gut feeling), a dinosaur (a grazing or fighting dinosaur with our primitive brains - our instincts) or our selves as humans with our highly developed brains, personalities and social organisation (our ability to reason and be reasonable).
Lets imagine it is possible that viruses could be chemically intelligent enough to have us switch off our dinosaur or human brain and become a glutton? Hildegards vision of a glutton for which the antidote is deliberate abstinence is of a gluttone of a worm eating until its all gone! With our social organisation and our ability to perceive beautiful things like the light reflecting off the diamond we can get our reason working again so that if we cannot see ourselves we can see others.
Ian Brealey
Shirley Price Aromatherapy
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