Alchemica Posted February 12, 2018 (edited) Lately I've been in the evolution, progress, humanity, love, connection phase. Feeling a global connection, Higher Love. It's a place I want all struggling to tap into. Have you had moments of having radical shifts in your values, how you approach life etc through plants you want to share? Diet was my first step, I went diversely planty. It tuned me to a deeper relationship, one of more love and compassion towards life. By showing myself some love, I was better able to show other's love. Also showing it through the garden. As we tend to the Earth with love, love grows. Opened up to tools to think for myself, tune to my Self and open heartily to fellow travelers, collide individual worlds into new ways of being, to think outside the box, and expand consciousness… Open to expansive reaching from the heart not the head. The great drivers of healthy human progress have been love, compassion, creativity and cooperation - many of the things we believe about ourselves, from fear based schemas, adopting competition over collaboration, valuing personal power over love, prioritising individual growth at the expense of growing holistically, locking people into frameworks of pathology, religion to race, are holding back key growth in developing coherent communal love, compassion, connection, equality and caring support. With finding acceptance within myself of the spectrum of emotionality and potentiality for holistic growth, for evolving consciousness through loving choice, you see and accept that spectrum in others. What was previously driven by downward emotional spirals becomes a broaden-and-build concept of positive expansive growth and connection, with broad diverse engaged applications in the word. From the ecological to the socio-emotional-psycho-moral-ethical-spiritual, we open to new worlds. We're on a very concerning ego state of moral downward spirals, total disconnection from our true essence in the community “Moral progress occurs when a subsequent state of affairs is better than a preceding one, or when right acts become increasingly prevalent”. We can't make moral socio-emotional-spiritual progress when we are treating ourselves with negativity, disrespect, not valuing ourselves and disconnected from true concepts of love. We have to rebuild those from the inside-out. The way we treat the macrocosm is a reflection of our inner psychic processes and the way we treat ourselves. My first step towards boosting self-love and moral growth was showing myself and the Web of Life Love through diet. It's something we can all take steps towards I'm not going to push extreme Veganism or anything onto you, I just think we need to relate to life, including plants in a loving way. A relationship way, not a using way. Open to giving and receiving. Can going more diversely planty make our world a kinder, more compassionate, mentally healthier, less angry society? I don't think it's just vegetarian/vegan mumbo jumbo... It's not just the mood and cognitive improvements that seem impressive, one thing I'm finding is the change in 'pent up anger' and negative emotional dysregulation that seems to improve by getting really diversely planty and avoiding grain-based not particularly nutritious food and sticking with more plant proteins. Studies are still lacking on how crop-based diets with varying macronutrient, mineral or vitamin contents and amino acid composition influence the physiology, behaviour or key life-history traits but it was found monotonous high carbohydrate typical crop-based diets cause high rates of maternal infanticides in the European hamster. I wouldn't be surprised if much of our psychological/emotional disorders, societal issues with anger and violence etc can be attributed to the typical Western diet and trans-generational epigenetic consequences. Diet, stress, anxiety, depression, life satisfaction, emotion among numerous other psychological factors modifythings like DNA methylation patterns. Studies underpin the hypothesis that DNA methylation is involved in deviant human behaviour, psychological and psychiatric conditions. The best way for me to get back to healthier emotions and more seems to be food. In my experiences, it's not enough to simply modulate protein/carbs/fats, vitamins and methylation precursors. Plant compounds really help. Polyphenols are effective against chronic diseases and recent reports indicated strong epigenetic effects of polyphenols. They alter traits by altering the structure of chromatin and directly regulate both transcription and translational processes. In this context, dietary polyphenol-targeted epigenetics becomes an attractive approach for disease prevention and intervention. Polyphenols, including flavonoids, curcuminoids, and stilbenes, modulate the establishment and maintenance of key epigenetic marks, thereby influencing gene expression and, hence, disease risk and health.Dietary phenolic compounds modulate DNA methylation Many components of food have the potential to cause epigenetic changes in humans. For example, broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables contain isothiocyanates, which are able to increase histone acetylation. Soya, on the other hand, is a source of the isoflavone genistein, which is thought to decrease DNA methylation in certain genes. Found in green tea, the polyphenol compound epigallocatechin-3-gallate has many biological activities, including the inhibition of DNA methylation. EGCG from tea can re-express many transcriptionally silenced genes through inhibition of DNMT1 enzymatic activity. Curcumin, a compound found in turmeric (Curcuma longa), can have multiple effects on gene activation, because it inhibits DNA methylation but also modulates histone acetylation. Even huffing some lavender has epigenetic restorations of the epigenetic consequences of stress... Edited February 12, 2018 by Alchemica 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Micromegas Posted February 14, 2018 Mate, some of the stuff you are producing is pure gold, the mixture of personal stories and in depth research. And you seem to be producing quite a bit of it. I would encourage you to collate this into one place, make a blog or something, it doesn't matter how many people look at it. In many forms of social media things just disappear after a while but some of this deserves to be retained somewhere easily accessible. Maybe you have collated it yourself anyway. Great contributions to the forum! 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Alchemica Posted February 14, 2018 Thanks for the kind words @Micromegas, I'd kept fragmented parts of notes online while my energy and consciousness was so ill and fragmented, I wanted to alchemise it into something more constructive for the community. Might consider a blog but this community is my home at the moment. Hope you're well. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Cubism Posted February 15, 2018 Hey mate, Don't think I've ever posted in one of your threads yet but... Just wanted to say I agree with micromegas. I'm just about to start my honours year in psychopharmacology, and your posts are awesome in the way you blend that sort of stuff with the ethno point of view, and then add your personal side to it. Really offers a nice alternative to just reading the hard scientific literature. Fair enough if a blog ain't your thing right now, but a collation of your notes would be super cool to look through one day... Sorry to hear about Milly, my dogs my life too, but either way, keep up what ya keeping up mate. I'm sure there's heaps more here who also appreciate what your doing. All the best!!! 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Alchemica Posted February 15, 2018 That's awesome @Cubism, hope you enjoy your studies and can use them in an applied way in your life journey. Well done for pushing through the hard work of study. Best wishes with it. One day I'll try something more organised, just trying to restore goal-directed behaviour which I lost through illness at the moment. Quite challenging to re-ignite that aspect. Thank you for the kind words! 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Cubism Posted February 16, 2018 Thanks mate. Yeah studying ain't for everyone and a piece of paper saying you have a degree certainly isn't a requirement to possessing useful knowledge. I'm just glad that I'm now done with all the exams, nothing but endocannabinoid research from here on in (was closest I could get to psychedelics at conservative old UWA). By the way, if you do choose to take a formal route, it's never too late, I was 37 yo on my first day ever on a uni campus. And I can honestly say I've learnt more about life from the younger folk than any other mature age students, and 99% of life science academics are amazing folk, albeit scarily intelligent, best decision I ever made. Anyway sorry for derailing your thread, carry on the awesomeness buddy! 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
