Embracing Love, Peace and Vegetables with Marcela Benson, M.A.

Bringing balance into your life is so important. The key areas are the mind, body and of course spirit. I have found for myself that if I neglect one of these areas they have show up for me to bring them into balance.

In this episode, we're going to dive into the body and embracing some key areas to help keep it strong and healthy.
 
My guest this week has been on her own courageous journey to health.  And she is here to share some amazing tips & tools and her new book with us.

Her name is Marcela Benson. And as she has taught conscious eating with Dr. Cousens, all around the world organizing week long intensives in Argentina, Peru, Brazil and Spain. She has studied superfood nutrition, either Vedic Science, Chinese tonic herbalism, Amazonian herbalism crystal and zero point energy healing, healing with gems and stones topical placements and application of quartz and vegan and raw nutrition at some of the top institutes in the world. All of these modalities and more are an integral part of the tool she uses, which is in her life's work and in her daily life.
 
She has recently given birth to an amazing new book called
Love, Peace and Vegetables  which is the result of Marcela’s journey to realization, beginning as a child in Buenos Aires, Argentina. With a mashup of Syrian and Israeli Jewish parentage, and the South American cosmopolitan upbringing of Buenos Aires, she was the embodiment of cross-cultural influences, embracing ritual, family and culture of all. But her family history and habits also marked her for something darker—obesity. At the age of twenty-five, she stood on a scale that showed her the terrible truth – she weighed 258 pounds

Love, Peace and Vegetables assembles what she learned, so that she can share and pass it along to the world. Embracing a spiritual approach to conscious living and total immersion into the Live Food Lifestyle, Marcela is an elegant ambassador for the life she espouses.

 This incredible book, filled with arresting art, poetry, spiritual inspiration, pristine eating food prep

Enjoy the first chapter of The Soul Quake Survival Guide here!

Click here for info on ReAwaken series free short videos and booklet "You, Your Purpose, and Your Intuition." 

Transcript

Unknown: 11:35

one or perhaps two of those areas or more, they So in this episode, we're going to dive into the body and embracing some key areas to help keep it strong and healthy. My guest this week has been on her own courageous journey to hell. And she is here to share some amazing tips tools and her new book with us. Her name is Marcela Benson. And as she has taught conscious eating with Dr. Cousens, all around the world organizing week long intensives in Argentina, Peru, Brazil and Spain. She has studied superfood nutrition, either Vedic Science, Chinese tonic herbalism, Amazonian herbalism crystal and zero point energy healing, healing with gems and stones topical placements and application of quartz and vegan and raw nutrition at some of the top institutes in the world. All of these modalities and more are an integral part of the tool she uses, which is in her life's work and in her daily life. She has recently given birth to an amazing new book called love peace and vegetables, recipes for conscious living, which is filled with arresting art, poetry, spiritual inspiration. pristine eating food prep instruction, never before assembled in one place and gorgeous photography of luscious dishes worthy of Gourmet magazine. Along with that are hundreds of yummy recipes that will entice the palate is a one of a kind labor of love and she is here to share that and more. With us today is a big one. Now we'll see. Welcome, Marcella, I am so thrilled to have you on today and to share spirituality, your Love, Peace and Vegetable new, beautiful book, and about spirituality and how you weave it together. So, I want to start this conversation with I know you are on a mission to help the world evolve into a new way of living and eating. Would you care to share on that? Yes, yes, yes, yes, absolutely. Well, I think it's time to reunite our bodies. With our purpose in life, the way we live, you know, the way we eat, the way we speak. It's when it becomes purpose. First of all, you land back into the earth with a mighty force, and I want people to know that this can happen for them. And one of the pillars is nutrition. For that mighty force to return to you. And that's a huge pillar because if we don't have nutrition, really our body is depleted. And then eventually, I mean, it's pretty crazy to how amazing our bodies I'm in awe of how our bodies can work without really good nutrition when I look around people, but eventually they'll get sick or they'll, you know, obviously their body will will want them to leave so, you know, they definitely need to have good nutrition at some degree and I unfortunately, I think a lot of people wait till that crucial moment where it's like it's a make or break. Have you found that in the people that you've worked with with nutrition? Um, well, what I see it's a lot of ignorance, even people who think they're eating healthy. Nobody really knows him. And now I'm I'm surprised because you know, I mean, yes, people were eating organic already. They have a good advantage. Yes, that's that's a good thing. But I see that there is a lot of not really knowing, in all group ages, from parents to children's to grandparents, and we basically, I'm basically seeing or I'm eating the way my parents were eating the ways the parents and the grandparents were eating, and there is a whole thing about comfort food and there is a whole thing in the United States specifically about rewards with foods in the school. You finish this project. We have a pizza party in these with it. It's all about the food all the time. And it's so ingrained, that this is what we need to detangle then realize that in many ways, if we want to make changes, we are the food we eat. And yes, so if we want to make changes from the root, we need to change the way we eat. And the way when we change the way we eat. See, we not only change in ourselves, we change our surroundings. We change how we farm in the world. We start getting in touch with the soil, because if we are eating organic vegetables from a depleted soil, what good is that? If we are water and minerals together that create an inner world and microbiome yes, that needs to be fed. All of our you know we're not just this body, in our body. There is many things through the blood through the skin. We have a we have bacteria in our skin that keeps our skin nice. You know we have in our hair, bacteria that it's good bacteria when you have bad bacteria. You have dry hair. You have a bad hair day you have smelly hair, you see so there is many, many, many, many components on understanding and wanting to learn about the natural world and nutrition as your base for spiritual life and becoming who you really came to be. I love that and so with your beautiful book, I I've been diving into it lately and I noticed what I love about it is that you do go into even things in our in our house like our microwaves and the way we cook and the products we've cooked with and you know what do we do and how does it affect us and the foods we eat and the way the foods like the fish and etc. So you really dive into a lot of components in this book on how to I mean it's it feels like a whole really like a whole spectrum of you know the full spectrum. How to move forward in a different light with I was even reading about the dental with the mercury because a couple of years back I was guided to get it out of my system. So I took all the mercury out of my teeth and I went through a huge detox shift during that time because it was I had quite a bit in my mouth but it's just interesting. I want to share that in this beautiful book you have that there are so many different aspects to being healthy versus just the beautiful recipes and the vegan aspects of living but you bring forth a lot of on that path to wellness which I just want to honor and say it's beautiful, Marcella, thank you. Thank you, thank you I you know, I I do my work with a lot of love because I do believe in the health of humanity I believe on the health of the earth. And I do believe in the goodness of the human being. I have traveled around the world and I have seen so many beautiful human beings. And I believe in the power of each and every one of us to wanting to change to wanting to upgrade our life and through that. We upgrade everybody else's life. And I think that power needs to come right back into us. The understanding. You know that what what you do matters, how you eat matters. What you learn matters, matters and it changes the world and he makes what's to come. what's to come. So whatever we have right now is wherever we wherever we were back then. Right? We're not different. Definitely and I would love for you to share your path to wellness. Because you didn't start out in this certain way you You've come a long way. You've come a long way like a lot of people but can you share that with us know my listeners that would be lovely? Yes, of course. Of course. Of course. Well, my my path to wellness is started, you know, understanding. Seen my father being a diabetic all his life I was born already and my father was already a diabetic type two and he was obese also and his all his brothers were obese and all of them. They all rest in peace. They died from obesity related diseases. Yeah. My mom did not understand this because my mom came from Israel and she came from a place where everything was very measured and very little because there was nothing. You know, there was war when she was born and there was, you know, it was difficult times. So for me for her when she married my father and he was a big guy. She back in the days it used to be a sign of health and a sign of abundance. And they didn't really know that this was really because of excess food, excess sugar, bad oils. You see my grandmother, my mother's father she was an incredible cook. And my grandmother from my mother's side. She was not an incredible cook, but she followed through the whole house. All of us with artichokes with tomatoes, you know, so she had the effort please eat please. This is good for you. That's all she knew that it was good for us and we shouldn't be having tomatoes and artichokes and the heart of the artichokes because that was what she knew. It was great to grow human beings. My other grandmother knew to grow good human means you had to give them a lot of food. And she was going to cook up a storm and it was going to cook deliciously with whatever because she came from a you know, from traveling from Middle East to Argentina with a lot of scarcity. So she wanted to feed her children she didn't want them to suffer. You see? But what's the component there? Love? Not food, love. Okay. And my father sadly was very, very sick for many years and at the end, you know, died of a kidney failure. And it was very, very, very hard for him. And I knew that I didn't want to end up like this. Because we all loved him and we all loved our ankles too. And we didn't understand why they just died like that. Why do we have to end like that? Then I asked myself questions. And as my path continues. I left the United States. And because I had you know, I had a vision that my life was not going to be in Argentina. And within that vision I left and everything. You know, I got married and I had two children. And as I had my children, I realized that they were sick. Mind you, I've been a vegetarian since I'm 15 Because I started my meditation practices very early on in life. I knew I understood that I didn't come to this world to eat animals. That was something very natural to me. It was not an effort. It was never an effort for a lot of people is an effort and I understand you're not there. You're not there. The fruit falls when you're right. And it will fall how it would fall for you not like is falling for me. Everybody has his own personal relationship with the divine. And I always like I allow for that in my book. I give you my story. I give you my ways, and you take what works for you. See, so then what happened in my life that I realized again, that my children were sick. And this was this was something that really touched me and I said, there is no way I'm not going to medicate my son for attention deficit. I could see that he was smart. And not only if he was smart, that he was ingenious that he had stamina and he would pay attention when he was in his focus mode. Yes. And then we my daughter she had cruised on develop Long's and she would end up in the hospital with a steroids and usually croup doesn't go into your seven years old and I realized that even though I was vegetarian, my home was almost vegetarian. It was not healthy. It was not healthy. But I had no idea because I figure Oh, I'm vegetarian. I'm much better than anybody else. Yeah. Because that was the thought back in the days you know, that's an upgrade. Great, you know, or I'm vegan. Oh, that's an upgrade. Yes, it is an upgrade but it's not all you have to understand what you're doing with whatever diet you're doing. Or whatever nutrition you nourishment you're going to take so that's when I said okay, I need to learn piano I'm not going to. I'm not going to leave this up to somebody else to make decisions for me. For me, it was not something that I came to do just here fix them. I wanted to know why. I wanted to know why. So I research and then I took me three months to read a pile of books. I went to the every bookstore, why is my son Why is the child my child is not performing in school. Why is this wiser than everything that I read, took me to diet took me to nutrition. And I changed his diet in a week. My son really made a huge advancement and he knew I knew that we could do this. See? And then when my daughter I met that's when I met my teacher. When my daughter I met my teacher and I went to study with him in Arizona, Dr. Gabriel Cousens who wrote plenty of books in spiritual nutrition, conscious eating, there is a cure for diabetes which I wrote some of the recipes and I edited the last version, which is a phenomenal book, even if you don't have diabetes, read it. Because you're going to understand a lot about your health. You see. And this is when really, really really I understood that I can do this I can understand herbs and I studied ru Veda and I started Chinese medicine herbalism I studied how to understand the doshas spiritual fasting, and this is when I got my true education with Dr. Gabriel Cousens, and also more of my education and my path became true when I started teaching with him. And I taught for many, many, many years around the world. And this is how my book also came about from teaching and teaching and teaching and teaching. Everybody was like Marcela, you have to do a book Marcella, you have to accept okay, I guess I have to work now. It's time for that book. Yeah, I mind you. It took me 10 years because I had zero skills. You know, I had zero skills, but I had you know, the relentlessness to wanting to leave something good to the world. You know, I said it. I want to leave something good to the world. I want the world to have a piece of what I had in my life. And what I had in my life is a lot of good teachers. Not only Dr. Gabriel cousins, I had teachers that loved me, unconditional Lee, an adult that really did love me unconditionally, and purely and taught me the love of reading and taught me the love of the body. I had one of my teacher who she has passed away about a year ago is Thermacell. She died when she was 100 years old she worked into she was 98 Oh beautiful and she used to she was at Kinesiologist grad graduated from Sorbonne, Paris. And, and he and a hygienist and a dietitian. And she used to work with obesity. So I was to go to wherever when I was 13 years old until I was 17. Something like that. And we always kept in touch. And she used to you know something very important. Choose to massage and touch me and I said You are beautiful. And you are wonderful. And you you and your body's beautiful. And you see we as human beings. You know that's why I call them my book Love this the first word you see and it's big. Because it's not only nutrition, the thread that unites us all, is this true love that runs through every venue of our lives wishes need to learn how to go and gravitate towards that more and more and more. Well, it's interesting as you talk about how you journeyed around the world and did a lot of train different places that this book is like a journey. That's what I look at it like I know you had different it has different parts and etc. But my goodness, it's a journey and I feel your beautiful essence and soul in it. It's just an amazing book. It really is and I love to the fact that you interwove a lot of your stories in it as well as poetry and spirituality and that expression of love in the book is just beautiful. So what how did you come up with with the different aspects of bringing that forth in the book? It really as you know, because I have no skills. I said I sat with myself. That was when I started in Argentina. I remember after teaching a huge class a very successful class with Dr. Gabriel Cousens. I remember coming out of the class and telling him I feel like I gave it all today. And he was laughing because, you know, for me it was and a week after after he left after the class. I sat down with myself and I said, okay, if I'm going to do this, how am I going to do it? So I asked myself, I went into asking myself, Okay, I'm going to write a table of contents first. And I wrote a table of contents, believe me, it's not the same table of contents that I have now. And then all of a sudden, it was kind of like, here, here it goes. Here it goes. And it built and it built and it built until became this mind you I took out 150 pages out of this book. Wow. And this is big. It's a big book already. So this book is 444 pages. And yes, it's it's huge, and it's like an encyclopedia. Yeah. And you know, and I just kept on going kept on going keep them going until one day I print it all out and say, Oh, that's a lot. Right. And then of course, a process with the editors and visa that and then we were able to take out 150 pages out and you know writing a book, it is a process and sometimes when you're going into a part of your life when you have no skills and this goes for everything. It can feel like a struggle I felt you know, I'm it took me 10 years, no joke. At then the satisfaction of conquering of getting to the top of the mountain. It's so so great. You know, and I found through this book, all of the parts that I needed to earn and to polish and to better of myself. You know? It sounds like you could do a volume two, right? You know how many times I said I said, Oh, I'm not doing this again, ever again. I already have two more books on the pipeline. Oh, there we go. Yes, yes, yes. And I and then my friend who's my editor also with my chief editor says Don't say that. Don't say that because that's usually once you catch the bodies, you know, it's big and I'm like, oh, no, don't tell me this is way too hard for me. Way too many hours of sitting down. But that's what it is. But it's a labor of love and like I said your soul was is within it and it is a beautiful thing that you have created for really every one to enjoy and to embrace and to like you like to say to love yourself fully. That's what this book is about loving yourself fully. Yes, yes, yes. Yes. And I wanted to create it in a way that was so beautiful. That when you put it in your coffee table in the house or when you put it in your kitchen, you will just see everywhere the word love like today I opened it up to put it here. And the first thing I saw was the word. I was like you know when you give it to somebody, the first thing they see is love because you really mean it. You know? And we need things in our life that reminds us of law all the time, all the time because I don't have to say why but we need it. We do so this book was the kind of like that I wanted to inspire everybody to bring more love into their lives besides nutrition because nutrition also is in an influx point you know, of not loving yourself or forgetting about yourself. Now who is yourself also that self is not just a self out there it is your body you know here you are in your body. Here is where you rule. You see most people have a hard time with loving their body. Yes. Which is which is sad because you're right I mean this is enjoy every aspect of yourself but but I do understand I mean you know it depends on how they're feeling about themselves and the concepts and beliefs they might be holding on to, from their family from you know where they grew up and the things they've gone through in their life and it's a challenge. So I love that fact of yes, because when you do look at the book, the first thing you see is love and it does in voc that feeling and myself and looking at the beautiful artistry that you've created in this book. It's it's beautiful. Yes, and we have also art in this book, I have to tell you that none of the every part of the book has a huge intention from the art the art is made by mother Rhea one who is about one nice style painter from Indonesia Bali and his paintings are beautiful and they are a spiritual transmission. Okay, they are a neutral transmission they are painted in this art, which is a spiritual art. The way they paint and the way they put prayers in. And for example in when you open up the first thing you're going to see is a table of contents and there is a beautiful painting and that beautiful painting. It is a an offering on the sea and you see all the waves painted and an offering and this offering means the waves means the waves of life the offering is when you become into peace and with the understanding with the waves of life. And the smoke on the top which is the incense it is the arm. You know the perpetual sound of creation you become into that unconditional perpetual sound of creation in which you find your peace and you find your unconditional love and your unconditional happiness. You see so even Yeah, even in the art you will find even if I'm not there telling you what it means you will get a spiritual transmission. And I definitely felt that as I was going through the whole book, when I when I came across art, I'm like wow, I mean it does it made me stop and yeah, it's definitely time where you can meditate with this book. It's It's amazing. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And in the back the all the way back in the book. And showing I put a put a meditation and an affirmation to aligned ourselves that was done by a dear friend of mine and my teacher. Both of them read it together and I said I like it so much. Can I borrow it and put it on the back of my book and they were like Yes. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful Marcella. So share with the listeners on besides obviously obtaining a beautiful copy of your book, which I will have in the show notes that had the link to it but tell us so how, what do you how do you work with your clientele and how can they you know access what you're what you're about with nutrition and spirituality. Well, right now I'm not taking new students so but what I am doing is working please work with this book. You have me 100% Here. Really, really work with this book. This is if you want to work with me work with this book but how I work with my students for example. In many different levels, I work with frequencies. I work with spiritual fasting. I work with conscious eating and healing and recuperating diabetes naturally and my what I do is spiritual counseling. Okay. And through that we see what is and I show you and we see what's the best way for you to come into balance with yourself. Yes, see, and through different methodologies as looking at the dosha looking at the oxidative profile, the oxidative profile is just a questionnaire that lets me know in which range of plant protein you might fall and we should be investigating. See so I show you because each and everybody's different. So I show you how to investigate for you to learn the ins and outs of the nourishment for your body. Putting it back in their in their hands. I love that. Absolutely taking it back, coming back into your body and seeing what works and what doesn't work for you. And for you. And your cosmology also beautiful because as a as a leader in a field, all you can do is really share what you've put together for yourself. Some of these beautiful tools like this amazing book and and then it's up to each individual person. As to how they embrace it or don't embrace it because it's their freewill. Yes. Yes, absolutely. Nothing is an obligation. It's your choice. That's why you know, you want to do this, okay. It's your choice. You came here to experience it. So that's right. That's right. And then if you if you feel like you resonate and like this and you need, you know, then it's like, okay, great. Let's, let's see, let's see what we can create together. You know, yeah. So, Marcella, it has been such a joy having you on today and sharing you with my listeners. I thank you so much. I wish you so much love and success with this book and I'm going to embrace it in my life and start really working with a lot of the concepts and the beautiful recipes you have. So thank you so much. for coming on today. Thank you the URL really appreciate you having me and try you see I have very a lot of the recipes like the miso soup, missile healthy is there like five minutes recipes, a lot of them are master recipes at the soaps are all very easy. All the sauces are super easy and you have like high protein source. So if you just add the sources and the soaps you will be an it'll be a phenomenal upgrade, and very easy to learn. Okay, excellent. I'll do that. Thank you, Marcela. Thank you. Oh, that was so lovely. I so appreciate you coming on today. Oh, thank you so much.