Archive for the ‘Interviews’ Category

Carol Alt, actress, model, and author of two raw books including her latest The Raw 50 is coming to Royersford, PA this Saturday for the Living Food Expo. Carol granted me an interview and had here’s what she shared with me:

Dawn Good morning, Carol. It’s really exciting that you’re going to be coming to Royersford on Saturday. Are you excited about it?
Carol Yes, it will be really, really nice to meet everybody. The potluck-ers down there were very supportive of my book, they allowed me to use recipes that they had created and I’m really looking forward to meeting them and seeing Royersford.
Dawn It’s a cute little town. I think you’ll really like the park.
Carol I’m looking forward to it, absolutely.

Dawn When was it that you decided to share with your friends that you were 100% raw?
Carol I’m not exactly 100% raw. What I’ve tried to do it make raw accessible to more people. I think people, they freak out thinking their whole way of life is going to change: they can’t ever eat cooked food again and … they could never do this. They freak out and they get defensive and I think, really, what happened was, with the books, people were asking me, “How do you stay looking so good? How do you stay so thin? How do you do this, how do you do that?” Airline attendants, especially, were coming up to me on airplanes and saying to me, “With all the travel you do, and we do the same, we’re so tired, we feel so bad. Every time we see you you’re smiling. How do you do it?” And I say, “I have to tell you, it’s the raw food.”

I have to tell you, what happened when I came back to New York, I live in Canada and New York, so I came back to New York, I bought an office here, I was opening my office, and the newspaper called. The Post called and they said, “Can we take a photo?” and usually they’re chasing me to take a photo, nobody’s ever called to ask. I was like, “What do you mean?” and they said, “There’s a raw food restaurant and we hear you’re a raw foodist and I thought, ‘How odd. I don’t really publicize that.’ I mean, more on a personal level, one on one, somebody asking me, I tell them what the secret is that I had found. But I don’t really publicize that. And they said, “We’d like to take your picture at a raw restaurant.” I thought, ‘A restaurant?’ I’ve been raw for 12 years, raw in LA and raw in Toronto. I can eat at Japanese restaurants, etcetera but there were no such things as raw restaurants. And I thought, ‘This is something I’ve got to go see.’ So I allowed them to take my photo in the restaurant. I tasted all the food, it was just incredible that raw food had taken that leap forward, that there were actually people with raw restaurants.

The book itself just happened out of the blue. So many people were asking me, I was pitching a different book and Miramax books was actually the first people who said, “You are so passionate about this one chapter in your book and that’s how you eat. That’s really the book you should do because you’re so passionate about it.” I thought about it and my agent pitched the book and it was bought immediately. And I thought, ‘Okay, God works in mysterious ways and this way is not so mysterious, He’s telling me what He wants me to do. It’s just a road and I’m just on it.’

Dawn How has sharing raw foods changed your life?
Carol It hasn’t really. That’s the big thing. It’s brought different people into my realm, it’s not like I just deal with fashion people or movie people now. I seek out different restaurants and talk to the people there about food, whereas before I would go into a restaurant and just eat. So food has become more of a social experience. Actually, it’s become such a social experience that I didn’t have before because half the time, before this, I didn’t eat. I wasn’t going to restaurants; there was no social activity over meals or over food because eating was so traumatic for me because I was always gaining wait every time I ate. So this opened up a whole different aspect of my life: I was actually socializing over food.
But physically what has changed for me was just about everything. I mean, my health, my energy, my ability to control my weight, to control my health. I wasn’t on pills or over-the-counter meds. I just ate and it was fantastic.

Dawn Wow, that’s great. I know that’s one of the biggest issues when people start “going raw” and I know some of the earlier books that I read said that, “You can’t socially eat anymore, that’s the end of it. You can’t eat when you go to parties.” So it’s really great that you’re able to incorporate that as well and see other people coming to parties with raw food dishes. It’s cool.
Carol You know, I think that’s doing a disservice. The two main doctors that I worked with in terms of going raw and maintaining my health and doing my check-ups, etcetera, and where I’ve gotten a lot of my information, these doctors who’ve shared with me, the main thing they tell me is 80-100% raw, sometimes they’ll say 75-100% raw, but 80 to 100% raw you can cure yourself of anything. And if you’re educated, I think that’s the biggest thing: is that people are just not educated about raw food. I know I wasn’t 12 years ago but I had a doctor on hand who was a raw foodist who was teaching me and showing me how amazing, things like salad, he was showing me how amazing salads could be. Those salads that he was making and how he was creating things and a whole other world opened up. But he also said, “Listen Carol, if you’re at an event and for some reason you feel like eating a pretzel, go ahead. What’s going to happen is, you’ll feel it the next day because your body is going to be so clean and you’re going to be so relaxed and so happy that when you stress it by eating cooked food, it’ll tell you and ultimately you are going to choose to start eating more and more raw foods,” which is exactly what happened. For me, when I eat cooked food, and sometimes I do, but I know, immediately, that I’m going to get heartburn the next day and I pop 50 enzymes to digest that food for me.

Dawn What’s your favorite raw food?
Carol I really like easy, quick things. I really like hummus. I like making raw hummus: germinating chick peas and throwing them in my blender. I just love it. I love it with flax seed crackers. I love it on manna bread. I put it in my salads. I like guacamole. What other people call side dishes, I call main dishes. Salsa, for example, making fresh salsa, fresh guacamole, they’re so easy to do. They take literally seconds and they can sit in my refrigerator, in a vacusystem [vacuum sealer] for weeks. I can go there, I can pick on it, I can much on it while I’m watching TV. It’s easy, it’s simple, the clean-up is non-existent, basically. So I really like those kinds of things.

View product details at Amazon:
Eating in the Raw: A Beginner’s Guide to Getting Slimmer, Feeling Healthier, and Looking Younger the Raw-Food Way
The Raw 50: 10 Amazing Breakfasts, Lunches, Dinners, Snacks, and Drinks for Your Raw Food Lifestyle

About don Miguel Ruiz
Don Miguel Ruiz’s work has inspired the world. His teachings have changed people’s lives and will continue to do so for generations to come. He has written five Toltec Wisdom Books, including the international bestseller, The Four Agreements. During his career don Miguel has traveled around the world lecturing, teaching, and leading power journeys although he is now entering semi-retirement and traveling less frequently. In this interview, I connected with don Miguel to give you a taste of this wonderful, transformational teacher of the Toltec Wisdom Tradition.

Note: This interview was initially published in the September/October 2006 issue of New Visions Magazine.

About the interview
Since interviewing don Miguel many people have asked me what he was like and I must admit he was one of the sweetest people I have spoken with. He was warm and friendly and very giving of his time for this interview. Thank you don Miguel…

Here’s the interview:

Dawn – To what do you attribute the tremendous success of this information in the United States and the world at this time?

don Miguel – I think that now the world is ready for the truth. In this little book, my intention was to make it very small and simple so that anyone could understand it well. Before, there was a lot of superstition, a lot of things that made it difficult for everybody to accept the truth.

Dawn – In what areas of the world have you been most well received and the wisdom been most embraced and put into practice?

don Miguel – I can really say that the United States is the country that is much more open for the truth. Even though this book has been published in 32 different languages and there are different ways of thinking and I was writing for everybody–for the most intelligent people to those who hardly have an education. This book is really speaking to everybody.

Dawn – Toltec wisdom seems to be a living organism evolving through many centuries. What inspired the creation of the original Toltec wisdom teachings?

don Miguel – Well, you know, it’s really the whole dream of humanity. It’s the dream of all human minds together all around the world. It’s not really important what language they speak, what is important is what comes directly from their intelligence, because every single human, ask any living being in the world, has been programmed to be just what they are and that is exactly what we want to be. Then it doesn’t matter whatever we do, it doesn’t matter if we’ve accepted it or not accepted it, we are the way we are because we are programmed to be the way we are. That’s the simple truth.

Dawn – What language were the original Toltec teachings in?

don Miguel – Well, there’s no way I can imagine the way they used to speak. I learned Spanish. I was born in 1952, and that’s the language that I learned. And I never really tried to learn any of the other languages that they speak in Mexico. And, like I said before, it’s not really important which language they speak. What is important is the impeccability of the words, that they mean every single word.

Dawn – You’ve created tools based on Toltec wisdom to help your students. Will you share with us how you came to develop these methods and knew that they were what was needed?

don Miguel – Okay, let’s see, for example, when I was teaching my son, the oldest one, when he was maybe 5 or 6 years old, and I wanted to teach him how to swim. The way to teach him is, I throw him into the water and he came out. Then, before he can start fighting with me, I push him again in the water, he came out again. By the third time he really enjoyed it. Then he was throwing himself in the water, coming out, and he had a great time. Then instead of telling him how to swim I push him into the experience of life, and this is what life is doing to all of us all the time. You know, when we were born, we didn’t decide to be human. We didn’t decide who would be our parents. We never decide where to be born or which language we’ll pick. We didn’t decide what we’re going to learn. We didn’t make any of those choices. We just came into life, and life just started sharing everything with us. And this is what we call oral tradition.

Dawn – What inspired you to carry on your family’s legacy through oral tradition instead of a healing tradition?

don Miguel – I also started learning about a healing tradition, but I didn’t like it because of the way that people see me as a healer. They want miracles and I really don’t like to work for miracles. What I want is for them to see that there are different ways to live life. There is a way to make life so easy so that anybody can enjoy life, because this is the point, to enjoy life, to be happy.

Dawn – How will these traditions carry through and be relevant for future generations?

don Miguel – Well, we can say, it’s acceptance, to accept what we really are and not to try to be what we are not. You know, like a dog is always going to be a dog, a cat is always going to be a cat. And they don’t know they are dogs or cats. They are just what they are and they are programmed to be the way they are. Then by following, let’s say a different knowledge, it’s accepting ourselves the way they are. It’s through acceptance.

Dawn – What are the core teachings?

don Miguel – Well, it’s like I say, it’s about acceptance. Accepting yourself just the way you are. Once you’ve accepted yourself just the way you are, just accept the world, just the way it is. Just accept the Universe just the way it is. Just see everything as perfection. Because everything really is perfect.

Dawn – There have been people who felt the time would come when science and spirituality are seen as one. This is something the Toltec knew from the very beginning. Do you see Toltec wisdom being the catalyst for the connection being drawn between modern science and spirituality?

don Miguel – I can say that the word “Toltec” means “artist.” It isn’t a religion or anything like that. You know, the Toltec see life as an art. In that way, we can see that the artist really can put together science and religion, and much more than that.

Dawn – How did your medical experience affect your path?

don Miguel – Well, you know, it was a very important part for me to become a medical doctor, to be a surgeon. Because just to learn about science, it provided me that language which I applied in everything I say. It’s easier for me to explain and understand the symbology. That helped to facilitate what I do in my life.

Dawn – Before you committed your life to teaching Toltec wisdom did you use it in your life, even when you were in medical school and practicing surgery?

don Miguel – Oh, definitely, yes. It’s a way of life. As I said before, the word “Toltec” means “artist,” and since high school, or maybe even before, I started seeing my own life as an artist, and breaking all those limitations, because I see medicine as an art. I see science as an art. Then my whole life I see as an art.

Dawn – Since you are now returning this wisdom to the people, is it possible for those who study your teachings to teach this work themselves? Is there any advantage to having others teach it?

don Miguel – Oh, definitely. You know, this is not a monopoly. This has come directly from Divine Intelligence. As I said before, we are programmed to be what we are. And by saying that, that means also that we’re programmed to dream what we dream and make a story for life the way we do, which means to create all of life and believe in all of life. But even if we believe or not in all the programming we have in our life, we are programmed to be human and we’re never going to be anything else but human.

Dawn – What kind of experiences did you find helped you most on your teaching path?

don Miguel – I see the resistance of many people, even when they see the truth so clearly. I can see the superstitions coming up or their way of believing or things they learned from their family, you know, the training they received from their family. Therefore the greatest thing is to see the old belief system falling apart, and finally they start seeing the simplicity of the truth, because the truth is very, very simple and we make everything extremely difficult.

Dawn – You were on a power journey to the Yucatan last month. One of your stops was Chichen-Itza. My husband and I were there on our honeymoon. What do you feel is the true purpose of the site, and are the tourists told something different?

don Miguel – Well, you know that there is an old dream there. We can see it and we can compare with the way we dream this time. It’s so beautiful to see, that time and that place of the world. These people really, really were into science very, very strongly. And the place, you know, the whole peninsula is just gorgeous. It’s a little paradise there.

Dawn – I understand that you had a near-fatal heart attack in 2002. How are you feeling now?

don Miguel – Well, I’m living with only 60% of my heart’s capacity, which is very low. But I’m happy and I enjoy life. I cannot do what I used to do before, of course, but you know, I accept my life that way and I’m happy the way I am.

Dawn – Besides limiting your travel and speaking engagements how do you feel this experience has changed you?

don Miguel – Well, the only thing that really changed is the time that I am awake. You know, I used to be awake 16 hours and sleep only six or seven hours. And, right now, it’s kind of the opposite. I’m awake maybe 8-10 hours a day and I rest the remaining time. Eight to ten hours, that’s enough to create, to enjoy life.

Dawn – You were already living life completely, fully, with joy before. Did this event heighten the experience of life anymore for you?

don Miguel – Well, things changed because the capacity of my body changed. You know, I used to be very strong and very fast and hardly got tired, and these days I’m tired most of the time, but now I’m enjoying resting. Time shifts for me because my point of view shifts also. I’m more relaxed, you could say that. But the thing is I’m always peaceful.

Dawn – How successful do you feel your life has been?

don Miguel – Well, it’s completely a success. You know, every human is really a winner. Maybe they don’t see that but just imagine, before conception there was a big race of millions of sperm and only one made it to the ovum. And from that one that made it to the ovum, we were born from that, each one of us, every human. Then every human is really a winner.

Dawn – From all your years of teaching the Toltec wisdom what is your favorite memory?

don Miguel – Well, there’s so many. We can say that one of the biggest ones is my first son coming into life, when he was born. He was something so beautiful, and just a year ago, I was so lucky that I bring my first grandchild, I helped to deliver my grandchild. It was amazing. It was so beautiful. It’s the miracle of life.

Dawn – That must have been an amazing experience for you.

don Miguel – Oh, my God, yes.

Dawn –  Your son, don Jose Luis Ruiz, is now following in your footsteps. You must be very pleased.

don Miguel – Oh, he’s very happy. Yes, he’s a wonderful son.

Dawn – There have been many predictions about the time we are living in. What do you think is in store for the world in the years to come?

don Miguel – Well, this is more joy, more freedom, more happiness. and humanity will be better, and better and better.

Dawn – That’s great! That’s what I’m looking forward to.

don Miguel – Well, we see it’s coming. You know, if you see history, history proves what I’m saying. You know, 700 years ago, the way we used to live. If you imagined yourself waking up in Europe 700 years ago, knowing what you know now, and if you see what they used to believe at that time, the way they used to treat each other, how often they showered, all the disease that existed in that time? You can see that, for instance, in 700 years, humanity grew a lot, and that we are becoming happier and happier and happier; we’re going in the right direction.

Dawn – If Toltec wisdom is the answer, what is the question?

don Miguel – There is no question and there is no answer.

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don Miguel Ruiz’s works:
View product details at Amazon:

• The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book)

View product details at Amazon.com:

• The Four Agreements Companion Book : Using the Four Agreements to Master the Dream of Your Life
• Four Agreements Cards
• The Voice of Knowledge: A Practical Guide to Inner Peace
• The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship: A Toltec Wisdom Book
• Mastery of Love Cards (Small Card Decks)
• Prayers: A Communion with Our Creator

I had questions
After reading The Abundance Book I had some questions, which you might have too, so I emailed the author, John Randolph Price.

Here are my questions and his answers:

John,
I really appreciate the work you do and have thoroughly enjoyed working with The Abundance Book. I am writing an article on your book for my website. I wonder if you would answer a few questions for me. There are some things in the book that were unclear to me and so they would probably be unclear to my readers as well.

Here they are:

Dawn Will writing about my experience with this book affect my prosperity (since you mention that total secrecy is necessary) or is that just during the 40 days?
JRP Writing about the book will only affect your prosperity favorably. Energy follows thought.

Dawn What do you mean by a "demonstration"? (What I really meant was, "What is the significance of a demonstration?")
JRP A demonstration is the manifestation of a visible thing or experience.

Dawn I listened to the CD in addition to reading the book and two of the ideas were conflicting. You say that if we "yield to mortal pressure and carnal mind temptation to get temporary financial relief from the world of effects, we’ll have to go back to the classroom and learn the lesson all over again." But you also say to get a job if we don’t have one. So what does it mean to "yield to mortal pressure and carnal mind temptation"?
JRP There are no conflicting ideas in the book. To yield to temptation is to take short-cuts that are not in keeping with spiritual principles, such as trying to manipulate another person for your benefit.

Dawn And when should I expect there to be a major difference in my financial affairs? I’m working on the checklist. I don’t have them all mastered yet but I certainly have more then I did before. Here’s what my experience has been so far:
Three days into the program my husband got a raise without even asking. Later we finally sold a car that had been a burden and unsold for six months and we had two people bidding against each other. I told a few people, on a spiritual path, about the book. It’s just my nature, as you will see from my website, to share new finds with others so they can benefit as well. And I hadn’t gotten to the part of the book where you say that I shouldn’t tell anyone. During that time I had told my 14-year-old daughter, who isn’t on a spiritual path. I wound up having to start over after that, on day 17 since I forgot to write after my meditation. I saw the 40 day program through to the end without interruption after that and keep it to myself since I had read the part about not telling anyone.
JRP Secrecy is necessary when you are in a personal conversation with someone who is not on the spiritual wavelength with you. His or her energy may raise doubts in your feeling nature which can interrupt the process. Be careful where you cast your pearls.

Dawn Things certainly have changed in my life: my website has been coming up in the search engine results on the first page; I was asked to start writing articles in New Visions Magazine, a local holistic magazine; we had a $134 bank error in our favor and quite a few other things. I can feel the energy around manifesting fulfillment of my needs and desires. Every time a donation opportunity came our way we would donate something, which wound up averaging about once a week.
At this point my husband wants me to get a job to meet the financial challenges that he sees. Would that be "giving in" and I would have to start over? I’ve been home with our daughter for 5 years now. He would prefer I stay home but looks at the numbers and says I have to work if we want to send her to private school.
JRP Everyone should have some way of contributing to this world and paid well for doing it. That’s what jobs are for. "Work" is a spiritual process when consciousness is in tune with the Source within.

Dawn I’ve been a very good manifester for most of my life and I get a lot of things that I want. I donate stuff constantly and help people in whatever way I can, usually with advice and information. I can usually manifest material items without too much of a problem but money was a challenge. I do feel I have a greater consciousness of prosperity and I wonder when I will see a significant change in my financial affairs. I wonder if my husband’s thoughts could be affecting the manifestation of my good.
JRP If you’re trying to "make money" using the Prosperity Plan, it won’t work for any extended time. It is totally spiritually oriented, not a "mind over matter" metaphysical process. The Plan was developed to change consciousness from the outer world of effects to the inner world of Cause. Then it works beautifully because Spirit is in charge and not the ego- influenced personality. You’ll see a significant change in your financial affairs when there is a significant change in your consciousness. First things first. I also recommend my book Nothing Is Too Good to Be True, and Lessons 12 and 13 in The Jesus Code to move consciousness into a higher frequency.

I really appreciate your help in this matter.
Prosperity and Health,
Love and Light,

He closed with, “Richest blessings, John Price”

Read my review of The Abundance Book