This week, I had the pleasure of interviewing Eric-James Horton, Certified Health Counselor, Chef, and co-owner of "Conscious Nosh Chef Services." Conscious Nosh is a bay area business that helps customers create personal health and diet plans, and delivers hand crafted healthy and delicious foods to their doorsteps to help them stay on track. (They also make overwhelmingly delicious raw vegan macaroons!)  I caught up with Eric to find out about what has led him down this path, and what inspires him about his work.

To find our more about Eric, or to sign up for his "Farm To Table" Cooking Class on Sept 6th, visit: BayAreaHealthCoach.com.

What are you passionate about? I'm passionate about the work that I do; one-on-one health and wellness counseling, one-on-one cooking coaching,  teaching group cooking classes and personal chef services. I love connecting with a huge network/community of movers and shakers in the health and healing world, learning about permaculture, becoming a homesteader and a family man.

What motivates you in the work you are doing? Setting up a good home space for the future generations! I want my kids to live in a world that they feel safe and healthy in. My clients motivate me. Their strength and courage to create a life they feel powerful in motivates me to do all that I can do that too.

One weekday morning as I biked from my house to the BART station to commute to work in San Francisco, I saw a man jogging on the path ahead of me. He was dressed in business attire and carried a brief case in his left hand. A man in business clothes jogging? Maybe he was running a little late to catch his train. Or maybe he was just trying to get a little exercise while on his way to work. My mind makes up all sorts of stories about people I see. What really caught my attention, however, was what he held in his right hand. It was a long white cane, and he was sweeping it ahead of him, feeling for the grass at the edge of the paved path. He was blind, or at least visually-impaired. I was filled with awe, and I’m pretty sure my jaw dropped. I did my usual call-out, "Bike on your left," and passed him carefully, all the while incredulous at his courage and fearlessness.

We all have fears about all sorts of things in life: fear of intimacy, fear of being hurt, fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of death. I bet this man has those kinds of fears too. He's human, after all. But what impressed me is that he clearly seemed to have conquered a pretty basic fear of mine: the fear of pushing through the discomfort and doing whatever it takes to move forward in life – to move toward a more improved or evolved version of myself. The way I see it, he probably leaves that fear behind every time he picks up his cane and walks, let alone jogs.

I still think of that man and wonder what it's going to take for me to really let go of my fears – or simply push through them. Perhaps I can learn from him to pick up my cane and run.

One of the practices at Cafe Gratitude is to celebrate our mistakes.  This did not come easily for me at first.  In home economics class in 7th grade, and I accidentally spilled flour on the floor.  I remember feeling so ashamed.  I wanted to hide it from the teacher, so I ground it into the carpet with my foot.  She caught me doing this, and the glare I got in return was enough to keep me feeling ashamed about my mistakes for the rest of my life.  That is, until I came to Cafe Gratitude.  

Employees of Cafe Gratitude are trained to say "I made a mistake!"  This proclamation is met with cheers and applause.  "Yea!!!!!"  The next part is that we tell the manager (if they haven't already heard the cheering).  Then we have a conversation about what we learned from this and how we can prevent making that same mistake again.  But the key part and important first step is simple: acknowledge the mistake.  Claim it.  Own it.  This was tough for me.  Even though I knew better, the junior high student part of me still expected to get a glare and some kind of punishment.  

The first mistake I recall making at Cafe Gratitude was a simple one: I dropped (and broke) a glass.  I was out on the patio (in San Rafael) alone and could have possibly gotten by with keeping my mistake a secret.  It was an important step in my "recovery" (from hiding mistakes) process to say out loud "I made a mistake!" and tell a manager what happened.  That kind soul simply asked me what I could do differently next time.  It was easy for me to think clearly about this, since I was not clouded by shame.  I was clear and able to focus on a creative solution.  I felt so much freedom in this.

This week I encourage you to be courageously transparent.  Consider that we create walls surrounding our authentic selves in fear of not being loved.  As Matthew Engelhart says, all we are ever really saying is “love me” or “I love you”.  I’m beginning to notice that most of us are so caught up in ourselves, trying to conceal parts of ourselves in fear of not being loved that we don’t look up to see others.  

Sometimes I feel so alone that I never open my eyes to see that I am constantly in community and there are millions feeling the same way.  What will it take for us to be loved?  Be ourselves!  This week I invite you to open up to your truest self, whatever that means to you. If there is something that you are hiding in fear of judgment, then you are not giving others the opportunity to love all of you, to love you to the core.  I invite you to crack your castle walls and lower your defenses to be seen for who you truly are.  Maybe this means thinning a mask of makeup for a day.  Maybe this means expressing when you are hurt.  Maybe, just maybe, it means telling someone that you love them.  How funny we are in our aim to be loved and yet withhold loving.  It’s up to us to break the cycle.  My invitation to you is to lower your walls and connect more deeply with those around you.  Imagine a community of people truly knowing each other and having such a safe container to love each other in.  Know that the only thing at stake in speaking up is your ego.  Remember that we love you, that you are powerful, that you are perfect.  Thank you for who you are, and for who you aren’t.  

I am present to how vital questions are in this world.  Questions are a way that I communicate that I care about something.  I ask questions to be honest about my ignorance.  I ask questions to work outside of assumptions and look for the truth in others.  I ask questions to start a conversation about something that must not be talked about often enough.

Asking questions (like perhaps our question of the day: Who is your hero?) is a powerful way to get into someone else's world and see what is fueling them.  Every day every employee of Cafe Gratitude & Gracias Madre gets to participate in what we call a "clearing".

At its core, a clearing is three questions:  

There is no question about it in my mind: the world has entered into a time we have heard about for many generations, but that we have never seen before. Some call it the Great Turning, others call it 2012. There are many names for this time and it is a turbulent, unpredictable time. But I believe we are actually very lucky to be witness to this. We are not victims; we are not even innocent bystanders. We can actually choose to be active participants and as an alliance of communities we can effect great change beyond even what we have yet to imagine.