Steve Papps joins Liz Gunn for Part II on what has shaped a child of a ‘Once Were Warriors’ childhood, into a man with the vision and determination to create change for our better health, in body, mind and country.
Steve’s Three Passions
Steve begins by explaining his three passions - nutrition, water guardianship and emotional wellbeing - which he has shaped into businesses whereby he can follow his passions, and give back from his learning and his innate belief system.
Papps Nutrition springs from Steve’s own experience of lack of health and fitness. In changing his own health and eating habits, he immersed himself in learning, and found a passion for teaching others how to create physical and mental wellbeing through nutrition.
Life Force Water is the second of Steve’s passions. It springs, as the name says, from the human need for living water if we are to have optimum health. Many people have no idea that water needs to be as alive as our fruit and vegetables.
And his third wave of human interest comes in the form of Papps Consultancy which draws on the work he has done in studying the Quantum Field and how humans in fact shape our own realities every day - often without realising it. From this awareness, arises the possibility of shaping the sort of reality and life of which we each dream.
Conscious Food and Water Choices
Steve says what most people eat is not ‘food’- it’s man made processed ‘stuff’. It’s not full of life.
Equally with water. Living water has a life cycle. It goes from a ‘juvenile’ stage, through a ripening process as it comes down from the sky, falls down mountainsides in waterfalls, in to river beds and down through rocks into underground water tables. This water is alive.
After 3- 4 weeks, the life force in ALIVE water in a container, will support bacterial growth. This is a good sign, the fact that water CAN go off! Water in taps and on supermarket shelves has been treated to stop bacterial growth- which kills the life force in the water. This affects us on many levels. Chlorine may well be subsequently filtered out of the disinfected water. But the fact remains that the molecular structure- the life force - within that water has been changed. Something has happened in order to keep it ‘safe’ to consume. It means that water in the supermarket can sit on shelves for many months without going green.
The disinfected water affects the good bacteria inside of us. Our good bacteria are at the heart of our immune system.
To support good immunity, living water must be drunk fresh from Mother Earth
Most of our vegetables - along with vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients - are in fact living water. Fresh food goes off. Living water also goes off. We want to take them both into our bodies in an alive and fresh state.
Humans are around 75% water - bones, muscles, brains… and the quality of the water we consume affects more than our physical being. It affects the quality of our thinking and the quality of our lives.
Steve discusses the role water plays in the ageing process. Ageing is a dehydration process. People start internally 'drying out’ through chronic dehydration over a long period of time. People in the country who lived off the land and drinking fresh untreated water from underground aquifers, have a different energy . The life force in their food and water gives them a different, stronger life force.
By contrast, in NZ cities, every week , 9 people lose an arm or a leg through Type 2 Diabetes…which Steve names as a lifestyle choice.
Type 1 Diabetes is inherited, while Type 2 is a malfunction in the pancreas. Steve says that can be treated by going back to the lifestyle choices that created it, and altering those choices.
Steve sees dis-ease as an expression of toxicity or acidity.
When someone has cancer, the tumour is cut out - but five years later it may well return. Steve is much more concerned to address the CAUSE of the cancer. Why did that body manifest this imbalance?
Steve believes that if one person can heal from cancer, there must be a way for all of us to heal from it. His whole focus is the cause rather than the symptoms. The ultimate aim is always to enhance the health of the person. People need to get well for themselves and for their families. He says his company's deal with the results, more than the theories, and he looks to see if the changes he helps people to make, result in their doctors reducing or eliminating medications after the health of that person improves. These are the true measures of success for Steve. Practical results, grounded in improvements in the everyday lives of the people he helps.
If Steve was walking into a family of diabetics about to breakfast on toast, cereal and jam, what would his advice be? STOP ! Eat living food. No requirement for carbohydrates while the pancreas is not working ( which shows up in the body as Type 2 diabetes) . No exotic, expensive, exclusive foods. Primarily vegetables, protein and healthy fats. exotic. It’s real food and in the right amount for the goals of each person.
The Importance of Amino Acids & Fatty Acids
There are two essential food groups. The body cannot produce these: essential amino acids and essential fatty acids. Every cell needs these in the right quantity.
We are a population which is totally overfed and undernourished. When the body says “ I’m hungry” , it’s actually saying “ Feed me nutrients” . By removing nutrients from manufactured foods, the person eating these processed foods will find they are still hungry after even a large caloric intake. The body is still crying out for nutrition. And so people keep eating the food that is devoid of nutrients, and wondering why packaged foods are so often hard to stop and put down. With Fresh Living Food, this does not happen.
Steve also talks of good fats and bad fats- such as cold pressed organic olive oil, egg yolks, coconut oil, avocado, raw nuts. The man- made fats are to be avoided at all costs- hydrogenated fats, margarine, soybean or canola oil- these are toxic to the body.
Body Building
He also talks of his time competing as a bodybuilder. He had to compete against bigger men. He decided he had to get leaner than them, and he outsmarted the competition ‘in the kitchen' through his refined food study. He talks of all the contradictory information on diet . He has put himself through many different eating plans for years. That way he found the ‘holes' in the plans- the point of diminishing return where the food plan is no longer effective. He was able to refine an eating process that works, grounded in principles that apply long term, to create potent health.
Steve discusses the mental toughness humans need to find to stick to making changes. It’s not discipline. It’s awareness. When you’re ‘aware' of something, it’s no longer hard.
He gives an example. Someone who wants to start a diet. They are not in the right state for success, when they talk about how difficult it is. So how to change the inner state? This is where his coaching in Papps Consultancy, kicks in. There’s a need to truly want what they SAY they want. Steve says "Imagine if I said to someone- if you keep to the plan exactly for 6 weeks- I show you the money- you cannot deviate for one meal, for one day- then I will give you $10,000. “
We always move towards what we focus on. Now the focus, the attention, is on what the person wants. And it’s no longer a matter of discipline. It’s a change of awareness.
A lot of self help information is a misunderstanding of how the mind works. You need to apply the principles correctly. Goal setting has its place but misapplied, it creates an internal battle. It’s ‘hard'. You’re constantly trying to ‘manage’ life. Steve offers the opposite.
With the $10,000 analogy, that person is going after what they have ALREADY created in their mindset. A 'totally unrealistic’ mindset, combined with a willingness to take action.
It’s about learning how the mind works, and getting beyond being enslaved by thoughts. You master your thoughts. If it’s your servant, your mind can serve you. But if you let it be your master, your mind will torture you every day.
Steve gives a wonderful example of how the mind can take both sides of an argument inside someone’s head, and behave like the worst best friend!!
It’s not a Discipline, but an Awareness.
There are events happening in our lives. Then there’s the person’s story ABOUT what is happening. Beyond all of that is an infinite consciousness able to observe these thoughts, and see the dramas created. Observing the way the mind jumps about, comes from just listening to your thoughts. Don’t judge the thoughts. Observe them.
Most people who have anxiety can deal with the ISSUE itself, but not with the anxiety ABOUT the issue, because that is like a ghost. Anxiety is really just a projected, imagined future. Getting stressed and depressed happens when someone becomes anxious about the anxiety itself. Instead there is a totally different way of looking at that which liberates people from the anxiety.
Addressing Addictions
Steve talks of addictions. They are a product of the story going on in the mind. He talks of a relative who has always been addicted to marijuana.
He then asked about his rehab and he labelled himself an addict. Steve said that once you have a label, you have to live through those labels. Instead, Steve asked him if he had an accident and lost his memory, would he still have his addiction? Who would he become without that story?
Steve says you can’t have an addiction without a memory.
We fulfil our labels. It’s important to identify behaviours, yes. But a label is not going to serve the human ability to change and evolve.
The perception is often back to front.
Focus
Steve focusses on getting the person’s energy and health improved so they have huge amounts of energy and life force.
The same principles apply across all areas- business, relationship, children’s emotional wellbeing and success, food, health.
The most fundamental part is having clear, practical goals. Most people have a fuzzy idea of what they would like but don’t pin that down to specific goals for today, for next week, for the next twelve months.
If you’re a business owner, do you have a clear financial goal for next week?
Becoming Wise
Towards the end of the interview. Steve discusses the genesis for his own learnings in all these areas - his own life experiences. He talked last time of having three children by 19 years old. This drove him to seek out financial success. He explains that he became a store detective who built his own company, to create New Zealand’s largest store detective company after just a year.
He talks of studying Bob Proctor’s work and Napoleon Hill’s book ‘ Think and Grow Rich’. He learnt the specific laws that apply to wealth and to relationships. He applied the principles and brought in millions.
Then he misapplied those same principles. Every thought is a seed. It sets off a specific vibration. His thought that stymied his success was “ Just don’t screw this up” .
He explains that humans will always end up where their energy is.
He ended up with depression. He learnt through that pain. He says “ I broke” - and it was a breakthrough.
Some of the worst circumstances can be the greatest opportunities for us.
Become aware of how to change that negative experience- accept where you are, and then with awareness change the energy you bring to what is showing up your life.