end? beginning?

I have reached the end of the month...and my views on where to go next is worse than the pile-up inducing Michigan flurries we got today.

Last week, when I found myself caught in the throws of feeling comfortably vulnerable and open to guidance and inspiration, my mother mentioned that she was going to be seeing a doctor. This doctor wasn't just any doctor but one of those eccentric hybrid beings that are just analytical and practical enough to be respected but eerily in tune with your spiritual mojo. Apparently he was "all the rage" in her Tai Chi class and one by one, they'd all been coerced into making the 30 minute trek to Fowlerville to see him.

For lack of understanding myself better or for simply not having the time to bother with understanding myself better, I too became easily intrigued by the prospect of yet another person "reading"me - I've seen a few in my time.

So a few days ago, I met Dr. Miller. His office was in some inconspicuous brick building that looked more like a small factory than office spaces. Nothing about his office was "otherworldly" or exploitive of "spiritual healer" types. Even his sessions are conducted in a very straightforward manner of health questions and basic physical commands. But he did a LOT of talking and within the first few minutes, was picking up on some of my innermost insecurities and blockages. He had scenarios and names for emotional and spiritual walls that I hit in my life but cannot articulate. He validated many of the sort of "hypotheses" I'd begun to develop about my journey in this body. And he freaked me out a little.

Besides leaving me with a new set of "cleanse" drinks that he wants me to take for a month, a few natural supplements, and laying out a more permanent food regime (apparently honey is not a good thing for me, as well as nightshades, melons, corn and rye...) he also addressed major emotional and spiritual cleanses that I would need to face. Suddenly my month long experiment was inadvertently being extended.

As I left his office, I was more overwhelmed by the emotional baggage than I was concerned with his dietary suggestions. A month more didn't seem too bad. In fact, it was probably a good compromise. His guidelines allowed for fruits and beans and yams. And after all, he was so accurate that I should at least be curious to see how adhering to his advice affects me.

But the more and more I think about this, the more the question becomes "to what end?" Do you follow these trails to a point where it just merges with who you are? Or does it continually feel like a chore, a worry, another check list? Food should heal and nourish the body so if a food doesn't do my body good, why is there a need for it? But on the other hand, even the healthiest, highest quality food I think does no good if it is not prepared with love and intent. Conversely, food prepared in context of the warmth of a potluck or a shared meals with loved ones on a night out have emotional fulfillment and I could not imagine it would be beneficial to give that up. Because we cannot separate our physical experience and well-being from our emotional and spiritual one.

So right now, its overwhelming because it is new and confusing and I don't know the results yet. But my theory is that I won't benefit from following his rules even to a tee if I don't first know how to communicate with other inner troubles. And part is that I take things too seriously. And so as of now, I think that after this next week or so, I'll take the advice but I also won't shy away from a sweet treat offered or a cup of coffee every few weeks. Hopefully this will strike enough of a balance that it doesn't feel I have to think about this all too hard and can focus on other things.

hungry for more

January 27, 2013

I’ve begun to lose touch with the reasons for the cleanse and feel like I’ve been treating it with sort of a frantic, haphazard air the past few days. With such a busy work schedule, my experimentation in the kitchen hasn’t had as far reaching a stroke as I’d like and I’m repeating more and more meals.

Now that I’m a “fitness” person, I feel like I’ve jumped off the horse when I haven’t gone for a few days. Today, I traded it in for a morning Dance Meditation but it wasn’t quite the exertion I needed.

I just got back from a mourning. The family were friends from long ago and we hadn’t had connection in years, besides that of our Jewish congregation. And sitting in their living room, tightly enclosed by cousins and Aunts and Uncles and friends, I meandered between a settled solemn gaze and eyes closed prayer in my mind’s eye as this parent shook and screamed and tore at his physicality. I sat and took in the raw honesty of soul reaching beyond body and energy just pouring out – cleansing – while I remained, holding a tightness I’ve been carrying for days. Holding a tightness that is congesting and heavy. So what is a cleanse?

Soul investment is part and parcel of this and I have been juggling the logistics of work, fretting about the lack of a social life and poorly managing the little bit that I do have. The food is only a smidgeon and at this point, more variety would probably do me good. However, I hesitate because I feel that before I even give myself more choices, I need to learn how to respond more naturally to the choices I have and come back to a restored sense of patience and curiosity that I had at the beginning of this month. I have been talking a bit with my “cleanse buddy” whose done this for himself to more of an nth degree and in his experience, the months were mostly solitary. I shouldn’t feel pressure to go out and do much. I really need to fully embrace this self reflective period or I will be living with split attention at both ends. 

Phase two

January 25, 2013

I have just completed my first week of phase “two” of the cleanse. The food got a little more exciting while I got a little less so. With the initial glacial break of eating habits in the first half over and done with, the process is now more like a glacial melt with changes happening every day I’m sure, and yet get passed by my eyes almost unnoticed from day-to-day. I am certainly still enjoying where this is going. I am just getting a bit worn by “all work, no….work.” When I’m not working, I am spending time sifting through an endless backlog of personal goals. I’d say this overwhelming list feels like a web but at least those have cohesive connections. No, the projects in my brain appear more like glitter bombs. Everything is so shiny and I just stand there, intrigued and confused. I usually end up tackling the least important tasks, peeling the skin away and then throwing out the juicy parts. Or I work on something for someone else.

The one personal project I’ve managed to be consistent with is my exercise. As I promised myself, I managed to do some kind of significant exercise every day this week. On Tuesday, my mother and I went to a free yoga class at A2 Yoga which was kind of a bust on a body that hasn’t done yoga for weeks. The woman teaching was very much a “go getter gal” and she had us in a perpetual loop of Chatarangas (plank poses slowly lowering in a push-up motion) for almost the entire class. I made it back to the fitness center a few times also, this time coupling my meandering regime with structured classes. I can handle running on a bike for 25 minutes but after that,  I’m at a loss. Yesterday, I finally had the gusto to go to the center of the room and try out one of the weight contraptions attached to lengthened pully mechanisms. Up until that point, I’d stuck with the more compact machines that sort of shelter you fro being seen as you explore whether or not you can work the damn thing. The two that I tried are ones worth getting comfortable with, as they both work some major arm muscles.

Testing out the different classes has been fun as well. This week, I stuck to the basics of yoga and a weight/stretch class but next week I’m going to branch out into some dance moves. Oy, soon enough I  might be shaking pom poms.

All of this working out is a lot of…work. I mean, besides my muscles feeling it, it takes so much time to fit it into my schedule. But one of the things I’m beginning to learn more and more is how things come together through phases and stages and that I will develop this for as long as I need to and my attention will shift when ready.

Another thing that is taking up my time is recipe searching. Right now, I’m soaking and sprouting some grains for different crackers and breads. I’ve also decided to get back into some sauerkraut-making. 

Juice!

Just because I finally fixed an instagram issue on my phone and can now share visual excerpts of my big juicing bonanza

Still waking up...

I once read about a study that showed there was a small percentage of individuals whose energy level, efficiency and mood became categorically more functional on less sleep. Over the past few days, I had begun to wonder if this diet of mine had revealed a hidden trait.

False alarm. 

The concept of “tired” apparently re-enters my atmosphere after:

-Driving to Grand Rapids at 6am to:

-Put on a meal and free market from 12-5

-go to a late movie

-drive home at 6am

-go to the fitness center for two hours

-hop over to a side job for two hours

-go straight to work

It was a bummer to feel a rekindled grogginess when I woke up this morning. Because that energy felt like a tangible way the cleanse was “proving” itself. My mind needs to come down from its power trip and realize that it is a normal-people thing to get tired after chug-chug-chugging.

Because of all of the travel and running about, I haven’t been able to cook a lot. My go-to snack had become cucumber or celery slices and I have since begun to accept that one of my sensitivities is a whole lot of raw veggies at once. They’re so crispy and crunchy and delectable but I feel so easily full by them and they’re not very efficient, nutrient-wise. I’ve been trying to get in the habit of eating more nuts instead.

Whole grains have felt pretty good to me also. This morning, I made Buckwheat Oat Bran pancakes. Really simple and moist and tasty.

Now that I’ve started adding more variety to my food, I’ve committed myself to daily exercise. I’m mixing up fitness center days with more relaxing mornings at home. I still feel a bit like a cat trying to climb like a monkey at the center. My routine starts out with getting on a bike thing for a half and hour (my favorite isn’t quite a bike and isn’t a running belt) and then I proceed to meander around the floor fumbling all the levels on the machines. After reading those instructions on the sides that no one ever looks at and finally putting together all the pieces, the look on my face is akin to those little Toy Story aliens get when they see the claw: “Ooooh Machines at work!”

My arms are pathetic. I’ve dabbled at some research on the kinds of things I should be eating before or after in order to gain muscle but all I’ve found so far are buff guy sites all about protein shakes and snack bars, neither of which I am remotely interested in getting into.

So, I’m not quite sure where to take it with this blog. Should I just keep rambling? Is there an aspect of the experience that you may be curious about for your own knowledge? I could use some feedback on how to structure this because I feel at a lull at the moment….

Thanks!

Melissa

A blabber-post (no great writing here, folks)

January 19^, 2013

Sugar is in everything!

I did some shopping in anticipation of the new food horizons that lie ahead of me tomorrow (millet, buckwheat, whole grain rice, nuts, Keifer, unsweetend almond milk…..) and let me tell you: On this cleanse, you really start to notice all those unnecessary sweeteners. Why is there sugar in vegetable broth? Pizza Crust?

I’m great at making my own soups and cooking mush but when it comes to bread, crackers and chips…I’m hardly on the spectrum. But with all the sugared store-bought alternatives, I am going to be making many more kitchen messes soon.

I think the most exciting thing about this so far has been that its getting me to look at new recipes and ways of having meals. Because its introducing the most basic elements little by little, I don’t feel like I have so much white noise in my mental recipe box or excuses for convenient alternatives.

I assure you, there will be many food pictures popping up on here in no time

I have gotten many a pity–party look from my co-workers during recent lunch breaks. I admit while I love the color green, my shrubs are more reminiscent of a prison meal next to their warm soups and exquisite deli selections. Its difficult to strip the scenario away from connotations that are usually reserved for dietary zealots and the bo͝oSHwänese of the 21^st century health craze. So this next bit is going to sound pathetic: I expanded into kombucha and a rice cake tonight!

I told you. Lame. But honestly, I feel like a child learning their first words. Everything is distinct. The flavors sink into my tongue and I find myself actually thinking about the relationship I have with the experience. The rice cake is the perfect example. What I normally considered a textured pallet for a craved condiment, I was sampling with acute attention to the subtle differences in the two kinds of rice used.

All of this being said, I do not wish to become a rice-cake savoring bigwit that talks about the latest whole-grain cracker craze.

Have any of you ever seen Portlandia? I’ve only watched the first episode but know there could easily be an Ann Arbor knock-off show. Working at a place like Arbor Farms, I am forced to own up to my own participation in the hoity-toity end of the “eco-living/veggie-lovin/yoga-doin’” populace. But every day, I see design plans and formulas for living through customer’s groceries, all in the forms of packages and over-priced snack bars that you could easily make at home. There are numbers and vitamin levels up in everyone’s headspace.

I am grateful to be able to eat the way I do now, choosing to cleanse my body and treat it to a few nice things. But for me, this is about finding the basics that nourish me so I can apply them anywhere because I think the difference in groceries and cooking is that Groceries are thought out and cooking is felt out.

“Feeling will get you closer to the truth of “Who are you” than thinking

– Ekhart Tolle 

We're on our path

January 18, 2013

Yesterday I had “The mom talk.” This talk typically hurls itself forward from an underbelly of despair and anxiety. In these gems of panic, the mother that once seemed ever-more senile with each passing argument, transforms into some third eye mother of wisdom that magically knows how to make the path I’m on feel okay.

However, the difference about this mom talk was that it did not come in the midst of crisis. Arriving home with a bounce in my step after work, I found myself actually civil and chatty, for once not feeling like my family home regressed me back into the tyrannical teens.

Instead of coming from a place of frantic plea, our heartfelt talk about this cleanse tumbled out naturally through a willing openness I had and wanted to share with her.

As I was slithering down my last “detox drink” of the day with a  grimace, she approached the possibility that maybe I don’t need to go that far. From there, she proceeded to sort of snap me back into reason, into a realm I lived where food and diet was the primary catalyst for mind-body shifts and not weird concoctions and supplements. I poured the rest of my drink out and crossed the exotic, pricey extracts for my next stage off of my list. I was being the senile one.

Reading into my anxiety around “doing it right”, she even kicked me off of that horse,

I was concerned that my parents would be the biggest hurdle going into this cleanse. My adolesense had been a whirlwind of disaster and battle with them as I pledged allegience to disordered eating. Every since those years, anything involving me and my food choice concocted fear – warranted or not – and dispute between my mother and I. And so, last night as I stood there openly talking about my reactions to this process it was a blessing to get such supportive praise from her as this:

“I think you can let go of this anxiety. You know, I was worried when you started this but…I think its exactly what you needed….and that you are taking action to change and become more in touch with this…Jo (her healer) always said to me ‘don’t worry, she’s on her path’.”

When she said that, it truly felt like a step I’d been trying to take out of quick sand for ages. Every time I took one approach, I’d fall back in some other awkward position. I suppose that is life but this tie, I actually feel like I’m not choosing half-assed actions.

(This morning was a lot easier to start knowing that I didn’t “have” to drink that dreaded gunk. )