End of Cleanse

So my three week cleanse is officially over.  Right in time for Easter Friday tomorrow.  I hadn't even planned this as a lent thing, but it feels like part of a natural cycle.  Maybe I'll repeat this same time next year.

I've lost a few pounds and I'm motivated to continue avoiding sugar, caffeine and white bread. I feel significantly less compulsive about food now.

But the journey is far from over.  Without this built in cycle of physical hunger, I'm confronted  with the different kinds of hunger I avoid: emotional, spiritual and a feeling that I'm still not connected to the world.

Next weekend I do a mini-retreat at the Tergar center on the subject of boredom.  So much of the root of boredom is hunger. The hunger for things to happen, for love and affection.  And what I'm noticing this morning, a kind of numbness around that hunger. I don't want to feel it.  I want to pretend it's not there.  But if I don't feel it, I can't start to address it with the kind of life and kind of habits that will eventually satisfy it.

The healthy cycle that will keep it well fed starts today.

In Between State

Sunday morning practice and I'm feeling very much the strains of being at an in between state. I feel the energy, but I am also conscious of a lot of financial and professional anxieties that make it hard to keep a stable focus.

I'm alternating between a free floating awareness and dividing my anxiety down to the core emotional response. I'm trying to be patient with myself.

I'm also moving into an awareness of my environment, how it affects my sense of stability. Doing some house cleaning,and for the first time in a while feeling motivated to do that.

I wonder if this motivation is coming from the cleanse.  Is it that I have more energy? Or is it that I'm more conscious now of my well being and the way that having a messy, chaotic house undermines that?

The important thing is to be aware of how I feel as I give up self destructive habits.  I would never go back to smoking.  It would be wonderful to reach the state where I would never go back to eating poorly, allowing my home to fall apart,  give my mind up to a television screen or spend money foolishly.

Open Energy

Day 16 of the cleanse.  Today I found a way to combine open awareness with my regular standing mediation.  I make the chi part of the openness. I don't try to direct it, I just notice it.  Almost immediately this morning I felt the energy in the right side of my body.  I felt, and still feel the pleasant tingling in my tummy and up my spine.  It's not so much that it felt more solid as it felt more sustainable.

I know this has much to do with the change in my diet. I'm remembering more and more how it felt that year when everything seemed to fall into place back in my late twenties.  Having developed the habit of rice, beans and dark brown bread, I had virtually no food cravings.  I felt tremendous energy. I felt healthy, and I felt it was easy to stay healthy.  It was no effort at all.

I'm going to get back to that state.  Even after the cleanse I'm going to keep to a whole food diet, with very few cookies and white flour treats.  I'm going to try and gradually get Ben to that.  But the main thing is to keep myself to that diet. And to keep up my meditation and my relationship with this healthy energy.

And also to find a way to use my financial stress as a support for my practice.  I read today than we we are in periods of exceptional stress our decisions are over optimistic.  I need to get myself to a level of average stress, where I'm able to make wise decisions.

Above all I need to know that there is wisdom in me, and that I can count on it.

Open awareness

I'm two weeks into this cleanse now.  Last weekend I did a two day meditation workshop at the Tergar centre in Montreal. This was the closest I've ever come to a meditation retreat and I'm feeling calm, focussed, ready for six months of Tergar style practice.  This is a very light, secular form of Tibetan buddhism. The basic practice involves alternating between object oriented meditation and open awareness. Mingyur Rinpoche, the leader of Tergar calls it shinay. He describes it as the gentle feeling of peace one gets just after a vigorous run, the end of the work week, or any activity that results in a moment of "phewf, now I can rest."  This feeling is the seed of rest you want to feel when you do shinay.
  I'm feeling calmer and lighter. I am lighter.  I've lost a few pounds on this cleanse so far, and it's nice to feel so much less compelled by my addictions. I feel the urge to eat a cookie, but I don't have to struggle with that urge.  I did have a sliver of apple pie on the weekend.  But I was happy with a taste and didn't feel deprived when I didn't eat more.  It's nice to feel in touch with a basic sense of power. A natural power, not a willed power.
  Mingyur Rinpoche has a really nice framework for practice: using your resistance or suffering as support for practice.  When I feel a resistance to a routine I want to instill, usually a cleaning routine, or a healthy eating routine, instead of struggling to over come it, I simply rest in my awareness of this resistance. I allow myself to become curious, to breathe, then to watch what happens to this resistance as I continue with the action I've chosen.  In this way, almost any routine I'm trying to establish becomes a meditation. I've always known this, but it helps to know that there will be a community to support these small, but important observations.

Lightness

I'm on day 11 of this cleanse.  Today I had a good stand.  Better than yesterday.  It was interesting that I started in first position and then almost right away I felt that energy in my right arm. I decided to just go with it.  Be aware of the energy and follow the path.  Over the course of an hour it started to build in my Tan Tien. I felt a warmth up my spine.

But I'm still feeling a little anemic.  This may have something to do with the heavy bleeding.  So I'll see if I can find any good solutions in vegetarian diets for that.

My sense as I was standing though, is that there was some stuff being cleaned out. Some really old body memories along with the other toxins.  Maybe the fatigue is part of that.

In general after this stand, I feel a certain lightness.  Maybe it's lightheadness.  Maybe it's even hunger.  Maybe my body is shutting down in starvation mode.  I'm not sure.  But I'm going to be patient and see what happens.

Information consumption

Feeling bleary this morning and wondering why.  I've been eating well, I'm over my cold.  Shouldn't I be feeling more vitality and concentration?

It hit me towards the end of my mediation that I was tired because I'd been up late, net surfing, watching DVDs.  Harmless stuff.  But enough to keep me up too late.

Once I've let go of my food addictions, I'm not going to have much choice but to confront my digital addictions.  And once I've done that I'm probably not going to have much choice but to face the things that my addictions protect me from, anxiety, resentment, regret.  All those things that hit you at middle age.

Patience.  That's all there is sometimes.  Just patience.

A step back

My cold kept me up all night, so this morning I'm feeling deflated.  But I'm going to be patient with myself.  I know that the energy is going to start building in me as I progress with this cleanse. So I'm not going to beat myself up over a low energy day.  Sometimes it's natural to take a step back.

This weekend I'm signed up for a Tergar meditation workshop.  Level one is about cultivating a warm affection towards yourself, and a constant determination to cultivate happiness.

I'm impatient.  I feel after all my years of meditation that this should come naturally to me, and yet caring about myself is daily practice.   And a very difficult skill to develop.

Growing

Note to self: never go back to unhealthy eating habits.

I feel very good.  This despite a cold, a very heavy period, and whatever else may be going wrong in my life.  I feel this core of healthy energy almost effortlessly available to me whenever I need it.
I feel awake, alive, warm inside. Vital.

This morning I woke up early and had a half hour stand.  Then I followed pretty much the same routine as yesterday.  Some first and second position to get the energy going. Some exercises to open up the channels a little more.  And then first position and just watch what happens.

Pretty much the same as yesterday, just stronger.  I feel the energy growing on the right side of my body, lifting my arm to the point where I can easily just allow it to support me. I fell it intermittently flowing up my spine. Sometimes I get distracted by some recent obsession.  But now when that happens, I shift into making the obsessive energy the object of my awareness.  Pretty soon I feel a natural compulsion to return to the more pleasant flow of chi.

Because I've been following the Tergar program, I'm also trying to bring in some compassion.  At one point I started to cry.  It struck me how much of my life had been a turning away from chi, from God, from natural, harmless health and integrity.  I felt like an errant child who had spent my whole life foolishly misbehaving, and harming myself and others.  I cried it out.  All the while still holding on to the energy.  And then I just decided to forgive myself in the same way I would forgive Ben.  I'm not sure I feel this deeply yet.  But it's a start.

Today they start the process of electing a new Pope.  I haven't been a practicing Catholic for many years, but I'm going to pray.  I deeply hope they elect someone who can reconnect the church to people so that it can awaken that powerful global network of love that I believe the Church has the potential to bring forth.

And I hope that I can continue this journey with the same devotion and with the same faith that I once had to this guiding spirit.

Breakthrough

The sciatica that was keeping me up all night is now gone.  Turns out I was pre-menstrual. Usually on the first day of my cycle, I would feel drained and exhausted.  But this morning I'm feeling a really nice core of vitality and clean energy. The kind of energy that is going to motivate me to keep this cleanse up for the whole three weeks.  I'll break a little today for lunch with a friend.  But the cleanse is about "avoiding" those things.  So I'm sure I'll find things on the menu with some healthy greens.  Maybe I'll eat something first so that I'm not over ordering.

I had a very pleasant stand.  Twenty minutes of second position.  Then some exercises to open the channels.  Then I just stood in first position, felt the energy in my belly and allowed it to create its own direction.  It started moving first in the right side of my body, lifting my arm, filling my leg and eventually moving up to my head.  The left side of my body seemed to become completely empty. I "leaned"in a way on the right side energy.  Allowing it to simply take me over and hold me up.  Then eventually the left side started to fill up too.  As my palms became parallel, I could sense the energy moving back and forth between them, like a ping pong ball.

I'm going to keep to that practice this week.  Just let the energy do its thing.  And watch what happens.

Liberation

Last night a broke slightly from the cleanse.  Went out for Indian food with friends.  Had a spinach paneer with some cheese and vegetable biryani.  One onion bajhi.  But overall, compared to what I would have normally eaten--butter chicken, fried stuff, big beer--- it felt good to go out and not overeat.  At the end of the meal I really had a strong sense of satiety, not just foodwise, but psychologically.  It feels good to see the possibility of be liberated from all these compulsive food choices, motivated to eat by authentic, not emotional hunger.
  Had some insomnia last night because I'm still having problems with the back pain.  I'm not sure if this is because I haven't been running as much, or something to do with the cleanse.  It could also be this large uterine fibroid I recently discovered.  It's part of the reason I'm keeping up with the cleanse. I wonder if bad habits have built up to grow this fibroid.
   I know I've always stored a lot of tension in my back.  It may be that now my body is going in to deal with that.
  Here's hoping it will pass. While I feel these aches and pain, I'm also feeling a growing energy.  It's as though this energy now allows me to deal with the foundation parts that have always been too weak.
 Time to rebuild.

Over the hump

I read yesterday that day four is usually the "hump" day in a cleanse. If you get past this day, then the rest is easier.

It was the most difficult day.  I felt back pain, bloated, blocked up. Almost flu-ish.  This morning I'm tired and I still have a backache and I feel like I'm still waiting for the sludge to clear.  But I definitely feel more energy and a more solid sense of what I need to do to keep this cleanse going.  Eat smaller portions of beans, for one thing!  Maybe keep them to one meal.

Last night I felt some cravings. I felt that sense of emptiness and disconnection that continues to haunt me, even after all these years.  I couldn't eat, so I stood.  Obviously I felt much, much better from standing than I've ever felt from parking myself with some food in front of a video.

This morning it was so clear to me how I have literally been feeding my suffering. Whenever my suffering calls out I give it a snack.  No wonder it's so big and powerful.

If I could reprogram this loop so that my suffering is greeted with natural opiates instead of food and distraction, then logically is should just gradually diminish on its own without me trying to work so hard trying to diminish it.

Let's see.

The Crappy Feeling

Day 4.  I was not expecting this.  Yesterday, it really seemed that I was going to have this relatively painless transition to a clean body and brain.  And then last night something started to hit me.  It started with back pain, and full body cramps.  This morning I feel bilious and vile.  As though I'm now paying for every pizza I've ever eaten in my life.
  One possible explanation for this is that I'm not drinking enough water to flush out the "toxins."  So today I'll drink some water and try and remember to put a lot of chia on things for water retention.  Maybe it's the peanut butter?  Am I possibly allergic?  I don't know, but I'm going to cut it out.
  At the same time, I'm feeling a good building energy behind this crappy energy.  Something that's telling me that it's worth it to live through this. And I'm also noticing that I'm a little less addicted to food.  That when I feel a craving it feels a little more manageable. Not so compulsive.
  For now, though, dark day of the body.

The Silky Feeling

Day 3 of my cleanse. Yesterday I started with some stiff muscles and not much else. Slowly over the course of the morning, however, I began to feel glimmers of a natural energy. My friend Jeff Warren wrote a piece for the New York Times about an intensive retreat he did. He spoke of a day, after a particularly dark night of the soul, when he started to feel this "silky" energy all around him.  I've started to feel that.  But it's intermittent.
  I feel it for an hour or so, this feeling that I'm back in touch with my natural opiates, and then I get a headache, or fatigue sets in.  Yesterday I dealt with the fatigue by putting some chia seeds in a smoothy.  Today, as I drive my parents to the airport for their trip to Israel, my adrenaline will probably be coming from my lack of sleep. Woke up early this morning around 3 a.m.  Monkey mind crawling around.  So I meditated for about forty five minutes. Then read some Pema Chodron. It was a chapter about the in-between state.  The place that meditators have to live in for a long time until they grasp that the uncertainty is actually a stable resting point.
  I feel right now that this cleanse is something of an in-between state.  I feel ready to start giving up my addictions and facing my suffering.  As Chodron writes, pizza and videos are no match for suffering. So better to just face it and let it build the strength and wisdom it can nurture.
  Around 6 a.m. I went back to meditating.  It went better than yesterday.  I do feel a certain energy building, a sharp feeling in my gut that if both painful, but also a familiar starting point of natural pleasure.  And around me, the "silky feeling".
  It's the tender place that Chodron talks about. The place of bodhichitta  It's the place I want to protect and cultivate, for myself and for everyone in my life.

Cleanse

Today I'm on day 2 of a dietary cleanse.  I'm cutting out sugar, alcohol, caffeine, gluten, and animal meat for at least a week.  Maybe longer if I feel inspired.  I'm doing this mostly because I've accepted  in the last few weeks how much my poor eating habits affect my morning practice.  I hope this tan tien energy that I want to build, and make a permanent core in my body,  would be much stronger if there weren't so much sludge for my liver to deal with every evening.
   I started yesterday and began immediately to feel the effects of my caffeine addiction and whatever else it is that I can't seem to stop myself from consuming. I literally felt the same way I used to feel back when I was routinely trying to quit smoking.  I felt all these toxins in my body fighting to stay alive. I felt dirty and headachy.
  Two things helped me quit smoking.  First my tai chi practice made me protective of my breath. And second, I moved.  Not associating cigarettes with my cues in environment made it much easier to quit.
  I'm feeling hopeful that this is the same process that is happening with my food addictions. I'm feeling protective of my gut. And you can't care about your gut and eat and drink things that make it feel lousy.  With my gut in better shape, I hope I'll be able to make better food choices more instinctively. I'm going to be moving in the next months, so this is a good time to set up a new environment.  It would be such a relief to my psyche to be finally liberated from these constant food cravings, in the same way I've been liberated from my nicotine addictions.
 Today though I have to deal with side effects of getting off these things.  I feel less trashy, but there are definitely going to be feelings to deal with.  This morning in practice I could feel the muscle tension.  I didn't know this, but caffeine works by creating muscle tension, so when you get off it, your body needs a lot of time to learn how to relax naturally.
  The other thing I'm feeling is fatigue.  Obviously.  Caffeine keeps the cycle going because fatigue becomes the trigger.  One thing I learned through quitting smoking is to reframe triggers as symptoms.  Fatigue is a symptom of caffeine addiction.  It's not going to go away with more caffeine, it's going to become entrenched.  So today I'm going to have to take it easy, live with the fatigue.  Maybe try and get outside to get some oxygen and whatever natural stimulants I can find.
I don't feel like running, but if I run hopefully I'll sleep better.
  Journaling helps to entrench a positive cycle.  It helped with my smoking.  It will help with my eating.

Patience

I've had some interesting and exciting experiences this week as the energy in my tan tien starts to build.  I've connected with the warm liquid center.  I've felt the pulsating electrical energy outside of myself as a living breathing presence.  I had a moment where all my suffering disappeared and I was just bare awareness of the profound peace and abundance in the world.  And I heard a voice telling me that this was now a permanent part of my life.  This happiness.
  But this morning, just a mundane practice.  The impatience builds, wanting to feel the deep satisfying  state of peace and joy.  The impatience that I am coming to learn is the worst block to my progress.
  Impatience means that my desire is coming from the wrong part of my body.  Mostly the desire is in my head, in some place where I conceptualize what happiness is: a mystical state, a constant permanent state of thriving.  And happiness may very well be these things.  But it's not achieved by conceptualizing.  It's achieved by achieving.  Impatience is the vision becoming more important than the work.
  So I bring the desire down to the core loop in my belly.  This is the place where desire will be most quickly and productively satisfied.  But I resist it because this desire, the place where this desire comes from has been so problematized by my life and the culture I come from.  Real healthy desire feels a lot like sexual desire and in my celibate, single mother life, that desire connects me with a place of sadness, fear and abandonment.
  So I go back to visualizing, rather than feeling what happiness is.  It's safer.  It's more comfortable. And my impatience protects me from having to go back there.
  Babysteps.  The smartest thing to do is to bring my awareness for brief moments, brief sessions to that place again and again.  Don't look for the explosive clearing house, orgasmic moment of revelation and transcendence.  Just get used to living, feeling, wanting from that place.  Regularly, throughout the day.
  The goal is not a mystical experience.  The goal is a mystical life.  A regular, habitual connection to this vital, healing, empowering energy, that I hope to share with as many people as I can.