The Aversion Loop

In the last two months, I've made some very significant progress stepping out of my craving loop. I'm close to being at a healthy weight.  I find it easier not to escape into Netflix, or shallow web surfing.  I'm having an easier time turning off work obsessions and anxiety. I'm feeling more mastery over the present than I ever have.

Then there's my house. I know I made a conscious decision not to get too worried about that while I focussed on my weight.  But now I need to get serious about it.  I can't live like this anymore!  I don't want to live like this anymore.  I cannot think of a better indicator of my liberation, to know that I am no longer caged in chaos and squalor.

There I said it out loud. Squalor. Such a horrible word. It hits me in the most vulnerable part of my heart.

It dawned on me yesterday, as I was coming out of one day Vipassana, that my weight was the consequence of a craving loop, my environment is part of an aversion loop.  The goal of Vipassana, Goenka says is to liberate us from the loop of craving and aversion.  Through diligent body scan we make intuitive the knowledge that all sensations are the result of mind hitting matter, that all sensations are changing because they are a result of change.  Every sensation is a loop that is iterating or de-iterating.  The mind's illusion is that we can fix them in some way.  Make the nice sensations run forever. Make the bad sensations disappear.  Never going to happen, because we die.

These craving and aversion loops that we develop in our efforts to control sensations are the root of suffering.  Stop the reactivity and the weeds die first.

Yesterday I had one of the best mediation experiences.  Not because I felt wonderful sensation, though I did.  But because I had a profound insight about the nature of meditation and hormonal balance.  I realized that what I was doing, as a I brought more equanimity into my body scan, was activating and stabilizing my serotonin, much in the same way I have been stabilizing my insulin.

Much of my life I've been running on dopamine, the craving hormone.  It's also the learning hormone, but it's not the wisdom hormone.  In meditation we cultivate equanimity, the serotonin starts to pump from the gut, where we have the most serotonin receptors.  Combine this with metta, lovingkindness and compassion meditation and we get a nice cocktail with some oxytocin mixer. Know this, and you know joy. Wisdom comes from creating the circumstances to keep all these parts in the right balance.

One of the reasons I had a such a great meditation was that I really focussed in the morning, on the bus along Hochelaga,  on my intention.  To liberate myself and others. I felt that intention deep in my heart.Every time the mind wandered, I brought myself back to the why.

I can apply that to my environment. I can transcend this aversion loop and step out, forever. I made this prison.  I can walk out of it.

Fast-- Day 5

I'm going to end this fast tomorrow.

It's been a great experiment.  I've lost a surprising amount of weight.  I've been able to work well with a clear mind.  But I'm still hungry!  Not ravenous, but I'm tired of it. 

I haven't had the upsurge in energy that everyone claims, although I feel quite stable, and that's nice.  This may be because I'd already switched to a low carb healthy fat diet a couple of weeks before, so already had that keytone rush experience (which I remember mostly as insomnia!)

I have a couple of meetings tomorrow and I want to feel sharp, so I plan to transition very slowly.  I also plan to continue intermittent fasting so that I can continue to lose weight and get closer to what is considered healthy.

Feeling pretty healthy now though, and I didn't have to run a 10K for it.

Fast--Day 4

Hoped I'd wake up on day 4 feeling magically free of hunger, like everyone says you do.

In my case, everyone is wrong.  I'm hungry.  Not ravenous, but in a dull ache kind of way. The kind of hunger you feel around 11 a.m.  I'm feeling at 6 a.m.

But other than that I'm feeling aware.  Like I'm waking up from a dream in which I was ravenously hungry, but it was something of a delusion.

An hour later after coffee and a litre of water, I feel better. Not hungry, light and relaxed.  Feeling ready to grow.

I looked in the mirror after brushing my teeth and said to myself "you're never going to be fat again." It felt like a fact.  It was a fact.

Later in the day I had coffee with my brother.  We had a quite emotional conversation about my mother, but I felt very even keeled.

Fast --Day 3

I'm still hungry.  Not ravenous, but I miss food.  Dealing mostly with the psychological cravings, but also feeling a little slow and spacey.

This might sound a little morbid, but this morning I was thinking that this might be the best way to die. When I googled this, it turns out that hospice workers say that terminally ill patients who starve themselves experience much better deaths than those who die with medical intervention.

I'm starting to feel quite spiritual about this fast.

Went for quite a long walk with Ben.  Felt slow and relaxed, as though I'd just gotten out of the bath.  Talked him through some emotional trauma.  I'm feeling hungry, but quite stable.

Fast--Day 2

It is said that day 2 is the hardest.  Hormones increase like grhelin, which signals hunger, and cortisol, which raises blood sugar to deal with stress.

From the chart I read in a blog, by Dr. Jason Fung, a Toronto nephrologist, Ghrelin and cortisol is highest in the morning of day 2.  I certainly felt that this morning, but by 8 a.m. it seems to be passing.

I expect about three really strong waves throughout the day.  But I've been learning a method for dealing with them over the last month.  Don't fight it. Dial anxiety down to curiosity.  Recognize that the hunger is a fact. Sit with it and notice what if feels like in every part of the body.  Get specific with the notations. Sometimes I even time it.

Then, notice how it feels when it passes, which it always does.  Than hunger doesn't last is also a fact. What I'm trying to do is make that more intuitive.

The brain adjusts.  It pulls the energy it needs from stored fat.  It's been built to do this, and it may even suffer if it never gets the chance to exercise this mechanism.  There's a time to grow, and a time to decompose.

This is the theory behind fasting for health.

Later

Interesting article on how fasting can re-boot metabolism.  Interesting in terms of my post-traumatic growth theme:

Fast--Day 1

This is a new adventure.

A couple of months ago I started a serious commitment to mindful eating, with the goal of liberating myself from cravings.

It's been going well.  I've been riding waves of hunger like a pro.  I've lost weight.  I feel healthier.  But I'm curious about a phenomenon I've read about, in which hunger disappears on the fourth day of a water fast.

From the accounts of fasts I've been reading, David Rakoff for one, eventually fasting produces an inner calm, less irritation, more clarity.

This seems daunting, but also exciting.  I can't image a life without hunger.  Eating mostly for health, sometimes for pleasure, not feeling driven and imprisoned by food, running hours every week just to keep my weight stable.

I'm going to do it!

I'm nearing what would be dinner time, and yes I'm hungry, but I'm full of hope and expectation.

From what I've read, day 2 is the worst day.  I know I've gone as long as 48 hours in the past, so I know I can do it.  Still...

Forgiveness

It's been a growth week.

Moved into a new office.  Got information that my non-profit received a huge grant and charity status. But also had a project that was dear to my heart cancelled.

This weekend I've been meditating and fasting.  Letting go of weight and letting go of grudges. If I want to be an executive, the one habit I need to change is grievance collecting.  Those were the old days of recreational negativity.

I feel like I need to learn some new habits of recreational joy.

The first step is learning how much better forgiveness feels than fear and anger. The next step is to convince my brain of that so that in time it will become more intuitive.

The hormone connection

Read a book in one sitting yesterday that has truly changed my perspective on just about everything. The Obesity Code by a Toronto based clinician Jason Fung.

He makes an impossible to argue case for the hormone insulin as the ultimate (as opposed to proximate cause) of the obesity epidemic. Lower your insulin levels, by reducing sugar and simple carbs, eating less, eating more healthy fats and practicing intermittent fasting, and you'll reset your insulin levels, lower insulin resistance,  lose weight and stop regaining it.  Also lower your cortisol spikes so that you can sleep better and better regulate blood sugar. It's really that simple.

The Eat Right Now mindful eating program that I've been following has prepared me well for that challenge.  I'm more conscious of the difference between real hunger and cravings caused by low blood sugar and stress. I'm developing the habit of falling asleep to loving kindness meditation.  I think I could take on intermittent fasting and switch over to a healthy fat diet.

But this morning, during meditation, I started thinking about all the other hormones and how meditation works to balance them.  Meditation increases serotonin, the hormone of equanimity.  And oxytocin, the hormone of lovingkindness.  It lowers cortisol, the stress hormone that increases blood sugar in bloodstream.  And it increases melatonin, which helps to regulate sleep.

It increases dopamine, the joy hormone, which can help us recalibrate to what really, deeply, feels good.

Apparently it can increase your DHEA, a growth hormone that can reduce cellular aging.

Could it be that in the end, enlightenment is basically the state of having a right and intuitive balance of hormones?

Loving Kindness week

It's hard to live a life that isn't motivated by cravings.  It means being motivated by love, and that takes time to make intuitive.

So it makes sense, as I'm trying to change my eating habits, to take the time to make loving kindness the mission of my life.

In his new book, Mingyur Rinpoche repeats the belief that sitting still is the most radical and impactful thing we can do for the world.

This is a difficult thing to believe because it goes against all the learning we have received.  Action is what changes things.  Action is the only thing that changes things and can bring about happiness.  Or so we are taught

But sitting still is action.  It is the action of connecting to the driving force of the universe. It is the action of liberating ourselves from the suffering that chaos and poor habits create.  It is the action of recalibrating our lives with the deepest and most enduring wisdom.  It is the action of being determined to know reality as it is, not as we want it to be.