Eating for happiness

Interesting article in NyTimes this morning about the effect of eating a diet high in vegetables on your mood. It is certainly my experience that eating a balanced diet has made me feel better.

And I'm a believer in this healthy gut stability.  Let's see what happens again after a few weeks.

I know today I'm feeling moody and a bit paranoid.  At least I hope it's paranoid.

I'll check in in a week.

Day 5

So the decision to keep fibre low for first few days is working.  I'm quite amazed at how I've been able to do full work days and even travel during what is usually the most difficult days in the cleanse. I felt kid of achey last night, but then I realized this morning that I hadn't been drinking water, and I didn't really have the opportunity to eat many greens. 

Today I'm at a conference, so I'm going to load up on whatever salad they offer. Going to eat a lot of fruit fro breakfast, instead of croissants.  Going to stick to the herb tea.  Going to check now to see if they have special menu for via.

Day 3

These things seem to be working to minimize the usual side effects from day 3:  drinking lots of club soda, being careful about fibre, getting some exercise, hot bath.  Okay, yesterday I skipped the hot bath, and I have a long work day today, so I might relax the rules a bit.  I'm also on the road for a couple of days, so maybe not the best decision to do it this week.  But I can adapt.

I can keep off the caffeine.  I might end up eating some gluten.  I can stay vegetarian. I can definitely give up sugar.  I may end up having a beer.

Or not.  The goal here is awareness.  I'm still in the grip of so many compulsions.  But this month I feel like I'm making some progress in letting them go and in building a more stable and resilient mind.

It helps that I've given up Netflix for the month, that I've done some work on my feelings, that I've been thinking more deeply about my values. The only thing I'm detaching from now is food.

Cleanse again

It's been two years since I did a cleanse.  Two years! 

So, yes, I'm worried about how it's going to start. Reading over my previous journals, I have a few ideas for how to minimize the muscle tension and pain of the first few days.

First, watch out for overloading on fibre.  I'm really going to make greens the foundation of my diet this time.  Lemon, garlic, green onions, cucumbers.  Be careful with the apples. No beans until I'm over the hump day.  I'll get my protein from nuts and nut butter.

I'm going to drink a ton of water, and eat a lot of miso soup.  And I'm going to try and be okay with hunger for while.  I haven't done a cleanse, but I did eat that light vegetarian diet during Vipassana, so I'm not that riddled with toxins.

I hope.

I think I'll also do a lot of standing and walking to get the circulation going.

Nine month check in...

So I've tried to get back into the Zhan Zhuang, but it didn't take.  Maybe because of the difficulty of establishing habits while I'm travelling.

I'm going to answer these questions in the ZZ workbook as a way of establishing goals and staying focussed, and seeing if it's making a difference in my anxiety levels, which are too high right now.


1. How does my anxiety show up in my life:

Usually in the form of personal insecurity, obsessions with things that were said, or unsaid, and worries about my financial and career security.

2. Are there any common patterns you see in the anxiety you feel at home, in you workplace or elsewhere. 

At home I don't sleep well, and have difficulty falling asleep.  I'm too tired these days to take charge of my life.   In work I feel vulnerable, and find myself being obsessive and sometimes aggressive with people.

3. When feeling overwhelmed and in despair:

I eat and watch Netflix.

4. Anxiety is not always obvious to those around us.  If your family and friends were asked you suffered from anxiety, what do you think they would say?

My son:  yeah, definitely.

5. Anxiety can affect our energy level in different ways.  How would you describe your energy pattern. 

I get anxious, default to bad habits, become fatigued and end up in a bad cycle. I also get manic and obsessive.

6. Anxiety can be tiring.  Do you experience a lot of fatigue. 

Enough to make basic tasks like cleaning and meal planning difficult.

7. Anxiety can lead to physical tension.  Do you experience physical tension in any parts of your body. 

Hands.

8. Anxiety can contribute to sleeplessness.  What is your normal pattern of sleep?

Difficulty falling and staying asleep. 

9. Do you wake up in the morning feeling anxious or in a bad mood. 

Sometimes.

10.  Anxiety can lead to digestive problem.  Do you experience this? 

Not really.

11. On basis of experience with Qigong so far, how would you like to use it to help you with anxiety?

I would like to build mental stability and emotional resilience.  I would like to build more stable energy patterns.

12.  What is the main challenge so far in the Qigong exercises I'm practicing. 

Maintaining the practice.  Being patient, and giving myself enough time with warmup and cool down.

Anapana

I've signed up for another Vipassana course in June.  In the application process it became apparent that if I was going to continue with Goenka, I was going to have to make the decision to embrace this technique fully.

I haven't. Especially at the level of anapana, noticing the breath at the nostrils.  I'm a belly breather, and shifting to anapana hasn't been easy.  It's like I feel this massive electrical rod going straight down from my nose to my belly every time I try it.  I'm starting to realize that I'm afraid to make the permanent shift to such shallow breathing. Or even to experiment.

This weekend I devoted most of my practice to it, and tonight in group Vipassana, I had a revelation.  The the awareness I need for Vipassana, and for anapana to feel more intuitive,  is not in the sensation, it's in the equanimity that looks at the sensation. 

I've been experimenting with non-duality, but trying to root my awareness in the sensation, because I didn't want to see the sensation as an object.  This new approach roots my awareness the equanimity with which I view sensation.  It's a subtle distinction, but an important one since equanimity is more stable than any sensation, which by definition is impermanent.

Walking home from meditation, everything felt right in the world for at least a few blocks. Once home, I still struggled with some of the work anxiety I've been feeling lately, but I started to feel a burgeoning confidence that whatever might happen, I had the emotional intelligence to deal with whatever comes up.

Is joy made or given?

I've been feeling more joy in my practices this week.

Not entirely sure why there's been a shift, but it seems to be easier to access and easier to sustain. What may make it a little easier is the shift I've made from seeing emotions, sensations, thoughts, and anything that arises as objects, to simply being in the awareness of whatever comes up.  I am moving towards a more intuitive feeling of non-duality.

In doing this joy becomes less of an object to be grasped, and more of a type of awareness to be experienced. It is a particular colour and feeling that wisdom takes on.

I see my sensations these days as a kind of x,y grid.  Calm and alert on the vertical y grid.  Pleasant and unpleasant running along the x grid.  Joy kind of runs along the pleasant side of x.  But not too pleasant that I have to worry about getting addicted to it. 

Buddhism believes that this joy is in everyone.  But what if it isn't.  What if it is just a construct like any other emotion.

Would it matter?

What matters I guess is whether there is a cost to spending too much time in joy.  Real joy, not manic over excitement or overly heightened expectation.  Is there a cost to resting in quiet the confidence that there is enough for myself and for everybody, that happiness is not only possible, but sustainable, and that joy can be the thread that binds us.   Is there an advantage to living in the sustained fantasy of deprivation and alienation, self hatred that we believe is natural?

Put this way it's so obvious, and yet we are pulled towards the bad dream again and again.