I ended up delaying the start of this fast because of something simple I should have realized, which is that while your body and mind get fantastically clear, peaceful and focused on a fast, that is so not the way it starts out.
First, you detox.
This means you get tired. Your body starts burning stored fuel (body fat) - for a really neat look at what happens when you fast check out this summary. Many toxins are reputedly stored in body fat, so during a fast they are released into the blood stream. You get sluggish, tired, achey. Focus is at a premium.
So maybe I shouldn't have planned to start a fast the same day I had 4 exams scheduled in an online course I was taking. I came to see the error of my ways yesterday, and decided to postpone the fast by one day.
So today was the first day I actually was fasting, and I don't know if it was made easier or more difficult by the fact that I have a raging sore throat. The kind where you keep swallowing just to see if it's still there - oww. Easier to not eat, definitely. More difficult to do anything else without being distracted. by. the. burning.
Other than that, detox symptoms plus cold symptoms just equals sleepy. So I'm think I'm just going to curl up for the night with a movie and a tall glass of club soda ;)
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Detox
Did you ever just wish you could let go of what's poisoning you? Of the limits you impose upon yourself or believe that others impose on you? We are all made of stars, as Moby sings, so the question is, what's stopping us from shining?
Baggage. Old pain. Some fundamental sense of fucked-up-ness, of being a failure. Hurtful patterns we repeat and ceilings we accept. Everyone has them. Everyone has ways of coping with them. Work-arounds. There's no way to let go of these all at once - no opt-out button. Processing your "stuff" is kinda the only authentic way out. And let me tell you, it's scary.
It all started for me when I got spectacularly fired from a job I thought I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I was employed in a challenging field, constantly under pressure, directing a large team of people, and doing so under conditions that ranged from mildy to extremely dangerous. As I was being employed half-way across the globe, being fired also resulted in my being more-or-less summarily deported.
What happened to get me fired is not really important. I could say that I pissed the wrong people off, that I got the boss from hell and there was no pleasing her. I could say I was innocent, but it doesn't really matter. Because it happened, and I believe it happened because, on some fundamental level, I needed it to happen.
I wasn't happy in that field. I thought I was, and there were aspects I loved, but the culture, the goals, the work I was doing was, in fact, pretty soul-destroying, now that I've had a chance to step back and reflect. And just before I took a long-term contract that I believe would have proved this to me in a much slower and more painful way, it all blew up in my face.
I believe we attract a reflection of what we are, what we need, what we believe we'll get. We are constantly defining our worlds around us, and so what's important for me is finding out why the collapse happened. What needed to collapse, in my life?
Over the last few months I've come to see that the answer is - a lot. More on that, later.
I don't mean objectively. There is no objectivity, for one thing - it's your story or my story or the collective narrative of a hundred thousand people - elections, sports, culture. We cannot get out from behind ourselves long enough to zero in on the thing we are observing, to see it in itself. The best we can do is to become transparent, so we can see through to it all more clearly.
And part of becoming transparent, returning to the first point of this post, is to let go of some of the poison, some of the restraints.
One of mine is food. I have some pretty intense emotional involvement with it.
First time I've ever shared that in public - it wasn't as scary as I'd thought.
So I want to take a chance to let myself detox, to let go of the emotional pull of food, to allow some cleansing to take place both emotionally and physically.
Check this out for an overview of the benefits of fasting: http://www.hps-online.com/fasting.htm
I've fasted for up to 10 days in the past, once very memorably in Thailand, so I'm going for 14 days. I'm going to post daily on what it's like, what I'm learning. Fasting is a physical discipline, sure, but it's also a way of blowing your mind wide open. Not in a raving visions sort of way, but in a very soft, centred, quiet and healing sort of way.
When it's over I plan to transition into veganism.
I don't believe there's a magic bullet, but every single step is an awakening.
Follow with me on this one.
Baggage. Old pain. Some fundamental sense of fucked-up-ness, of being a failure. Hurtful patterns we repeat and ceilings we accept. Everyone has them. Everyone has ways of coping with them. Work-arounds. There's no way to let go of these all at once - no opt-out button. Processing your "stuff" is kinda the only authentic way out. And let me tell you, it's scary.
It all started for me when I got spectacularly fired from a job I thought I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I was employed in a challenging field, constantly under pressure, directing a large team of people, and doing so under conditions that ranged from mildy to extremely dangerous. As I was being employed half-way across the globe, being fired also resulted in my being more-or-less summarily deported.
What happened to get me fired is not really important. I could say that I pissed the wrong people off, that I got the boss from hell and there was no pleasing her. I could say I was innocent, but it doesn't really matter. Because it happened, and I believe it happened because, on some fundamental level, I needed it to happen.
I wasn't happy in that field. I thought I was, and there were aspects I loved, but the culture, the goals, the work I was doing was, in fact, pretty soul-destroying, now that I've had a chance to step back and reflect. And just before I took a long-term contract that I believe would have proved this to me in a much slower and more painful way, it all blew up in my face.
I believe we attract a reflection of what we are, what we need, what we believe we'll get. We are constantly defining our worlds around us, and so what's important for me is finding out why the collapse happened. What needed to collapse, in my life?
Over the last few months I've come to see that the answer is - a lot. More on that, later.
I don't mean objectively. There is no objectivity, for one thing - it's your story or my story or the collective narrative of a hundred thousand people - elections, sports, culture. We cannot get out from behind ourselves long enough to zero in on the thing we are observing, to see it in itself. The best we can do is to become transparent, so we can see through to it all more clearly.
And part of becoming transparent, returning to the first point of this post, is to let go of some of the poison, some of the restraints.
One of mine is food. I have some pretty intense emotional involvement with it.
So I want to take a chance to let myself detox, to let go of the emotional pull of food, to allow some cleansing to take place both emotionally and physically.
Check this out for an overview of the benefits of fasting: http://www.hps-online.com/fasting.htm
I've fasted for up to 10 days in the past, once very memorably in Thailand, so I'm going for 14 days. I'm going to post daily on what it's like, what I'm learning. Fasting is a physical discipline, sure, but it's also a way of blowing your mind wide open. Not in a raving visions sort of way, but in a very soft, centred, quiet and healing sort of way.
When it's over I plan to transition into veganism.
I don't believe there's a magic bullet, but every single step is an awakening.
Follow with me on this one.
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