Due to the rip roaring success I’ve encountered post man cleanse, I’ve decided to embark on yet another adventure in tilling my inner landscape. Today marks Day 2 of my kundalini yoga and juice cleanse. As we enter the season of spring, the body naturally wants to release the heaviness we accumulated in the winter months. According to Chinese medicine, this is the perfect time of year to give your digestion a rest so that energy can be used to deeply heal your internal organs of detoxification, including your liver and gallbladder.
In addition to juicing, I’m blessed to have the opportunity to join my teacher, Kia Miller, and a community of devoted fellow cleansers in morning kundalini yoga classes. These classes incorporate breathwork and yoga postures that complement the detoxifying benefits of the juices as well as provide a solid support base to stay on track when the going gets tough (ie. I want to shove a chocolate bar down my face and promptly wash it down with a mimosa).
I know what you all are thinking… oh great, not another cleanse. What’s up with all the fasting?
The way I see it is, removing a certain crutch item from my life allows me to see my unconscious habits that are blocking me from achieving my highest state of health, vitality and joy. Plainly stated, juice fasting gives me the opportunity to break out of my normal routine and develop new, supportive eating habits. I want to eat the types of foods that will give me the most nutritional bang for my buck, so that I have stores of potential energy just waiting to be transformed into life enhancing projects that positively affect this world. What we eat affects our chemical makeup and in turn, our thoughts and emotions. When we add more alkaline foods like green, leafy vegetables to our diet, our immune systems get a boost, we can slow the aging process, reduce pain and inflammation and improve energy. When we eat well, we feel better and get happier.
I almost didn’t share this one with you because I have undertaken juice cleanses before and they become a sort of sacred experience each time. Although this is a personal journey for me, I’m writing about it because of our joint success with the man cleanse and I hope that you will gain something from this new experience. Allow me to warn you, as the week progresses, I may become an emotional lunatic or space cadet. You never know what to expect when old toxins are being forced out of their comfortable hiding spaces. Be advised. Last spring, when I did this same cleanse, I encountered major emotional reactions to the challenge of maintaining my commitment. I felt irritable, anxious, annoyed and the smallest things set me off. By the end of a week of juice, however, I felt lighter and uplifted, like I was vibrating on another plane, outside of my body. I felt high.
As of right now, I am not experiencing any of the mood swings of the past. I can see how much inner strength I’ve developed as a result of practicing kundalini yoga and meditation, and how the practice has deepened my resolve. The community and support I’m receiving as well as my more peaceful and accepting mentality are making all the difference on Day 2. The energy I once used to plan and prepare meals and digest food is becoming redirected and transformed into fuel to tackle the bigger questions that clarify the goals and purpose of my life here on this planet. In a sense, I become hyper-conscious about my vision for the future.
With this strength of vision and clarity, I can take the small steps each day that will lead me along the unseen path to achieve the goals I have envisioned.
Day 2: Supported.
Perhaps it was the constant diet of blended salad my mother fed me as a vegetarian child or my many adult years spend in the detox-retox cycle, but my stomach just isn’t equipped to handle the many processed foods, meats and cheeses that makeup the mainstream American diet. After consuming these foods, I habitually find myself in the painful throes of diet induced bloat, constipation and many other admittedly un-sexy gastrointestinal issues.
Move. If you’ve been sitting at your desk in front of the computer all day, or if you’re just feeling stuck in a rut, it’s time to get up and get your blood pumping. If you’re in the office and can’t get outside, run in place, jump rope, sprint up and down your office stairs, turn on the Rocky soundtrack and shadowbox to Eye of the Tiger, or dance it out to my girl, Carly Rae Jepson’s ‘Call Me Maybe.’ Studies have shown that just ten minutes of cardiovascular exercise is enough to release feel good endorphins and get oxygenated blood to your brain. Exercise also releases adrenaline, serotonin, and dopamine. These chemicals work together to pack a major feel good punch. Slap a smile on your face, get outside for a brisk walk and soak up some sunlight for a double the endorphin rush.
What Kundalini Yoga Means to Me