Pain Appreciation

As we moved through our asanas today, we were encouraged to focus on what felt good about each pose. For me, this didn’t always mean what was most pleasurable. Some poses caused various parts of my body to burn like fire but rather than trying to escape, I breathed into it, facing it and feeling it fully. And with my attention focused on the feeling, I felt it morph and change. My very acceptance brought appreciation and often a softening of a tense muscle. 

At present, I’m going through a time off loss. Two of my very good friends, friends I associate with my life here in DC are moving away within the next few months. One to New Orleans, the other to India. Another of my friends has met a man she thinks might be The One and if he is, she’ll be moving to Boston. A childhood friend who I haven’t seen since I was 13 was staying with my family this week but will be going back overseas shortly and I’m not sure when I’ll see him again. All of this has made me feel sad. And the sadness is ok. But I realized that in this pain, there was also sweetness. And if I brought attention to it and sat with feeling of loss I’d be left with how much these people mean to me. How much I care them and how great my life is to have them in it. The depth of my sadness was equal to the depth of my love for them. While life may not be all pleasure, I can find the lesson in the discomfort.

Cleanse

I’m doing a cleanse for the first time in my life. I eat fairly healthy as it is, but a few teachers at my yoga studio were doing this and I impulsively said I was in. It’s not too restrictive, just very natural. Even so, this is rather unusual for me as I don’t really believe in the need for cleanses or detoxes and I hate following rules of any kind, except my own. Especially about food.

So why do this at all? For the same reason I moved two miles from my last apartment, started wearing gold jewelry, took a writing class, started eating at my breakfast nook instead of my couch, tried a new yoga teacher and a new studio, bought leg warmers, and went to a social mixer on a school night. We all have big events or changes in our life. But between those times, we can get in ruts. We get comfortable with the same old thing. We have a tendency to roll into the groove at the center of the bed. 

My groove means spending more time alone, eating the same food, working from home, wearing my comfy pants and sweatshirt and my glasses all day, sticking to the elliptical at the gym and my bi-weekly yoga class. Such is my tendency towards it that the same old thing can make life seem a little small when it goes on for too long. It’s not that I enjoy it as much as there is great comfort in it. Drastic changes are almost easier to manage than the small shifts that can expand our daily routine. They are often overlooked as a “why bother”? Yet often, these small changes can lead into larger ones. Or just change the energy around you. So, I try to make changes, however small, whenever I feel like I’ve been in the same place a little too long.  There may be negative thinking beforehand, they are almost always for the best.

And so, I’m on this cleanse. I’ve already modified what I’ve been prescribed (again with being told what to do), but within the “rules” but it’s the break in routine and putting goodness into my body that I’m focusing on.  

So Long, Sugarless

At the beginning of October, I decided to make some changes. I had been going to an acupuncturist for insomnia since mid-September and she informed me that I had sluggish kidneys. Sluggish kidneys? Really, lady? It sounded silly, but after a few treatments, I was starting to see an improvement in my sleep and a few other issues I hadn’t known were bothering me as much as they were, so I took a little more heed than before. To an acupuncturist, sluggish kidneys had little to do with the organs themselves and more what they represented in the body as a whole. Intuitively, I knew that I needed to detoxify. 

As a nutritionist, I’m not one for detoxifying diets and I wasn’t going to go on one, now. But I knew there were changes I could make to support the weekly pin-cushion sessions. I was talking artificial sweeteners. Sucrulose, a sprinkling of aspartame, and intermittent sugar alcohols were all part of the regularly scheduled program. Now, no conclusive evidence supports that any of these are truly dangerous to the health and I justified that they were better than eating a lot of sugar, but they couldn’t be helping me. I also was addicted to gum. I chewed it when I was in the car and as soon as on piece started to lose flavor, in went another. It was a really crazy habit and, like most habits, a mindless one. But I had quit diet sodas earlier in the year, so surely I could quit this. And while I was at it, why not go off of all prescription medications, as well? For a month. For October. Surely, I could last that long.

I’m pleased to say, I did. November came and I reintroduced an occasional piece of sugarless gum when the social occasion called, experimented a bit with Stevia as a sweetener, took the occasional  Ambien when traveling, a sugar-free baked good (albeit with a better sugar replacement) a few times, but mostly stayed “clean.” December is here and I’m pretty happy to continue along this way.

Here’s the thing. I don’t feel that much different at all. Aside from the mental happiness and ability to sleep more often, my body isn’t really registering the change. I think it did at first, but now it’s back to status quo. Frustration arises and I’m reminded that not all change is visible or felt and that I must have patience. And awareness. For all I know, there may be something else my body is trying to tell me. I owe it to myself to listen.