New Beginnings, Same Life Long Proccess

I am BACK dear friends!

WARNING: You may want to get a juice, go the bathroom, or get a snack-- this is a weeks worth of insights and reflections!

So sorry for the disappearance act kids, but sometimes one has to take time to just be with oneself in order to sort out all that has been stirred up, shuffled around, reawakened and discovered, rejected and then lovingly embraced.

Since eating solid foods again, I feel like I have gone to the moon and back in terms of the emotional and physical ups and downs I have endured.

Essentially, I unfairly have put juice on a throne and convinced myself that by doing a long term feast it would magically "solve all my problems" and I would be trouble free at the "end" of this long hard journey. Well, folks, as much good as it did do, it certainly did not solve all of my problems and all last week I was first very angry at myself and could not stop blaming myself for not "sticking" the landing during my transition, which then spun into complete confusion with what to eat, how to eat and when to eat.

I felt like I was in the middle of a giant million piece puzzle completely overwhelmed with what goes where and what fits with what. Very overwhelming and troubling.

So I had this melt down, which clearly need to happen so that I could get back up and ask for help to gain some perspective.

I am so grateful to my fellow feasters and friends/family for giving me great advise and telling me your human and it is OK not to be perfect! It is ok to enjoy life and enjoy food and enjoy being who you are. Seems easy enough but this is so hard for me...especially in the nutrition realm.

The biggest shift happened just yesterday, when everything that I have been noticing about myself was affirmed by my friend and the very person who inspired me to do this in the first place: Carrie! For those who have not check out her blog yet, GO NOW it is amazing!!

So Carrie is an amazing Acupuncturist (among other things), so I decided it was time for me to try some of her magic out (which I highly recommend you do too!). Shockingly, I have never had acupuncture before and wasn't entirely sure specifically what I was going for, but the more I thought about it and talked to Carrie it became very clear. But first, let me go back a bit.

So many of you have commented on how much my body changed over the course of the feast and the most shocking difference to me was my face. I have always had puffy, water retention and what only can be described as stuck/stagnant energy from my throat up. JFing cleared all that retention out of my face and I could feel energy flowing freely threw that area. But now that I am eating again, it is slowly coming back and I am feeling that foggy, puffy, stuck feeling again.

Carrie explained to me that everything I was describing was linked to my spleen. (She also did a number of other things to determine this including check my pulses and tongue). My spleen I thought? Who would have guessed that this little, very underrated and talked about organ located smack in the middle of some better known power houses like the liver, pancreas and kidneys would be feeling neglected and in need of some serious TLC?

According to Chinese medicine the spleen is considered the "transformer" organ -- one that takes everything including thoughts, food, air, impressions, etc., that comes into our bodies and turns it into something we can actually use ( wisdom, energy).

See I always thought that I had an absorption problem, because it often feels like no matter how "good" or "healthy" I am, my body does not always feel like it is getting the nutrients it needs. But really that is just a symptom of a deeper issue -- transformation. If the spleen is weak and can't transform something into something my body can use, then of course I am not absorbing properly. So it's all connected, of course.

Speaking of which -- bare with me(!)-- the other interesting tidbit about a weak spleen is that it cannot tolerate much sweet in any form. This is another thing I have known about myself but kind of chosen to ignore, especially since being raw because I LOVE fruit, dates, figs, raisins, cookies, cakes, you name it. The spleen does need, however, a very tiny amount of sweet, but in the form of carrots, yams, sweet potatoes, squashes, parsnips, brown rice, quinoa and other whole grains, not concentrated sugars (dried fruit), fruit sugars or sweeteners.

Of course on the juice feast I so very much looked forward to my fruit juices and probably drank: 3 grapefruit, 4 oranges, 6 to 12 apples (depending), a whole small watermelon or pineapple, 4 pears, and 3 kiwis a day!! That is a lot of fruit! Oh, and what about all my coconut water??

Before the feast I would chow down on bags of figs, dates and raisins, which is a ton of concentrated sugars; would not hesitate to indulge in raw treats with tons of agave or raw honey in them and what about the 70 percent or higher chocolate, ahem?? POOR SPLEEN!

Also a weak spleen needs warm, cooked foods and does not like anything too cold or raw. YIKES! So interesting because I actually don't like cold things at all, and have had a hard time with the raw diet this way, because in order for things to warm up to room temp it can take about an hour and often I don't have the foresight or patience to wait that long. This has also lead to cooked food cravings.

Apparently all the yellow vegetables are great for the spleen including cooked root veggies that have some sweetness in them but less than fruit, such as carrots (in moderation), yams, sweet potatoes, squashes as well as whole grains, which I have to say I love and truly miss especially during the winter months.

The spleen also relates to "mother" and relationships to the mother, which is interesting because I definitely have some unresolved issues with my mom that need to be addressed (ughh). The spleen also likes touch, stretching and light exercise. I think that means MORE massages (are you reading this Michael? ;), but to pipe down a bit with the amount of exercise and yoga I do on a daily basis (too much of a good thing).

Carrie lovingly tapped several tiny tiny needles into the meridian points that corresponded to the spleen, kidneys (dark circles under my eyes), and Qi/Yin energy. She also did some points that stopped any bleeding ( we discovered together that the Cats Claw tincture I was putting in my juice was literally clawing my colon and causing some internal bleeding which I was seeing in my colonics and stools at home.), and draw energy up into my head and face. She also put an infrared heating lamp over my middle section which was so soothing and healing.

I felt completely amazing after the session. My bloated face and stomach had subsided substantially and I felt clear and energized yet grounded and at peace with myself and the world.

And this is why I have the courage and enthusiasm to write this post today! Before my treatment I just wanted to hide because I was so ashamed at myself for still feeling confused, making bad food choices and not knowing which puzzle piece fit where in the bigger picture of things. Now I have a focus and a mission: heal my spleen by drinking more spleen friendly juices, really be devoted to following the food combining principals, be very moderate with sugars of all sorts and even cut out fruit entirely for a couple of days and start incorporating small amount of cooked root veggies and grains into my diet at night. I think this is going to help me be a little less ridged, more grounded and be sweeter to myself with out having to actually eat sweets! The sweet qualities come in so many forms and the forms I have been choosing in the past have been holding me back from my true transforming super powers.

Today I had:

AM:

32 oz: water, probiotic, lemon, cayenne pepper, zeolite
2 oz: Aloe vera juice mixed with 8 oz water ( to sooth the belly)
4 Internal movement formula capsules

Lunch:
24 oz carrot, daikon radish, celery, summer squash
24oz cucumber, parsley, celery
32 oz Italian Stallion
24oz Green Lemonade with just one tiny apple (just ONE!)

4pm:

Cucumber, tomato, smoked apple dulse, avocado salad with Nama Shoyu (raw soy-sauce), and raw apple cider vinegar over Mache greens, yum!

8:30pm:

Steamed root vegetable platter over 1/4 cup quinoa with miso/tamari/hempseed oil dressing --deeply satisfying!

10pm:

32 oz: water, probiotic, lemon, cayenne pepper, zeolite
12 oz: Slippery Elm tea (good for soothing a clawed tummy)

NO SWEETS! Wow, this may be a first, EVER!

Other life practices I did today included:

Body/tongue brushing and scraping
Contrast Shower
Rebounding, 30 mins
Light yoga stretches at home
Meditation/Pranayama
Light Walking, 1 hr
Shoulder and neck massage from Michael (now we're talking!;)

So they moral of the story (or epic) is ask for what you need, listen to your intuition and don't place all your eggs in one basket and give it too much power. All the power you need you already have and it is within oneself.

Be flexible and open to change as it occurs because it will and look at your mistakes as blessings and opportunities for growth.

And most importantly try to see and feel the joy in this often fractured life. Within the uniqueness of each of us lies our true beauty. If we were all the same, how boring this world would be. Diversity is a wonderful thing!

Be well and more transformational stories soon.

xxkyle