Clearing Out the Junk Drawer; or, Eka Pada Rajakopatasana

I mentioned last week in my post about fasting that one of the reasons we fast is to clear the mind of clutter that gets in the way of our spiritual growth.  So it follows that sometimes when I am doing these cleanses, crap comes up that has been buried for a while.  Last night I had one of those experiences.  Last night, during a very lengthy pigeon pose, my yoga teacher asked us, "If you were to die tomorrow, what would you regret having never done?"

It is highly relevant that I mention the asana because my yogi friends will recognize it as two things:  (1) One of those poses that people either love or hate, and (2) The pose that tends to make people break down and cry.  And my teacher knew the exact moment to ask such a simple, yet poignant, question.  I knew the answer immediately.  But I'll get to that.


Eka Pada Rajakopatasana--Pigeon Pose

Yoga practitioners are keenly aware of the connection between the body and emotions, aware in ways that non-yogis might consider superstitious.  But I'm telling you, this stuff is for real.  Take half pigeon pose.  In her piece entitled "What Your Favorite Yoga Pose Says About You,"  yoga teacher and blogger Lisa Agostoni points out:

"Subtlely, pigeon is connected to both the second (svadhishthana) and fourth (anahata) chakras. The second chakra is located at the sacrum or pelvic basin, and is the seat of our emotions, pleasure and sexuality. The fourth or heart chakra is where we cultivate love, compassion, and self-acceptance."

This pose opens our hips, the place where we tend to carry all kinds of emotional baggage, and in its full expression, our hearts, which we often close off when we should be opening them.  One of my own teachers refers to this pose as the one where we "clean out the [emotional] junk drawer." 

I love this pose. 

So back to me, in this pose, being asked poignant questions about my life.  Drum roll, please:

The thing I would most regret if I were to die tomorrow is that I have never publicly* taken responsibility for my part in the rift that has grown between me and my brother, and I have never told him that I am sorry for anything I said or did that may have hurt him.  I have never told him that I feel regret for all of the hours, days, months, and years spent avoiding him so as to avoid a confrontation.  I have never told him that I regret every word I said or wrote that was devisive.  I have never told him that, if I could back pedal 13 years, I would change the way I reacted to everything.  I have never told him that I am sorry for every ounce of gasoline that I ever threw on a flame, every public appeal I ever made for people to take my side, and every angry thought I ever had toward him and his wife.  So here it is.  This is me, acknowledging that everything is wrecked and that I am partially responsible for that wreckage.

I am clearing out the junk from our past and throwing it all away, and I am opening my heart to you now.

A friend of mine may have lost a brother today.  I am not sure yet--the news is still cryptic.  But what I do know for sure is that life can change in a blink of an eye.  Tomorrow, one of us could be gone.  I'm tired of the wasted years, and I just want to start over.  Bygones are bygones.  All is forgiven.  And all of those other cliches. 

You can call me any time.

 

 

*By "publicly" I mean that I have never admitted to any of this anywhere but in my own heart.

Why I Went Vegan, Where I Get My Protein, and the Answers To Other Such Questions

I frequently have people ask me, "So why did you decide to go vegan?"  And I never have a quick answer.  I think I need to come up with one.

The second question I frequently have people ask me is, "What do vegans eat?"  For that one there is a quick answer:  "Anything without a face."  Or I just show them a picture like this, my dinner tonight:

Raw vegan zucchini and carrot noodles with raw marinara

Anyway, back to why I eat a vegan diet.  First I have to admit that I am an almost full time vegan.  There are still the occasional moments when I falter and eat ice cream.  Sure, there's So Delicious coconut milk ice cream, but it just isn't the same as Mitchell's.  I'm working on that.  It doesn't happen too often.

I dropped meat after reading Jonathan Safran Foer's book Eating Animals.  If I back up a little, I can say that I started considering a vegan diet when I noticed that nearly every yoga instructor I had ate a vegan diet, and that there must be a reason for it within the yogi lifestyle.  Ends up there is, but I will get to that.  So back to Foer's book.  In addition to Jillian Michaels' book Master Your Metabolism and the documentary film Food, Inc., Eating Animals really made me stop and think about where my food is coming from.  Not only did I not like where my food was coming from, but I didn't like what I was reading about the way animals were being treated in factory farms.  I realize that not all meat manufacturers are equal, but it came down to spending a boatload of money tracking down grass fed, free range, organic animal products or just not eating animals at all.  Since my research indicated that I couldn't even trust labels like "free range" or "natural," I decided to just drop everything.  And if I had it my way, the whole family would have dropped animal products with me, but I have a husband with a mind of his own it seems.  Bummer.

So I won't get into the details of the above texts--I encourage you to look into them yourself--but I think I can think of three major reasons why I decided to follow a vegan diet.

1. Scientific research is increasingly showing that a plant based diet is the most healthy diet a person can follow.  Seriously.  You don't have to worry about cholesterol anymore (vegan foods have none), your blood pressure will probably drop, you'll feel like you have more energy, even your skin will look nicer.  I have found that I have far less trouble with mucus congestion--this is from a girl who used to be addicted to nasal spray.  As long as you don't spend all day drinking olive oil, eating nut butters out of the jar, or baking vegan cupcakes, you probably will not have to worry about gaining weight, either, but that's more relative than you'd think.  There are a lot of vegan foods that are high in fat and calories, so people still need to make wise decisions.

2. I feel better knowing that I am not contributing to the harm of other sentient beings.  This is where the yoga part comes in.  It is essential to living a life of peace that we not harm others.  This includes even the milk cows (that are typically fed an improper diet and kept cooped up in a little stall and etc...).  I feel that it would be hypocritical for me to claim to live a yoga lifestyle and still cause harm to animals.

3. The meat industry is bad for the environment.  Anyone who is truly concerned about carbon emissions needs to stop eating meat.  The U.S. cattle industry creates more carbon dioxide emissions than all of the automobiles combined.  I learned that at a local science museum, so if you'd rather believe the cattle industry than science, you go right ahead.

Now as far as do vegans get enough protein (nuts, seeds, beans and legumes, leafy greens), do they get enough calcium (those orange juice cartons aren't lying about their calcium content), and can they build muscle (there are many, many vegan athletes out there), the answer is "YES" for all of the above provided that one does a couple of simple things:  (1.) Eat a balanced diet (good advice for anyone) and (2.) Exercise (again, good advice for anyone).  So you can stop worrying about your vegan friends now.  Your worry is really only your way of telling your vegan loved ones that you don't trust them to make sound decisions themselves.  ;)

So why did I go vegan?  I guess that is the best and quickest way I can sum it all up.  But if you ever want to have a conversation about it, I do love talking about food.  And eating it.  Come over and we'll do dinner.

Water, Water Everywhere

28 Days of Fasting Day 2:  Water.

Have you ever been so completely dehydrated that no amount of water could quench your thirst?  I think that last night I learned to never, ever go to bed thirsty.  I had a couple handfuls of these new crackers while I was packing Gavin's lunch and I swear they sucked all the water out of my body, including my brain.  Seriously. You have to understand that none of this makes any sense because I probably drank a gallon of water yesterday. I don't think I will ever eat Crunchmaster sea salt gluten- free crackers again.  Ever.

As it would follow, I woke with a ridiculous migraine. So I had a glass of fresh juice for breakfast, took my daily vitamins and my magnesium supplement, and sucked down about 3 bottles of Aquafina on the way to work (not too hard to do since there was an accident on 90 E, making my drive take nearly an hour).  I was trying to not take any medication.  I don't know why I bother trying to avoid medication because nothing else ever works.  Listen, people.  Coffee doesn't work; in fact, it just sucks more water out of your body.  Don't do that.  Excedrin Migraine?  Gimmick.  Save your money.  If it's getting rid of your headaches, you probably don't have migraines.

But I digress.  What I really want to talk about is water.  The migraine just got me a little off track because, well, dehydration can cause one.  And I am not kidding when I say that I think those crackers gave me a hideous migraine.

I borrow the following information from "Why Your Body Needs Water: For Dummies." Since it is allegedly written for idiots, I hope it is clear enough:

"You need water to

• Digest food, dissolving nutrients so that they can pass through the intestinal cell walls into your bloodstream, and move food along through your intestinal tract.
• Carry waste products out of your body.
• Provide a medium in which biochemical reactions such as metabolism (digesting food, producing energy, and building tissue) occur.
• Send electrical messages between cells so that your muscles can move, your eyes can see, your brain can think, and so on.
• Regulate body temperature — cooling your body with moisture (perspiration) that evaporates on your skin.
• Lubricate your moving parts."

We all hear all the time about how we need to drink about 64 oz of water a day, but how many people really listen?  We think that Red Bull, Mountain Dew, and coffee are what we need to wake up in the morning.  We think that a sugary Pepsi is a good pick-me-up.  We are fooled by marketing ploys called "Vitamin Water" (please...) and we have been brainwashed into thinking that Gatorade is what we need when our electrolytes are low. 

I have a secret.  Just. Drink. Water.

Last summer, I was roped into being a den leader for my son's cub scout daycamp for a week.  It was about 95 degrees outside all week, and we couldn't stress enough that these kids needed to be refilling their water bottles every single time they walked past the drinking fountain at the campground.  Yet some of these parents kept sending their kids with big bottles of Gatorade, and then the kids didn't want to run out of Gatorade so they would purposely NOT drink enough.  Because a 24 oz bottle of Gatorade is enough to last a kid eight hours in the sun on a hot summer day, right?  There was one kid who kept actually adding packets of artificial sweetener to his Gatorade--and this was the kid whose mother made her own babyfood and fancied herself to be all about feeding her kids the healthiest foods.  It was ridiculous.  Parents, please just give your kids water.

The next time you think about buying that ridiculously overpriced bottle of high caffeine, high fructose corn syrup laden "energy drink," consider a good old fashioned bottle of H20 instead.  You will save a lot of money and you might just be surprised at how much better you feel once your body is getting what it actually needs.   If that isn't enough incentive, think about the countless numbers of unnecessary calories you consume every time you pick up a Frappacino or a Powerade.  I don't know about you, but I like to save my calories for real, chewable food. 

A New Goal

Today I decided that my new goal is to work out and lose enough weight so that my boobs will not constantly be falling out of the top of my shirt when I am in an inversion....or smothering me in halasana.  If you think that was TMI, deal with it.  I'm tired of them getting in the way and I am not willing to do anything unnatural, so this is all the more incentive to really change my habits overall this time and not go back to making oven fries every time I crave greasy foods because I rationalize that if I make it myself, it's good for me.

Vaguely uneventful day here on fast day 1 since this is vegan week so not much has changed for me.  I am amazed that I am not tired because I slept so poorly last night, but I've had two glasses of fresh juice in the place of coffee, which I think really helped.

On the super awesome front, however, is that I got into headstand without using the wall for the FIRST TIME EVER!!  It was so exciting that once I realized I'd done it, I fell over.  What is amazing is that it almost seemed easy.  That takes more core strength than you'd imagine.  I must be getting somewhere.

That's really my only update for today as far as the fasting thing goes, other than that I bought about 3 lbs of grapes for then the sugar cravings start to kick in.  Which will be soon.  Quitting sugar is harder than quitting alcohol, caffeine, or smoking.  I know because I have quit all of them and I'm telling you, sugar is evil evil evil.

Don't trust the sugar man.

Moses, Jesus, and Me

Oh, hi.  It's been a while.

Tomorrow I begin my fourth 28-day-cleanse.  It's hip to call these things "cleanses" or "detoxification" or whatever these days, but what it boils down to is that I am going to be taking part in a four week long fast.  It's not a complete fast, like Moses or Jesus wandering through the desert for 40 days with nothing but water, sore feet, and temptation, but it's a fast nonetheless.  And it got me thinking about how in the past, I don't feel as if I have taken as much advantage of these fasts as I could have...in fact, the last time I was downright lazy about it.  Sure, I only ate--or didn't eat--what I was supposed to and all that, but fasting isn't just about what we (don't) eat.

I've been reading up on fasting the past few days, and it seems to me that every major spiritual group that fasts (which is pretty much all of them) does so with these primary reasons in mind:

1. To deprive the body of earthly things that clutter our minds and get in the way of spiritual growth;

2. To make a path for greater spiritual connection with God or the gods or the Self or the Universe whatever-it-is;

3. To regain control of ourselves--to practice self-disipline, self-control, patience, and endurance; dare I say "to resist temptation?";

4. To reflect on the fact that there are others out there who live in deprivation every day;

and, in addition to that, traditional Ayurvedic medicine adds that

5. By abstaining from eating--either by eating only simple foods or by abstaining from food completely--we give the digestive system time to rest and the body time to get rid of any impurities that are weighing us down or causing us illness.  It is a time of rest and rejuvenation for the system.  It is restorative.

So, why am I blogging about this?  In particular, I have read that Orthodox Christians and Muslims specify that one should "suffer in silence." To announce to the world, "Hey!  I'm fasting!  And I am soooo awesome and spiritual and, oh yeah, soooo dying for a plate of french fries!" is tacky and defies much of the spiritual purpose of fasting.  However, I have decided to blog about my experience because: (a) I am supposed to keep a journal anyway, and last fall I was totally terrible at keeping my journal.  Perhaps blogging will motivate me.  (b) I come across information that I find interesting and I like to share with others.  (c) I like to take pictures of my food and post them for the world to see.  Food is fun.  And (d) I hope that maybe my journey will inspire others to try a fast sometime.  I actually find it exciting.

The specifics of this fast are as follows.  First and foremost, there are no processed foods allowed, no caffeine, no sugar, no alcohol.  Only whole, vegan foods.  Week 1 is vegan whole foods week.  Week 2 is raw foods only--that's where it gets interesting.  You may think this seems like a very boring way to eat, but you'd be amazed at what can be done with plant based foods, a Vitamix, and a good food dehydrator.  Week 3 is juice only.  The longest I have made it is 5 1/2 days.  I debated just doing a fruit fast this time because I tend to binge after a juice fast and wreck everything I worked so hard to achieve, but I am still thinking that over.  And week 4 is raw foods again, slowly introducing easily digestible foods to the system.  I always feel awesome until week four when I break down and buy something fried or make a grilled veggie cheese sandwich.  I need to work on that.

I am also adding something that I haven't done before.  I am going to focus this month on the Niyama Tapas.  More on that later, but it seems to fit pretty well with what I am trying to accomplish, which is to train myself to stick with the hard stuff when my feet are in the fire.

So there you have it.  Day 1 tomorrow.

Namaste.

Random, underdeveloped thought of the day:

I was just reading another article about another conservative politician toting along the same old worn out rhetoric about women serving in combat situations (which is to say they shouldn't because of cliches X, Y, and Z).

Then follows the inevitable argument that if women want all the same military rights and priviledges that men have, then women should also have to register for the draft.  Fair, unfair, to draft or not to draft, to send into combat or keep her in the kitchen, yadda yadda yadda... really, the arguments are ultimately all moot *if* one thinks about it this way:

If we can't manage to draft enough people into the military to win a war--if the public doesn't support a war enough to organically generate an all-volunteer military to fight for a particular cause--and if we truly live in a democracy where the law of the land is determined by the will of the people--then maybe we shouldn't be fighting said war in the first place.

I say it isn't an argument of whether or not women should be included in the draft.  I say the only just option is to end the draft altogether. 

Besides, we don't need bodies anymore.  We have secret buttons and "smart bombs" to do the work...kind of like replacing factory workers with machines, only with more pizzaz. 

Go ahead.  Tell me all the reasons why I am woefully mistaken.  John was always my favorite Beatle because he was a dreamer. 

Things that cross my mind lately but I don't have the discipline to sit down and write about them

Let's start with girls.  As I got older I learned to appreciate the need for a solid group of girlfriends, you know, in a Secret Life of Bees kind of way, but growing up I had a lot of trouble liking or trusting other girls my age.  Now that my daughter is in kindergarten, I relive the horror.  I guess I didn't realize--or had forgotten?--that girl bullying starts so damn early.  It started when she came home from school one day and didn't want to sing in the school concert because her "sweater [was] silly."  (It was not silly--it was a black, red and white scottie dog sweater and it was awesome.)  Apparently some girl at school made fun of her outfit and told her she didn't sing pretty, so she wanted to just skip this concert that she'd been excited about for over a week.  Somehow I convinced her to change into something that would make her feel more comfortable (it took her an hour) and the show went on.  But in weeks to follow, my daughter stopped wearing some of her favorite clothes.  The zebra print leggings got pushed into the back of the drawer, the good Nike athletic shoes were all but forgotten, and much fancier outfits--like, way overkill for a day at school--started being worn.  As I see it, here's what's going on.  First, the girl bully puts her down because the girl bully is a future Regina, queen of all she surveys, and she wants to be the alpha girl.  I thing the other problem is that "Regina" has a crush on my daughter's little boyfriend, so she keeps pulling my daughter aside and saying that *E doesn't want to play with my daughter anymore. 

Today I found it interesting that my daughter chose new playmates at recess--all of them boys (including her older brother).  And "Regina" wanted to play freeze tag, too, but my daughter wouldn't let her.  This is tit for tat, as Queen Bee excluded my daughter in the same way earlier this week.  So then I have to have this talk with my daughter about not excluding poeple, remember how she made you feel, how do you think she felt when you excluded her... Then I stopped and said, "T, I know you don't feel like that girl deserves your kindness, and you're probably right.  She hasn't been very nice to you.  But we all have to learn to be nice even to the people who aren't particularly nice to us.  People who aren't nice are usually angry or unhappy about something, so if you think about that, you might be able to see them differently."

But beneath this advice what I am really thinking is, "That girl's lousy sense of self esteem, which makes her an insecure little bully, is going to plague my daughter for at least the next 5 1/2 years, or at worst, the next 12 1/2 ." 

And how could I forget to mention the theft from my daughter's locker?  (They don't actually lock, so I use the term loosely.)  One week it's her new chapstick.  The next week it's her mini bottle of hand sanitizer.  Then it was her brand new Little Mermaid umbrella, which she had bought the day before with her own money.  The unbrella was returned, but not the other things.  That is, unless you count that my daughter saw her hand sanitizer in another girl's hands and stole it back.

In short, I have decided that where other people's kids are concerned, I'd rather they stayed home and left my baby alone.  I've made the obligatory comments like "Maybe they are just jealous of you because they like your boyfriend," and "Well I think that outfit is cool!" and "Who cares what other people think?  You do what you like to do, and if those other girls don't like it, find better friends."  And come on, parents, we all know we're spewing loads of bullshit that most of us don't even believe (e.g. "Who cares what other people think?" because we all do, really).

So what I am probably doing is teaching my child to be like me--and like her grandma--and keep being nice to people who treat her like dirt when really she should just be telling them to hit the highway.  'Cause let me tell you; I've spent years trying to kill people with kindness (one of these days I might even write about the story of my principal and the birthday cake I brought for him that I am 99.9999% sure he threw in the garbage--which would make a ton of sense in retrospect because unbeknownst to me, he spent the entire year trying to figure out how he could fire me and promote his friends instead).  So much for extending kindness.  The guy was having a really, really bad week and I thought a cake might perk up his spirits. So the lesson I learned is don't be nice because it just makes you look like a fool in the end. 

Other things.

I think I should start making a top ten list of dumb things people say when they find out I am eating a vegan diet.  This just never stops.  I know these people are well meaning, but...No, I am not anemic.  Yes, I am getting my essential vitamins and minerals.  No, I do not need that much protein--and you probably don't either--but thanks for the suggestions.  Yes, I understand your theories about how humans were always meant to be omnivores, but you see, we no longer live in caves and small huts where if we don't hack down a few bears or buffalo for the winter, we will be likley to starve (and maybe even freeze) to death.  We now have grocery stores where we can buy anything at any time.  If I need essential fat, I'll have an avocado.  My nuts and nutbutters give me protein.  I can buy watermelon in the middle of February for God's sake. 

So.  First off, my life choices aren't funny.  They are also not ill informed, ignorant, or misguided.  When I have company at my house, I don't tell them that the meat they are eating is killing them.  I don't call up omnivorous friends and tell them that they are more likely to get cancer than I am (that's true, by the way).  I don't make rude comments about other people's orders when I go to a restaraunt.  Who are these people and at what point did they learn that they know everything?  It's ridiculous.  If you're one of those people, do everyone a favor.  Shut up.

I guess that's all for now.  This isn't a particularly eloquent or long entry, and it's likely dreadfully uninteresting, but I needed to get back on the wagon.  I come up with ideas for things I'd like to write about on almost a daily basis, but life gets in the way, right?