Have a great day - eat something healthy.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

A Breakthrough Moment


So yesterday I was sitting in the Denver airport awaiting my final flight of the day to bring me home to Minneapolis. I’d been on the road for a week, visiting friends in Park City, my parents in St. George, Utah, and hitting Las Vegas for one night before the flight home.

That’s the primary reason I haven’t posted as much as I have in previous cleanses – it’s hard to steal away to write when you have limited time to spend with your loved ones. But in addition to that, I have to admit I haven’t felt the most inspired to post this time around. And after some serious consideration, I’m pretty sure I can blame that on my big fat ego. It wants people joining in and participating on the blog – I guess I believe that’s some sort of affirmation for me and my efforts. So when there’s not much activity on the blog I lose enthusiasm.

But I started thinking about that as Mark and I wended our way through the desert toward Vegas on Monday. I realized that I shouldn’t pin so much of my sense of self-worth on other people’s actions (or lack thereof), and that I shouldn’t rely on the affirmations of others as my sole gauge of my value. It also dawned on me that every cleanser has a different experience – some of us are gritting our teeth just to hold on through each day; others are sailing right through without feeling too much change. On top of that, everybody has a life to tend to – that’s challenging enough without adding cleansing to the mix.

I think that’s my lesson this time around – to remember that no one else is responsible for how I feel about myself, and that I can’t control what anybody else does, even if we’re all doing the same thing at the same time. Because even if we’re all doing the same thing at the same time, we’re all experiencing it completely differently.

One of the greatest things about cleansing is that it gives us the chance to wake up to –and through – mindful eating. As we give careful consideration to everything we put in our bodies, that mindfulness translates into other aspects of life. So after we wake up to mindful eating, we can wake up to mindful living – being aware of what’s going on around and inside us in every aspect of our lives.

By being mindful of my feelings of apathy and making the effort to understand them, I learned a valuable lesson about myself, I figured out how to deal with an issue that’s been haunting me my whole life, and now I have some new wisdom that I can carry into other aspects of my life. That’s why I keep cleansing – each time it delivers new, enlightening insights that help me move a little more gracefully through this life.

4 comments:

  1. Hi Ivy,

    I am intrigued by the idea that cleansing does so much more for people than just cleaning the pipes. I respect your ability to admit your challenges to all involved.

    I think there are multiple reasons why people don't join in. 1. Emailing (reply to all) is much easier; people see the words without having to click on a link and 2. There's no BS to post, you just hit "reply to all". Of course, that doesn't leave a public record of it, but it means that people would be responding more, and that could be good.

    At any rate, keep on trudgin' girl. You are an inspiration!!!

    Maggie

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  2. Hey, Maggie - You raise a good point about the email thing. But I started the blog because no one was hitting "reply all." Instead, I was getting one email after another and responding to each of them was taking over my work day! I thought the blog would be a place where we could funnel all sorts of information and have discussions. And for the most part it still is -it was just my greedy ego that wanted or needed more. But I have to say it's pretty liberating to shift the thought pattern (after way too long) that had me relying on others for validation. Now I just have to remember that lesson whenever someone doesn't do exactly what I think they should - you know, I smile at them; they should smile back, etc. What?!! I can't control EVERYTHING and EVERYONE?!! Well, good - it's too much work anyway, right?
    :-) In any case, thank you for your encouraging words, Maggie! They still mean a great deal to me!

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  3. I remember when I moved to Colorado and I'd go running, and say hi to people here who were running towards me from the other direction. Sometimes, they didn't even say hi back, and often when they did it was this muted, forced hello. WTF?! Totally unacceptable!!! I was so offended and turned off by the snooty people here, which is just funny because compared to the East Coast, everyone out here is really friendly. Anyway, finally I stopped caring and it was a very liberating feeling.

    Anyway, I love the blog and is there a recipe for curried pumpkin soup on the blog? That sounds ridiculously good!

    M

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  4. I know exactly what you mean, Maggie! I think I got accustomed to people being friendly with me when I worked at the Parrot - everybody I waited on was happy to see me. But let's be honest - that was because I was carrying food and booze. So now, I will move trayless through the world and not worry whether or not someone says hello back (although, I still don't get it when people aren't friendly after being greeted - what IS that?!!). There is a great recipe for the pumpkin soup in the soup section of the blog - it's called Velvety Pumpkin Curry Soup. Hope you like it!

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