Friday, May 14, 2010

Day 11: PanchaKarma - Ayurvedic Cleanse

Today I woke up and after much 'purgation' - felt like a million bucks! I'm off caffeine and I feel awake in the morning - unbelievable! Usually it takes me all day to have any kind of alert sensations. Not today... I felt awake since the minute I woke up and have been feeling great ever since. I'm on the post-purgation mono diet which means I can eat only fruit in the morning, vegetables at lunch and kitcheri at dinner.

I met my mom at a conference then came home, got some computer work done and walked the dog. At 4 I met up with Vijaya for my last massage. Today we are focusing on the nervous system. I didn't have to get undressed because we were doing a different type of treatment today. So I got under the covers and Vijaya pulled out some large uncooked doughnut like things. She proceeded to craft them one by one onto my face to create little dams for my eyes. Next she heated up ghee and slowly poured it into the dam - asking me then to open my eyes. I was scared at first but it didn't end up hurting at all - it actually felt really soothing. She did this to both eyes and let them sit for 20 minutes each while I rolled my eyeballs around.

Ghee has some amazing properties and has been used in Ayurvedic medicine for years. You can learn more about it here: http://www.amritaveda.com/learning/articles/ghee.asp



Next she did some breathwork with me. This was a truly unique experience. She had me breath myself into a very meditative state of mind and then asked me to locate tension in my body. At that moment I could barely find tension but she suggested I look inside at my jaw and sure enough a sort of clenching feeling was present. She started me down a path of questions to lead me to the memory of when the clenching began. I was brought back to childhood and I remembered grinding my teeth at night. She asked me why I started to grind and the feelings that arose had to do with my parents' separation when I was little (like 2 or younger). This went on for a while and she hand-held me through an emotional journey that I didn't even know I was harboring pain over. The more we spoke and the more I cried the less my jaw felt tight. Then something really cool occurred... The emotional path we were on lead us full circle (to my original intention for doing the cleanse) and it brought me to a realization of what has kept me from intimacy and commitment in relationships. It was a very psychological moment - she brought to my attention the family dynamics that my unconscious automatically defaults into within my relationships. For the last while I just became very present with my true feelings for Peter and just experienced an overwhelming sensation of love, openness and vulnerability.

I came home that night feeling so soft, loving and happy.

What an amazing week!

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