Day 12: PanchaKarma - Ayurvedic Cleanse

I feel too good.

No seriously, feeling this good first thing in the morning... it's unheard of. I don't have any cravings. No desperate 'give me my morning caffeine before someone gets killed' feelings and no 5pm 'where's my smart cocktail?' cravings. All day today I simply felt content.

This evening I went out 'drinking' with some friends and happily drank soda water the whole time. I felt so energetic and young - not the usual 'I'm too old to be out this late' feeling I usually get around 10pm. I didn't crave any of the drinks and therefor I never felt like I was missing anything. Usually if I choose not to drink at a restaurant or bar - I'll sit there longing to the entire time. For the first time in a long time I feel free from my addictions.

I'm off the ghee first-thing-in-the-morning and am just eating simple macrobiotic style foods that balance my dosha. Tonight though I had some spicy/hot food which is thought of as unbalancing for Pitta's and indeed it was a little too much for my stomach post mono diet etc.

I miss meeting up with Vijaya. I keep coming back to what she said the first day about the word Rasa and building a rapport with one another. I didn't know what she was talking about really when she first said this - but I do now.

It's so rare that we stop and allow anyone to cherish us, to honor us, to speak to our divine selves, to call to our true being. What a gift to have had the opportunity to create such a safe and beautiful rapport with Vijaya and exist in a room with such a gifted healer/spiritual guide as she transformed me.

Think for a second... have you recently been honored, worshiped, blessed as if you were an expression of the divine? Maybe it's about time?

It's funny... we get so attached to the agenda of our egos we often lose sight of the reality of our true being. We'll adamantly defend our ego's story about how we're not good enough or not worthy enough and we'll convince others of it too - teaching them how to treat us like doormats and making sure we don't get what we want out of life. It's such a strange human tick to be so self-sabotaging and insecure. While we do it - we feel like we're doing it to be nice or not-imposing or something but really it's about the ego being selfish... doing anything it can to remain relevant. Cause the truth is that we are all divine. When we're acting like we're not that's when everyone suffers.

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!

Day 10: PanchaKarma - Ayurvedic Cleanse

Today was supposed to be my last massage but I had to figure out a way to stretch it out just a bit longer... When Vijaya explained to me that the full-length PanchaKarma works to clean out every system in the body and each day of massage represents a different system - I had to make sure I stuck around long enough for the Nervous System.

I am generally an easily agitated person. Not that I get upset a lot but it doesn't take much to make my nerves bounce. Any night that I know I have somewhere to be in the morning - I find myself unable to fall asleep. Loud noises make me jump and anything emotional makes me jittery. Driving winds me up, travel makes me tense, I grind my teeth... you get the picture. So of all the days not to be missed, for me it was very important to complete with the nervous system

So today I went to Dr. Silvanna to get my bones adjusted - since today would have been the skeletal system if I was doing the 7 day PanchKarma. Turned out I really needed it too. My neck was definitely on crooked.

For lunch I had to make sure to eat some yogurt with lemon juice in it - this is to prepare me for Virechana or Purgation. I can see why one might want to use the Indian word in this case - because Purgation sounds downright scary. (Amazingly enough the drinking of the Castor oil part was not too bad... Squeezed a couple lemons into some hot water+Castor oil and it was actually kind of yummy.)

To seal in my back adjustment I lathered myself in some sesame oil (as instructed) and gave myself a massage followed by a hot bath. Something about the heat and the oil pushes the toxins into the lower intestine. The rest of my night was spent watching Galactica (AWESOME-IST SHOW!!!) and then finally I drank my oil concoction and down 2 laxatives. Should be an interesting morning...

Day 9: PanchaKarma - Ayurvedic Cleanse

Today I get to experience the full treatment, the official PanchaKarma tandem massage

Vijaya and Areille move like dancers. From my perspective it does not feel like two people at all but one person with four arms.







My fourth massage and I am still struggling with my thoughts and my lack of ability to let go. But something starts to shift - I'm experiencing a deeper connection. When my mind does slow down - it is empty. It is brief but it is there.

I have trouble lifting my body up to move positions - I'm melting into the bed. The amazing sensation of people praying over you and treating you with such love is precious. I feel very blessed to be experiencing this.

Once I've steamed to a nice tenderness I get to experience something else new - they pour warm oil on my third eye for twenty minutes. This was really interesting. At first there is a moment of Chinese water torture - but that quickly fades as does your busy mind. Thoughts jump in, they jump out and then something extraordinary happens... your brain is silent. You are somewhere else. You've locked into a different brain wave pattern. You feel like the low note of a chant. It is very blissful. You stay in this place till well after the treatment has ended - I remember feeling incapable of shifting from this space. Then all of a sudden like when a jar loses it's seal you pop out of it and come back into your body. Intense and great!

Day 8: PanchaKarma - Ayurvedic Cleanse

Bruise marks and vertigo and enemas - Oh My!



Yes folks - last night I experienced my first true enema! I enjoyed it so much I just had to have another this morning! Well... not exactly. Though the actual putting a hose in yer bum part was not as bad as I anticipated - there have been some weird side effects...

One being mild vertigo. I believe this started after my 2nd or 3rd massage - so perhaps not directly related to the enemas - but something about the enemas seems to trigger it and I've been enjoying dizzy, confused moments ever since.

The other is a sort of edgy, overwhelmed feeling. After both enemas I got a little snappy with Peter and even hours after found myself not having patience for things and feeling irritable.

Lastly I've been exhausted! All I want to do is sleep all day. I'm especially tired post enema.

I had to run a bunch of errands today which didn't really jive with my weird, sleepy mood and my need for extra bathroom time.

Here's what I've learned about doing enemas during your PanchKarma:

• Stick close to home! After you do one of these lil' treatments you're likely to spend some quality time with Mr. Porcelain.

• Brief your significant other - ahead of time - that you'll be needing lots of alone time and won't be feeling like yourself for a few days.

• Listen to directions. Not listening may have you keistering way more herbal tea/(basti) then intended.

• Try to arrange your schedule in such a way so you don't end up at Whole Foods or the bank when a sudden 'urge' comes upon you.

• Let yourself rest.

Now on to Gua Sha! Here's where I convince you that Vijaya has not been beating me -- 'I just fell down the stairs' -- I promise!



Well it turns out this scraping business is legit - it's a scraping of the muscle tissue technique at the spine- and actually feels pretty good. The only thing is you end up with a back full of hickies. Here's some more info:

Gua Sha is a healing technique used in the East by practitioners of Traditional Medicine, in both the clinical setting and in homes, but little known about in the West. It involves palpation and cutaneous stimulation where the skin is pressured, in strokes, by a round-edged instrument; that results in the appearance of small red petechiae called 'sha', that will fade in 2 to 3 days.

Raising Sha removes blood stagnation considered pathogenic, promoting normal circulation and metabolic processes.The patient experiences immediate relief from pain, stiffness, fever, chill, cough, nausea, and so on. Gua Sha is valuable in the prevention and treatment of acute infectious illness, upper respiratory and digestive problems, and many other acute or chronic disorders.

Day 7: PanchaKarma - Ayurvedic Cleanse

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Day 6: PanchaKarma - Ayurvedic Cleanse

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