Some of you may have seen part of my 3-day juice cleanse journey from Drought last month via Facebook.
I SURVIVED, despite my husband, Kevin, bringing home pizza on the first day (I was literally drooling).
It was challenging. I felt hungry, a little irritable, and had some digestive issues, but what got me through was my reason for doing the cleanse.
Why did I choose to do this 3-day cleanse?
It’s the end of the week. You are tired.
Maybe its been a long day or you are just not motivated to cook tonight.
Buddy’s pizza is calling your name.
But you know you aren’t going to love how you feel afterward.
This is REAL LIFE. Real life is filled with times like this- where healthy eating and weight loss feels a bit like a chore.
You know that your body needs it, though. So what CAN you do?
Read MoreUsually, I have really good intentions at the grocery store. I always buy vegetables and stock up on some of my healthy staples. Lately, somewhere between paying for these good intentions and storing them in my fridge for the next week, I am suddenly throwing them all out because I was too _____ (fill the the blank) to make them.
What has changed?
Read MoreLately, life has been constantly shifting for me and I have allowed my health to take a back seat. Sound familiar? If I tell you that the last several months have included a cross-country move, buying and selling cars, buying a house (without seeing it!), the trappings of life with a toddler, and both my husband and I starting new jobs, you can understand how that may have happened.
We all face this in some way. No one is immune to life’s unique set of challenges for us. Something knocks us out of center and it is a constant journey to come back. Sometimes the return is quick and fairly painless. Other times, it requires more energy and some real pain.
I’ll tell you, this one has been longer and more painful than I expected. I want to skip this part and fast forward to building a community and just get to the "fun parts" of life here. I’m realizing that is not the point. These experiences are here to teach me: lessons about managing my time, lessons about so much more.
One of my teachers once told me that these experiences are very similar to the practice of yoga. Say- when you start to hold Warrior II pose. At first, you feel the pinch of uncomfortable-ness and you confront your own resistance. As the instructor tells you to “use your breath and breathe into the pose”, half your mind is SCREAMING to stop, the other half lets you stay there. It shows up. You hold on, beads of sweat rolling down your back and you can feel the tension ease in certain parts and hold tight in others.
Change is like that, too. Our brains are screaming for the uncomfortable-ness to stop. The practice comes when we use our breath to relax into the pose. That does not mean that we aren’t going to feel the stretch or that it suddenly becomes easy. It just means we know we can experience it and come out on the other side. We have to keep showing up to learn the lessons, though.
Through my BIG move, I have learned so much. In fact, some easy tips that I can’t wait to share with you like how to eat out and be healthier. I learned how to simplify and automate parts of my life, cheat with food prep, and how to practice mindfulness and get back to some basic self care when it’s the last thing I want to do. But that’s too much for today… I’ll save that for next week.
What is your current Warrior II? Are you relaxing into the pose?
Working in cancer means I stand by people who have lost. Lost their identity, their hair, their eyebrows, their eyelashes, their breasts, their uteruses, their ovaries, their prostates, other abdominal organs…Lost their sense of security, financial stability, marriages, libido, ability to enjoy sex, friends, their jobs...
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