The Emotional Side of Cleansing

My husband and I recently did an 8-day juice fast. Not as big a deal for me, as a nutrition coach, but a pretty big step for my husband. His idea of “green” was sautéed spinach and eggs; healthy meant a hemp smoothie. Green juice? Never.

It turned out to be a pretty big deal for our marriage.

You know the physical effects of cleansing or juicing: glowing skin, (wow; like a moonbeam) weight loss, (a good five pounds for me, eight for him — darn those men) increased energy, and clear thinking. But not much is said about the emotional piece.

There’s a big part of the cleansing ritual that rocks our emotional world. The more intense the cleanse + the longer you go, the more profound your experience may be.

Juicers don’t come with a warning: Proceed at risk. Juicing may put you in touch with long forgotten emotional issues you’d rather leave dormant.

Each time I cleanse, I’m surprised at the insights, revelations, and forgiveness that surfaces. Old thoughts come in, sometimes days of negative stuff, comments, hurts, offense, fears.

Why am I thinking about that? That was years ago, pre-happy marriage. She was always passive-aggressive; why did I hang in so long with that friendship? I was wrong to say that. I could have done better. I’m glad to have moved on. I made mistakes; he made mistakes, some we made together.

Hurts, pains, fleeting moments of “a-ha’s”… healing again, moving through it all again. No big drama, but pin-pricks of pain that had added up.

Our 8-day cleanse was like that. Things floated in and out. We talked and processed. We made peace with others, and most importantly, we made peace with each other.

By day six we realized what had been going on — things had come up and out. They left. They were gone forever.

We felt clear and content. Satisfied with where we were. Actualized in our thoughts. We got real about ourselves and eachother. Somehow dealing with our separate pin-pricks had brought us closer.

“By day 6 we could say anything to anybody,” I scrawled in pencil on my calendar. We went to a party, sober and drinking green juice. We smiled, we laughed and we felt like we had a secret.

It was a wonderful secret. It said, I’m clear in my thinking, I’m 100-percent honestly present, and I’m tuned into you. Expect no pretense or posture. Here I am. A wonderful way to be.

We regretfully went off our cleanse after eight days. It was over.

We mourned the lightness of being, sadly knowing it was time to return to the real world. My husband woke on day 7 and said he didn’t want to stop. I feel amazing. He looked at me — I felt like I could never eat again. How weird is that?

I know. I knew. I’d been there before. We felt lighter, and his skin looked like a moonbeam. We’d connected and shared a crunchy couple of days, emotional turmoil + processing and emerged from the cycle on a higher level—in touch with our emotions and each other in a profound way. We were floating, hovering above Earth.

We’d both ignored things … previously thought silly things. But they were important enough to come back and demand to be dealt with .

We looked at each other and smiled, sadly.

“We’ll go easy,” I said. I’ll make a vegetable soup … and one day we’ll do it again.

Holli Thompson is a nutritional stylist who focuses on holistic health, cooking, and alternative medicine.

Does Suppressing Our Emotions Cause Dis-ease?

By Lynn Zavaro

In 1984 Louise L. Hay wrote a small little book called “You Can Heal Your Life.” Since that day over 35 million copies have been sold around the world and she owns what is now the biggest publishing company in the self-help movement. Louise’s principles were simple, yet groundbreaking: We create every so-called “illness” in our body.

The movement has taken it even further to suggest that suppressed feelings can cause dis-ease on all levels of consciousness – mental, emotional, spiritual and physical – and many scientific research studies have proven stress, including stress from emotional suppression, can correlate to causing disease.

Stripped of any new-age philosophy, what I believe matters most is that we are responsible for our emotional experiences, how we hold them, our view of them and how we choose to carry them to balance and stabilize our overall health. With loving self-support, we realize that the issues we have are not nearly as important as how we relate to them.

Feelings that are kept stuck deep down inside can harden our hearts, break our spirits and keep us stuck in patterns of imbalance and unease. So what do we do when a strong feeling arises? How can we create a loving container for a healthy release?

It takes great trust to explore what we feel inside. To let go and dive into the water of our emotions can be scary and feel unsafe at times. So many of us have learned that feeling our feelings is dangerous or wrong and we are taught to suppress them. There is opportunity to perceive feelings not as something bad or something to fear but as sensations ready to be released.

Let’s face it: When we have a healthy release of our emotions, contained and lovingly supported, we feel lighter, happier, healthier and freer.

It is important and necessary as we go through our day-to-day to empty our reserves. When our inner cup is full, we have opportunity to lovingly “pour out.” Now we can be at ease!

Here are eight tools to find a healthy release when feelings arise in order to create inner balance and ease:

1.) Explore your feelings. Kindly and easily, give yourself permission to feel whatever it is that you feel. Take a moment to tap into your inner experience and ask yourself, “What is it that I am feeling right now?” After identifying the feeling, ask yourself, “What color is the feeling? What is the texture? Where is it located in my body?” Rather than attach the feeling to a thought form, watch it move and dissipate with ease.

2.) Accept feelings. Write, “I feel ________” and fill in the blank, continuing until you feel complete. Then ask yourself if you are willing to accept the feelings as they are. Moving into deeper levels of acceptance is a huge step of creating loving ease.

3.) Communicate feelings. Give your feelings a voice by locating the primary feeling you are in touch with. With a pen and paper, have a dialogue with the feeling. Ask the feeling, “Tell me how you are feeling?” (i.e. grief). Continue to ask the feeling open-ended questions until you sense the feeling has completed expressing what it needs to say.

4.) Go within. It is not indulgent or selfish to take time off for ourselves, but necessary to restore and empty out. To “go within,” create some space, time and quiet to bring awareness to your inner experience. Meditation is always a profound way to offer space in the heart for feelings to rise and dissipate and is proven to decrease stress tremendously.

5.) Heal past pain. If you are holding a painful memory that is ready to be healed, write out the memory in detail. Ask yourself, “What can I learn from this memory right now?” And then, “What blessing is in this experience?” Remember to relate with yourself in a loving and caring way as you explore the answer to these questions.

6.) Forgive. Forgiveness is about tying up loose ends from our past that keep us from what is needed to be at peace in the present moment. Without forgiveness we can harbor resentments that solidify our heart and cause dis-ease. Be lovingly honest as you bring awareness to any harm made against others and/or yourself. Then invoke the feelings of love, forgiveness and compassion. When in tune with your loving, feel yourself balanced and at peace, emptied of something you may have carried for a long time.

7.) Relax and enjoy. Rather than get caught up in your emotional experience, put your attention on relaxing and enjoying the simple things that daily life offers. It is entirely possible to go about your day calm, content and happy if you make this your focus. Life can be easy if you choose ease!

8.) Gratitude. Gratitude represents the appreciative joy we feel when we recognize all the plenty we have in our lives and how much we have received. It takes the attention off of suffering and puts us immediately into our hearts. Write out 25 things you are grateful for right now in this moment without stopping your pen. Taking in each moment of gratitude will certainly bring immediate joy and ease!

These are only a few suggestions for how to handle emotions as they arise. The key is to create relaxation and ease as you allow feelings to gently come and go as well as know deep inside that feelings, like everything else in life, are impermanent.

How might you create more relaxation and ease for yourself to have an overall sense of well-being?

Lynn Zavaro has emerged as a leading voice in the art of guiding others to know themselves and create the life they’ve always envisioned. She has a masters degree in counseling psychology and her book and card deck set, “The Game of You™- An Interactive Way to Know Yourself, Create the Life You Want” offers a powerful, profound and fun experience of self-discovery and transformation.

Photo credit: Natashalatrasha

6 Steps Towards Emotional Wellness

by Jennifer Reger

I’ve spent the past five years on the quest for wellness, with much of my time, efforts and money devoted to better food choices. I bought organic, read label after label, avoided processed food, and experimented with various food plans before choosing a vegan, plant-based diet. With all my energy focused on food, and more recently a regular fitness routine, I managed to overlook a crucial component of health: emotional wellness. And with everything else going on in my life, you’d think I would have worked on this sooner.

I felt a lack of direction in my career. My job was paying the bills, and I was grateful for that. But I knew I needed a creative outlet, and my passions were going unfulfilled. I hadn’t been able to find a relationship that stuck, which in hindsight was a blessing, but nonetheless painful. Bottom line: I had mistakenly relied on social identities and external factors (things and people) for happiness, which left me feeling less than stellar. So while emotional wellness should have been at the forefront of my health venture, food was my main priority and a distraction that I could control in terms of outcomes. I soon realized I needed to cultivate a daily practice focusing on emotional health that I could do as I dealt with my work and relationship situations.

Here are some of the steps I’ve recently taken in creating emotional wealth:

Take an internal inventory: Identify emotional triggers. I began my journey by acknowledging things in my life that drained me and that fueled me. Cheryl Richardson’s book, “Take Time for Your Life,” is a great resource and starting point; she provides a list that covers all grounds to explore: job satisfaction, relationships, spirituality, physical health and dwelling place. While a person is so much more than any of these parts, it’s important to recognize how we connect our emotional well-being to the quality of our experience with these aspects of our lives.

Practice self-care religiously. Nutrition, movement, quiet time (be it meditation, yoga or spiritual reflection), sleep and positive self-talk are essential. While they are components to general well-being, I’d argue they are integral to emotional wellness too. Ever experience anxiety or unexplained feelings of sadness after eating a super sugary cookie? Feel irritable after only five hours of sleep? How do you feel after a jog or green juice? Nurturing the physical, spiritual and mental aspects of your life will have you feeling pretty darn good and balanced.

When the going gets tough, give yourself some extra lovin’. Regardless of how well you might be feeling in general, bumps in the road are inevitable. It’s nice to have some “go-to” goodies when we need a little pick me up. This might include a feel-good movie (heck, it might be a tear-jerker to release pent-up emotion!), a favorite CD, a friend to lean on or hug or a cup of tea. And don’t forget to include some affirmations. They are powerful in creating a positive outlook on any situation. Love and light will come from you and to you. It’s amazing how saying (and believing), “Today is going to be a good one,” never ceases to result in a kick-ass day.

Mind the gap. I realized that I was spending way too much time inside my head, worrying about the future and regretting some things that had happened in the past (over which I had no control). I was both the prisoner and the warden in the cell of my mind. Yikes! If you find yourself fixated on anything besides the here and now or engaging in negative self-talk, check out Eckhart Tolle’s book, “The Power of Now.” His exercise of “watching the thinker” is revealing and freeing. After practicing detachment from both the mind and the ego, I was brimming with happiness and ease. Emotional wellness is indeed dependent on the state of one’s mind.

Nurture and expand your perspective; exercise connectivity. It’s so easy to get lost in our own worlds, the direction we are going or wish to go, and what means of fulfillment we are seeking. When done excessively, we can lose sight of the bigger picture or miss out on something great. A gratitude journal helps me recognize all the kind and generous things people have done for me that day and that I’ve witnessed being done for others. I have started to give a wink and a nod to challenges too – those perceived roadblocks, which are often the greatest teachers.

And if you’re feeling particularly low or isolated and the gratitude journal just ain’t doing the trick, there’s an awesome exercise in connectivity that you can do anytime, anywhere. Notice how everything you have experienced in a day – the bus you rode, a building you work in, the salad you grabbed from the deli, the shoes you’re wearing, the paper or book you’re reading – were all created and touched by others. Even if someone didn’t do something noticeably nice for you that day, there were many hands involved in the way you got to work, the food you ate, the book in your hands, what you wore. I always feel nurtured after this exercise.

Receive. I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but it’s worth repeating. Giving to others is great, but if you give and give and give there will be nothing left for you. And it sends the wrong message to the universe, too. Emotional wellness calls for balance and by giving too much without receiving, we deplete our energy sources. I’ve noticed recently that I regularly decline people’s help and attention, not wanting to be a burden. When someone asks how I am, I often deflect the attention by saying, “I’m fine. How are you? What’s going on with you?” I realized that such actions will keep things from coming into my life. It’s only in being open to receiving and being interdependent that we get the things we need. I’m still working on this one. Are you?

None of these practices is rocket science; they are quite simple. And chances are that the wellness warriors of the Crazy Sexy Life community are doing some of these very exercises. But in our fast-paced, information-overload world, it’s so easy to get off track. And it’s nice to get a reminder now and again to slow down and take a breath.

Jennifer Reger is creator of the wellness blog Holistic Health Junkie. She lives in Philadelphia.

Photo credit: Mr. Anathema

Hold the Cheese, Please

by Cheri Smith

Macaroni and cheese has always been my favorite food. Perhaps it’s because a cold bowl of it was all my mother could stomach while pregnant with me. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had some type of cheese almost every single day. (I’m 42 – that’s a lot of cheese!) Hard day? Grilled cheese and tomato soup. Good day? Brie and baguettes. A romantic dinner? Cheese plate (stinky ones for my husband and anything else for me). My mouth waters at the mere mention of Dubliner, Havarti or chevre. Well, that is, it used to: I became vegan about a month ago. Yes, this easy-cheese-on-a-cracker-loving gal actually chose to remove cheese from her diet.

When I became vegetarian, I knew I couldn’t do vegan because I could never give up cheese. I figured I’d be a shaking, shivering, blubbering mess if I didn’t have my daily hit of Gouda. But as I delved ever deeper into vegetarianism and opened my eyes to the many consequences and casualties of an animal-based diet, cheese lost some of its appeal. A little later, when I began to focus less on my desire for comfort through food and more on how I wanted my life to reflect my values, cheese began to disappear from my plate. By the time I decided to be vegan, I realized that the few times I was having cheese, it was more out of convenience or habit or a need for comfort than a desire for the taste.

In fact, I think that whole comfort thing is the crux of the problem when it comes to letting go of cheese, or anything else for that matter. Who doesn’t want to be comforted or comfortable? Breaking habits and changing routines and rituals is definitely not comfortable—especially when those changes are food related. For so many of us, food is both a coping mechanism and a major source of pleasure in life. At least, I know it is for me! I eat for comfort when I’m sad, angry, bored, stressed or lonely, and I eat as a treat when I’m happy, celebrating or just think I deserve something special. (Hmm. I guess I eat pretty much all the time!) I’ve always used food to either smother the emotions I don’t want to experience, or to fan the flames of the ones I do. And until now, cheese was usually the food of choice (yes, chocolate came in close second).

So, now I’m fully enlightened and embrace my emotions without the aid of food … Ha. However, I am now more conscious of what I’m eating and why, and I’m doing a better job of separating the desire to eat from actual hunger. I still get bored and head to the kitchen, but instead of mindlessly grabbing cheese and crackers, I think about what my body needs. I find myself reaching for almonds and cherries or carrots and hummus – really! (Lest you think I have no other options, let me just point out that my family is not vegan, or even vegetarian. There are Babybels in the fridge!)

Okay, so if you’re a cheese lover, dried fruit and nuts are not going to satisfy a cheese craving. But they help: I’m satisfying the urge to put something in my mouth, I’m forced to think about what that’s going to be, and afterward, at least I know my choice was a conscious (and healthy) one. If my mind does wander to cheese during the decision-making process, I take a minute to think about where that cheese comes from and to remind myself why I’ve decided to be vegan.

However, I am far from perfect. For example, I made mac and cheese for my kids the other day because they love it and are not vegan, and I wanted a bite, so I had one. Did I beat myself up afterward? No. I can accept that I’m doing the best I can, and if that means having a bite here and there, so be it. But—and this was shocking to me—I didn’t really like that mac and cheese as much as I thought I would. I have to pause here and take that in. I suspected that my taste buds were changing (what else could explain my new liking of raw carrots and broccoli?), but to find that I no longer really like my all-time-fave mac and cheese? Wow.

Now that I’ve put that out there, I realize that I’m a little sad at the thought of losing my favorite comfort food. But since I know it’s the comfort I really want, I have a solution: I’ll experiment with some recipes and find a vegan version to love. Maybe one with chocolate …

Cheri Smith is a medical writer turned stay-at-home mom who is thrilled to be living a life of compassion and hopes that by sharing her adventures in veganism, she’ll encourage others to make healthier, kinder choices in their lives. She lives in Marriottsville, MD with her husband, three kids, and various pets, and in her spare time pursues her passion for nature photography.

Photo credit: leezie5

How to Find the Right Therapist for You: Part One

As my sister Kris has just finished touring the country to promote her best-selling book “Crazy Sexy Diet,” I’d like to draw attention to a key aspect of her message: In addition to what we eat and drink, we are all made up of what we think. Kris often talks about the importance of “cleaning out one’s cubbies” as a metaphor for navigating our inner terrain, and I love her expression. So as the Crazy Sexy posse’s new therapist in residence, I thought it might be a good idea to talk about therapy – what it is and whether it’s right for you.

First of all, for those of you who have never been in therapy before or who have thought about it and have some apprehensions, let me just say that I understand that the idea of seeing a therapist can be pretty scary. Many people assume that therapists can see through them or read their minds, which understandably makes people feel really exposed. Furthermore, I know that a lot of people also don’t like the idea of seeing a therapist because they think that therapy is only for “crazy” people. While I don’t believe that either of those things is true, I do believe that it’s natural for people to feel vulnerable in any new therapy situation. My question is: What can we do about that?

Part of the answer is realizing that the payoff is worth it. If I can use my own experience as an example, I remember feeling a tremendous amount of anxiety the first time I went to see a therapist. In my particular circumstances I happened to be very young at the time (about 10 years old), but I recall feeling sheer terror, and actually refusing to leave the waiting room to go into the office – a game that lasted several sessions. Thankfully the therapist was a good one, and she was patient with me until I felt comfortable enough to go in on my own time. I ended up working with her for several years, and she was enormously helpful for me. Because of that, the stigma of therapy wore off for me at a very young age, and ever since then I’ve seen therapy as something that I can go back to whenever I need it – not because something is wrong and it needs to be fixed, but because therapy is how I grow, how I learn about myself, and how I access all of the parts of myself that I need in order to become the person that I want to be. Therapy can be genuinely helpful for all of us when it comes to cleaning our cubbies. After all, everybody has them; it’s part of what it means to be human.

Of course, people are also sometimes motivated to go to therapy because they’re truly suffering. If this applies to you, please don’t wait. As someone who’s been on both sides of the couch, I can tell you that therapists aren’t here to read your mind or make you feel exposed. We’re here to use the tools that we’ve learned to guide you back to yourself. There is real healing to be found out there, no matter the nature of your distress, and you owe it to yourself to step up to the plate.

In my next installment of this little series, I’m going to decode some of the lingo out there and demystify a few things, so that if you do decide that you’d like to give therapy a try, you’re armed and empowered to make an educated decision for yourself. Remember, you’re worth it. As Kris would say: Eat your veggies and shake your ass, and clean those cubbies!