Total Life Cleanse

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Total Life Cleanse

One thing that is missing from my fall line up is Ayurvedic doctor, Kevin Gregg's, Total Life Cleanse (TLC). It's a cleanse created by Dr. Gregg and one of his collegues, Dr. Jonathan Glass when they worked together a few years ago in Boston. It's not a cleanse in a box, it is exactly what it says - total life. It starts with the premise that, "nothing new can come into existence until space is created for it." This fall, starting today, I am embarking on a solo journey into this intricately detailed yet truly life changing experience.

The basis of the cleanse is the cultivation of prana or qi, life force energy. Every part of this cleanse from the food, to the exercises, to the media cleanse is designed to create space for more prana and more instances of bringing prana consciously into your own body. The media cleanse is one of the more powerful parts of the cleanse. To be mindful of every nano piece of information and emotion you allow into your body was very hard for me at first. I don't care for coffee in the morning (not on the cleanse), but I love me some NPR when I drive home from taking Ruby to school. That one week a year ago made quite an impact on me. It's taken a whole year to sink in yet I remember it now in the mornings that school is back in session. Sometimes I choose another station and other times I play no music at all, only the silence or the occasional window down with the morning air/prana/wind blowing through the car. Last year's media cleanse planted the seeds that created the space for me to have another experience in the mornings besides NPR. This is just one example of how TLC has changed my life.

For the next two weeks I will blog everyday about the TLC and my experiences doing the cleanse by myself, which I have never done before. I plan on hosting a TLC for the spring and getting Dr. Gregg out here to the ranch for private sessions with people and to teach the Ayurvedic basis of the cleanse.

Moving Mountains #42

Prana is the life force that moves through the body on the breath. Prana literally means, first movement. It is the most subtle form of movement. Love is the first form. Thus, prana is the physical movement of love in the body. That's right! Love moves on prana.

Prana moves into the heart carrying love on its breath. It then distributes love to the rest of the cells in the body. When we are breathing smoothly without constriction the power of love is feeding every cell of our being.

It's just another beautiful example of faith at work every day.

Moving Mountains #41

Prana Karma is one of the most beautiful rituals I have ever experienced. I spent the whole day in a group with my Suddha Ayurveda teacher Tashi Nymai. We learned to perform this beautiful meditation on ourselves and to offer it to others. It reminded me that many times when we get too IN this world, rather than OF it, we get constricted. This is when doubt sets in, when faith is difficult to grasp.

Prana Karma restores the prana of one's body into balance. In the session that was performed on me I fell down the rabbit hole into a deep delta-level sleep for 10 minutes and woke up completely rejuvenated. It's not much different than a pranayama breathing session in that they both create openings in the nadis or energy points in the body. Both are prana regulating therapies (I do not like to use the word therapies but will use it just this once as it is late and I am sleepy.) So if anyone out there has a better word than therapy please let me know. The word is old and outdated. I no longer desire to use the term "yoga therapist," or "healing therapies." There must be some other word to describe it.

La Virgen del Brazos de Dios

The wind whipped upriver all week. Chairs lost their footing, a screen door twisted off it's hinges, and the prayer hands of La Virgen broke off when she fell to the ground. I'm sensitive to the wind. In Ayurveda, those of us with a prana imbalance are labeled vata. People ask, "What dosha are you?" these days just like the old pick up line in the 1970's, "What's your sign?" But that's really not necessarily the best question to ask. You really don't want to be identified by your dosha because your dosha signifies your imbalance or what your physical body lacks, not what you ARE. Vata (air) doshas like myself have to work to be grounded - food is very grounding, as is rest. Think of marathon runners, of type - A personalities; people who are generally very thin because they go-go-go, forget to eat, and easily deplete themselves. Another way to say it is that I do not have a symbiotic relationship with wind, I do not naturally know how to regulate or nuture myself but have to have constant reminders all around me. I set the alarm on my phone to go off for my pre-lunch breathing time which segways nicely into lunch. I set my alarm for afternoon gardening and morning Kaya Sampat Kriya. Without this schedule my entire day would be a whirlwind of activity yet I would end overwhelmed and under nourished. In a sense I'd feel like La Virgen outside my mudroom looks -- knocked to the ground with a big hole where her hands once held the anjali mudra.