In Silence

I am in silence.  This means I'm not supposed to talk to anyone for the next few days.  I'm even wearing a button on my sweatshirt that reads, "I am in silence."  I thought for a few minutes about whether posting here would constitute silence or chatter.  And although I'm sure some might beg to differ, I concluded that posting is akin to writing in a journal, which is encouraged while one is "in silence."  So here I am.

I'm not sure what there is to report.  It's like asking for a description of the house you stayed in on vacation when you just left home.  I spent my first day of panchakarma alone in my hotel room with little to do.  Eventually I started watching "Fathead" on hulu.com, and although had to leave 45 minutes into the movie, I can't wait to get home and see the rest of it.  By the way, watching movies on the Internet is probably something that Dr. D, who's in charge of the show here, would not approve of.  After lunch--more porridge, but blessedly containing fat and delivered from an Indian restaurant down the street--I trudged off through the snow and bitterly cold temperatures to Lifespa, about a half mile away. 

My intake meeting with Dr. D. went better than I had expected.  When we talked on the phone, he laid out his theory on why I was supposed to drink ghee and then eat a fat-free diet during the pre-cleanse period, which made no sense to me.  His take is that drinking ghee (dining on a meal made up largely of fat and hardly any carbs) would encourage my body to burn fat, not sugar.  This is fine.  But my monkey mind asked, "What happens when I eat the porridge, which is almost all carbs?  Wouldn't this put me straight back into sugar burning mode?"  In our phone conversation, his answer didn't make all that much sense to me, and I brooded over this more than I should have.  When I mentioned it to my friend, she wisely asked me, "Why does this bother you?"  (I told her I didn't know.  Later, I realized that I probably wanted to be right or be validated).  During our meeting yesterday, I told him about my blood sugar episodes after several meals and about how good I felt when I ate the turkey.  He started heading out toward that dicey area again, telling me how burning fat is very calming and makes our body feel safe, whereas burning sugar leads to some major ups and downs.  I buy this part too.  I was worried he'd tie the porridge into this framework somehow, but to my relief, he said that the way I felt indicated that I had blood sugar issues and that perhaps it might be a good idea for me to put protein in my diet now, because obviously the swings weren't making me feel supported and would interfere with my cleanse.  Whew!  Something I can buy into completely!!  I told him (being the overachiever that I am and wanting to do everything by the book) that I'd prefer to wait to add protein until I needed it, and he was cool with that.

He also spoke to me about the shield or barrier that I, and everyone else in the world, creates around the true self (or True Self?  Ahh, too new-agey).  From behind this shield, we try to send out images that are consistent with the person we think we should be, not who we truly are.  And we expect to receive things from others in return for these fictions, since we're really doing it for others' benefits.  But when we fail to receive the approval or recognition we seek, we suffer an injury that embeds itself in the body and is carried with us in our fat cells until we are able to release it.  I have read "Molecules of Emotion" and do believe fear and anger manifest themselves in a physical way (just think of the last time you got so mad you shook, or when you're watching a scary movie and your heart starts to pound).  I'm less committed to the idea of carrying injuries through the cell tissue, but then again, I believe that people carry themselves physically in an way that's meant to protect their vulnerabilities but actually exposes those weaknesses to the world.  For example, have you ever seen someone who is meek, retiring, and has little sense of self walking around with a rounded back, the spine protecting the heart like a turtle's shell?  If I'm willing to go that far, why not suspend disbelief for the rest of the week, trust that my anger and resentments and other wounds are stuck in my hips or thighs or back fat, and see what happens? 

He prescribed two Ayurvedic supplements for me to take before meals and gave me my "rounding," a series of yoga poses, pranayama, and meditation exercises that I must do three to five times a day.  Each round takes about an hour.  The yoga poses all must be held for two minutes (I can take breaks, which is a relief in camel and bow pose) and are probably my favorite part of the whole thing.  For pranayama, I do ten minutes of alternate nostril breathing and five minutes of brahmeri, which is surprisingly hard on my injured left shoulder (when I keep my hand raised for too long, my injury starts to ache).  Last is meditation, which has never been my favorite.  And this is tough--I'm supposed to start with 1-2 minutes of bellows breathing and then sit for twenty minutes meditating.  Every time I have a thought, I'm supposed to journal my thoughts, take 15 bellows breaths, and go back to meditating.  I can't imagine doing bellows breath for 2 minutes;  one minute makes me feel like I'm going to puke or pass out.  And then the whole thing with thoughts is driving me crazy.  I know I have a monkey mind and my thoughts flit around incessantly.  I try my best not to become attached.  But when I have to write down every thought I have, it doesn't give me an opportunity to settle into my meditation, and then when I'm done writing, there's more bellows breath.  This pissed me off so much last night that I actually ripped the page of my journal when I was writing in it.  I really wanted to scream, but I'm staying in a hotel, so that probably wouldn't have been a good idea.  This morning, I decided that what he really meant was to write about persistent, attached thoughts instead of those that come and go like drops of water in a stream.  That made the meditation much easier in some ways--and harder in others, since stopping to write makes the time pass more quickly (especially when you write neatly in full sentences and punctuate). 

After my meeting was massage time.  I had two therapists working on me at once, a college boy's fantasy!  They started by brushing me all over with silk gloves to exfoliate and stimulate my lymph.  This was not the most enjoyable part, since my feet are ticklish and they spent a lot of time there.  Next, they applied oil in long, gentle strokes, which was lovely and started to relax me.  I was only covered with a bath towel, and they moved it often to get to every part of me, so it was also a pretty intimate and vulnerable place for me to be.  Then one therapist left and the other put a big tent over my body, leaving only my head exposed.  I had ice packs on my stomach, heart and behind my head, and cold towels on my face.  The tent filled with steam but the ice and the towel kept me very comfortable.  This was relaxing beyond words.  I felt like I was melting.  When the steam was over, I had warm oil poured over my forehead (and into my hair) and massaged in for around twenty minutes, and then I spent 15 minutes alone, soaking everything in.  All in all, it was a terrific way to spend the afternoon and sure beats kitchadi!

Last night, I had to give myself my first enema.  It was not such a beautiful experience.  I needed to find a patch of space on my 2x6 patch of bathroom floor to lie down and wound up nestling into a wet towel with my feet tangled around the toilet.  The only place to hang the enema bag was on the towel rack, and when it rushed into me, I almost jumped a foot in the air.  Whoa Nelly, that's too fast for a first timer!  I wound up holding the goddamn thing over my head, fiddling with the tube to get as much in as possible.  I was so pissed off by the time it was over that I just wanted to expel everything ASAP instead of trying to hold it in overnight. (For the record, I did manage to hold most of it in till the middle of the night, when I went to the bathroom and "accidently" released most of it). 

This morning was more of the same.  I did my rounding twice, both times more easily and sanely than the night before.  I think not having a rectum full of oil and herbs helped--yes, I jumped the gun on the enema and did it before I meditated, not a good idea.  Rounding is not how I would choose to spend my mornings but I do feel remarkably relaxed and at peace when I'm done.  I also had another blood sugar roller coaster ride this morning, so walked to the supermarket down the street and picked up a little package of tuna fish, which I just ate for my lunch along with my porridge.  I feel much better eating like this;  when it's just the porridge, I don't think I can eat enough to hold myself for much more than two hours without giving myself a serious blood sugar spike. 

In about twenty minutes, I'm walking over to the office to meet with Dr. D. and to get another massage, this time just with one person.  I know this sounds very traveloguey here, and I wish I could post some keen insights here, but really, I'm just as confused as any other newcomer would be.  I have hopes about what I will take from here, and have certain  fears as well, but sharing them now seems premature.  It's much more interesting, I think, when you know where you're going before you begin to tell the story.  So there will be a post-mortem at the end, and I hope to keep blogging about any breakthroughs I have on my way there, but today's post is the most I can offer.  For now, anyway.