Category: Practicing in the Heart

Reading the Signs

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Practicing in the Heart, Stuff about Stuff, The Subtle Body, Topics of Study3 Comments

ant-manA few weeks ago when I was assaulted by my breakfast apple, I shared my own personal belief that there are signs and messages from Spirit everywhere, and that I’m working to grow my practice of noticing them.

Part of this decision stems from the ways I am naturally someone who watches and contemplates and studies life’s energies. After all, if you use a muscle instinctively, you might as well consciously grow its strength and stamina.

Part of my ongoing process stems from a corollary belief to “there are signs everywhere” about the progressive nature of ignored signs: Spirit may first speak to you in a whisper, but if you ignore that whisper, it’ll be followed by a shout —  and then perhaps a brick to the head. (Here’s two formulations of a quote where Oprah has shared a similar sense of trajectory: it’s highly possible her statements helped me see this pattern more clearly for myself.)

But sometimes there are days when the whispers come through loud and clear.

This morning at the coffee machine, I found myself in a conversation about a co-worker’s whose been out sick — turns out she’s having a gallbladder attack, and she’s currently resisting her doctor’s advice to have the organ removed because “the stones are too big to be treated any other way.”

And of the three colleagues discussing this situation with me, two of them have had their gallbladders removed, and the third served as closest geographical relative/convalescence site for her niece who goes to college up here in Boston and needed to have her gallbladder removed mid-academic-term.

By the end of the conversation, I was very clear on one point. Whatever else may remain in consideration for detoxing next steps, I am certainly going to be doing a gallbladder/liver cleanse in the next few weeks!

———-

It may be my imagining, but I do think some of the signs life brings me these days are clearer than they used to be. Or I’m gaining practice in listening for them, or something.

As I understand it, that’s one of the purposes of detoxing one’s physical and energetic system — to clear the channel for receiving and listening to spirit’s guidance (or one’s inner wisdom, whichever phraseology more closely resonates with your understanding of the world). I’d like to think that the clarity of today’s message about giving some loving attention to my gallbladder is a result of the detoxing I’ve been doing during the HCG journey.

Some messages remain less easily scrutable. Or, at least, they carry a bit more annoyance here in the physical plane, even if the spiritual meaning is pretty clear.

———-

With the turn to warmer weather, we’re having a bit of an ant invasion in the house. Since I turn to Professor Google in so many other circumstances, I figured I’d do the same here:

From shamanicjourney.com:

Each ant does his bit to ensure the survival of the whole community, no matter what role it has in society. Activities include gathering and hunting. They work hard, are patient and co-operative. An ant is able to carry a leaf, a crumb or a dead ant for miles – just to get back home to the anthill, requiring a load of stamina and patience. . . . As well as being extremely hard working they possess an extraordinary ability to work as a team – the power of their medicine – to build their homes, to feed and protect all members of their colony. There may be a social order in ant colonies, but all ants honour and respect each other and work toward their common goal – the good of the community. Worker ants are great architects and can show us how to construct our dreams into reality. They are also very persistent and can teach this skill as well.

From spirit-animals.com:

Encountering an ant you should consider that all good things come with time, and effort. Work with diligence, with conviction, and work with others in order to forge your dreams and turn them into reality. Despite their tiny size these little spirits are immensely strong, great strength of will and accomplishment can come even in the smallest of packages.

Alternatively it may be time to consider your own role, concentrate on your specialties and make sure you are making the most of your natural gifts. However, remain aware that nothing can be accomplished without the unity of the whole. Think about how your own contributions in your career, your family, and day to day life fit into the larger picture. No matter how small your task, or your contribution, it is still essential.

Message received, lovely ants. Now, please get off my kitchen counter and into the beautiful outdoors. Kthxbai!

———-

Image credit: http://culture.pagannewswirecollective.com/2013/06/super-heroes-totem-animals-and-pagans/

When Can You Call It the Home Stretch?

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Practicing in the Heart, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My Head2 Comments

mac&cheese-genieI take my last HCG shot a week from tomorrow. After that it’s two more days of the super-low-calorie food regimen while the remaining hormone works its way out of my system, and then it’s three more weeks of a different food regime — larger quantities, adding fats and oils back in, but still avoiding sugars and starches.

So by one perspective, there’s still a long way to go. And yet, it also senses like enough of an accomplishment to be nearing the end of this initial six-week stretch that I’m kind of thinking of myself as being in the home stretch. At least, on some sort of home stretch.

And at this point, I am ready to reach the first finish line. Because, however fine my physical body is doing on this regime, the emotional body is currently a little worse for wear. All these little daggers of frustration adding up.*

  1. There was an upsetting happening yesterday afternoon, and the emotional craving to self-sooth with comfort food was as strong as it has been since this HCG journey began.  (I distracted myself from the craving with a footbath and a funny movie.)
  2. We let the food stores run very low in expectation of doing our grocery shopping today after church choir — only the last apple in the house turned out to have gone spoiled. So I didn’t have my usual apple on hand for today’s breakfast, which totally threw my morning off to a challenging start.
  3. Mr. Mezzo and I did our grocery shopping together, and as we walked into the aisle to pick up his loaf of bread and English muffins, I couldn’t help myself from lamenting, “I miss bread.” (Bought some spring tulips instead.)
  4. I’ve started reading up on the next phase of dietary restrictions, which are very clear in suggesting that the first week or so after HCG it is best to stay within the same limited list of allowed foods (lean proteins, plus certain veggies and fruits) and just increase one’s portions. Meanwhile, I’m obsessing over something I saw on GMA about shirataki noodles and how I could use those as a way to do “macaroni and cheese” within the new (and looser) restrictions. And I do think the shirataki mac & cheese would obey the letter of the new dietary laws, but it sure isn’t in the spirit of what’s recommended for this upcoming phase.

This is always the mental pattern that I most hated about times I would try to diet or “get myself in shape” by “eating right”: the part where my attempts to eat healthy burgeon into a full-blown food obsession. Ugh.

I was in a detox class yesterday where the teacher talked really eloquently about the ways it can sometimes be unhelpful to approach detoxing through the lens of “eating the right things” in order to prevent the ingestion of toxicity. Instead, it could be possible to acknowledge the fact that one’s system has already ingested some decades’ worth of environmental, energetic, and yes, food-borne toxins, and thus place a stronger emphasis on ridding the system from that accumulation.

I’m holding this teaching very close to my heart today as I try to imagine my remaining weeks in the current and future phases of the HCG experience. I aspire to get back to that more balanced perspective on things.

But right now, I’m feeling a bit on the edge of a precipice. Feeling the grip, the gravitational pull of that food obsession. Thinking about food all the time, maintaining routines and rituals as a way to stay on track (see: today’s upset re: the spoiled apple). Chafing against the restrictions, trying to figure out every clever trick I can to stay just a hair’s breadth within the rules (see: my shirataki noodle obsession), tempted now and again to just say “fuck it” and eat a whole package of Kraft macaroni & cheese with a microwave popcorn and Ben & Jerry’s chaser.

I’m still holding within the boundaries of the protocol. But if this is really meant to be a detox journey for me, then the way any possible other insights have been swept away by all the food obsession hits me as just a tiny bit problematic. Okay, hugely problematic.

But it’s all I got tonight.

* Phrasing inspired by Henry Rollins, Airport Hell: “That’s two minutes of time I don’t get for myself. It’s like he’s murdering me — just a little. Like he’s murdering me with a very tiny knife.”

———-

Image credit: http://bingeeatingtherapy.com/2013/11/15/friday-a-help-obsessed-food/

 

receiving

Not Just Ridding, but Receiving

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Practicing in the Heart, Self-AcceptanceLeave a comment

It was a full day of bodywork sessions — colon hydrotherapy, oxygen chamber, magnesium wrap, the “heart bed,” and some sauna time. As we were going over today’s schedule last night, my coach said we had a choice about what to do during the day’s first session: the sauna or a raindrop kinesi session.

A card pull on the question pointed me towards the sauna, and as I shared that result with my coach, I told her how the result didn’t surprise me at all. “I love the raindrop and it was great to get one last weekend. But the tone of last weekend was more about taking in care and getting off to a good start with the HCG, while this weekend is more like I’m in it now, so let’s get this shit out!”

And there is some of that tone on things. After all, that quite literally is what a colonic is for, as well as the footbaths (which have been uber-yucky in a great way) and the sauna.

receivingBut midday today I started contemplating how in parallel to the “get this shit out!” movement, this weekend is still — just like last one — deeply about the process of taking in care and nurturance.

The signs have interwoven throughout the sessions. Yesterday, I was part of a castor oil sandwich, and the first observation the practitioner made at the end of the session was how much of the oil I had absorbed into me. That theme continued through today’s sessions with the magnesium aloe mix from the wrap, and even with all the water my body absorbed during the colonic session. So at a very obvious, physiological level, my system is still drinking in lots of nutrients.

And that’s also functioning on an energetic level, with the numerous gestures of care and caretaking that I am experiencing. Everything from Mr. Mezzo’s generosity in giving me rides to the airport, to letting one of the center staff members help rinse and dry my feet after one of these uber-yucky footbaths.

Now I’ve written a little bit before about how I see the HCG journey as one about taking in nurturance. But the reality is that a lot of my focus in these first few weeks of the process has been about the discipline of the movement and about the notion of toxicity leaving my system.

This weekend’s juxtapositions have me thinking a little more deeply about how clearing out the toxicity isn’t about purifying my “dirtied” being. It’s a means of allowing more space for good nutrients (literally and metaphorically) to come into my system, and to nurture the authentic flowering of my true nature.

(Full disclosure: seeing the value of that true nature is still a place where I feel my limitations, but I will leave that exploration for another night. Right now: bedtime.)

———-

Image credit: http://tinybuddha.com/blog/the-art-of-receiving/

stick figure planting a flag on a mountaintop

Claiming the Choosing

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Practicing in the Heart, The Voices in My HeadLeave a comment

So the guidance I’m getting is to try and push on for the full six week experience of HCG, and to meet the places of fear and programming that are arising right now, rather than to flee from them. After all, it’s precisely this old programming, these areas of emotional and energetic residue, that I’m trying to detox during this journey.

That holds a lot of truth for me, so I’ll be trying for the six weeks.

stick figure planting a flag on a mountaintopI am aware, as I make this proclamation, that I am watching myself very carefully to distinct between a tone of full maturity in choosing this path, versus the child-tone of “I’m going the full six weeks because they told me to.”

It’s delicate and nuanced ground, because I absolutely want to honor and acknowledge the fact that I am receiving guidance in this. I mean, that’s why I’m working with these folks, because I have trust for them — their wisdom, their care, their listening, their compassion, their hearts. So it feels disrespectful not to acknowledge the part of this process that is about receiving care, nurturance, support — and yes, even advice — from the people down here at the center.

But there’s also a world of difference between putting a parental projection on the center and actively, maturely choosing to follow their advice.

In the first scenario, I’ve created a positionality where, if this next phase of the HCG journey gets tougher*, then I could possibly turn towards blaming the center for that difficulty. Directing anger and resentment towards them for “making me suffer” like this. Taking a source of nurturance and pushing it so hard through my internal filters around the assumption of non-nurturance that I mangle it through a sausage-grinder.

Needless to say, that isn’t a scenario I want to enact and experience.

Instead, I’m trying to hang onto the one inside me that is actively choosing this journey. The mature one that can reassure the anxiety fragments but hold the vision and momentum for moving forward. Yes, it’s scary, and I/we can get help and support in the fear — but we’re going forward because it’s well past time to claim the energetic space to live full-out and on-mission.

I’ve got her on board, for sure. The strength and ease of my access to this inner explorer is a little more on-and-off than I’d prefer, but even if she’s a little more background some moments than others, at least she’s present.

And so on we go…

* Which I do kinda feel is possible (likely?) considering the pieces I’m beginning to hit around body size, attractiveness, and the cultural patterns around reducing women to the place of sexual object.

———-

Image credit: http://jarredh.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/time-to-change-my-goal/

My Fair Lady

On By MezzoSherriIn Pop Goes the Culture, Practicing in the Heart, Spirituality, The Voices in My Head, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I’ve been thinking a bit about fairness the past few days, and the ways I value and desire a sense of fairness in things. My thoughts are a little scattered tonight, so I may just rocket through a few different angles on the topic, rather than pretending I have a cohesive essay to share.

standardizedanimalsOne of the most common adages that comes to my mind when I invoke the concept of fairness is that old saying: “Life isn’t fair!” And there are times that I do remind myself of that fact. Because sometimes my wishing for fairness does come from the a child’s magical-thinking place, where I’m wanting a “big daddy in the sky” sort of God to pave the way for me to have an easeful and trouble-free life.

So when I’m invoking the term fairness as code for “privilege,” it is something that deserves to have a question mark placed in there, with the reminder that fairness in one’s external circumstances is never guaranteed. And also, for whatever mishap might have me wishing life were more fair advantageous, the fact remains that I have received many gifts from life for which I ought to be grateful.

———-

One of the things we talk about at work is the way that “fair” does not necessarily mean “equal.” Since we spend some portion of our time working to serve students with learning differences or other special needs, it is likely unsurprising that we would resonate to the insights of Dr. Richard Curwin in this recent(ish) Edutopia post:

But what is fair? Many define it as treating everyone the same, but I would argue that doing so is the most unfair way to treat students. Students are not the same. They have different motivations for their choices, different needs, different causes for misbehavior and different goals. I think this is good, because wouldn’t the world be very boring if we were all the same?

The cartoon above signals some of this, as does a quote I have up on my cubicle wall:

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.*

———-

The one place where I am most deeply studying fairness is the depth of my desire for people to emulate fairness in our dealings with each other. I know I am driven crazy by those petty sorts of individual inequities that arise during interactions — people changing the rules on each other, situations where I might hold myself to a looser standard of behavior than I ask of those around me (or vice versa). And then, more deeply, there is the heartbreaking injustice of systemic unfairness wrapped up in cultural ills and prejudices.

It is with these areas of human unfairness — whether on a personal or a systemic level — that the adage “life isn’t fair” rings hollow to me. Like it’s just a cop-out to spare ourselves the effort of practicing deeper levels of kindness and compassion with how we see each other and hold each other in regard.

* If you were to google this, most sources would cite this quote to Einstein, but that’s probably an apocryphal attribution.

———-

Image credit: http://www.joebower.org/2014/03/what-can-we-learn-from-honduruss.html

A Culture of Shame

On By MezzoSherriIn Fat is Just an Adjective, Health at Every Size, Practicing in the Heart, Self-Acceptance, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My Head1 Comment

What are all these military people going to do when they lose their jobs? And then I thought, well, hang on: we’ve got all these service industries now, things like psychotherapy, and the military approach to psychotherapy would really be kind of perfect. Really efficient and fast! You know, “Listen, you are nothing. You are a worm. And if you don’t get that mother complex solved by 0400 hours, you are dead meat!”

~~ Laurie Anderson, The Mysterious “J”

Gunnery seargent hartmannWhen I was writing about Fat Acceptance/HAES a couple nights ago and had to stop midstream, as it were, I was very aware that I hadn’t really said everything about fat shaming that I would want to. I mentioned the ways that fat shaming carries negative health effects for the target of such stigma, but I didn’t really unpack the general insanity of fat shaming. Or, to be more precise, the bananas nature of how fat shaming is usually justified as a means of informing/inspiring some poor fattie into losing weight and getting healthier.

Of course, those two concepts don’t even really go together, because weight /= health, but I’m using that phrasing to indicate the double level of bananas that’s going on here. First is the delusion that weight and health are equated, but even if that particular myth were true, I still trip over the insanity of the expectation that shaming and stigmatizing someone will inspire them to make positive change in their life.

Now, just in case you’re silly enough to think that engaging in fat-shaming will inspire some one to get on the healthy-eating-and-exercise train, let me give you a quick hit to a study from back in 2007:

We have seen over the years that it does not work to make people feel worse about their bodies. The data are striking — talking about weight, worrying too much about diet, focusing on it increases risk not only of eating disorders, but also of being overweight.

So, no: shaming not effective. (As Kate Harding once said: Special Delivery from the Duh Truck.)

One more thing: considering how steeped our culture is in anti-fat rhetoric, does a fat-shamer really think that his or her observation of my fatness is something that’s going to be news to me — or to any fat person?

So I’ll admit: considering that these two notions — 1)  fat people already know they’re fat; 2)  shaming doesn’t do anything to build positive choices, but instead just beats someone down — are so very common sense indeed, I’ve pretty much assumed that anyone who does indulge in fat shaming (no matter how prettily it’s couched in concern trolling language), is just kinda being an asshole.

Fat Heffalump pretty fully eviscerated that particular behavior pattern a few months ago when she pointed out that You’re not the First to Tell a Fat Person…  Taking direct aim at concern trolling and claims that “I’m just worried for your health!” she has this to say:

No you’re not.  If you were, you would be standing beside me fighting fat stigma and advocating for equitable health treatment for all.  You don’t give a damn about the health and wellbeing of fat people.  You don’t care that fat people can’t get treatment for everything from the common cold through to cancer because they are all blamed on their fatness and they’re just given a diet, not actual treatment.  You don’t care that the public vilification of fat people causes depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.  You don’t care that fat people are dying because they are so shamed by the medical profession that they can’t bring themselves to go back to the doctor when they are ill.  Claiming you care about our wellbeing is a lie.

And the inimitable Regan at Dances with Fat more recently pointed out that Being a Jerk is Not Actually Brave:

We are aware that you think “Fat bad, thin good, shame the fatties grunt grunt grunt”. We can hear this message  386,170 times every year.  I’ve been fat for 17 years, which means I’ve heard it around 6,564,890 times.  How can you possibly think that hearing it 6,564,891 times is going to improve my life?   Being 6,564,891 does not make you special or brave, it makes you one more doody in a big ole pile of poo.  It is an act of hubris that is almost beyond understanding to not only be a bully, but to ask for credit by claiming that your bullying is an act of bravery. […]

Or you could swim against the stream and treat fat people like the intelligent human beings we are- not like confused misguided sheep who need your strong guidance – and encourage others to do the same.  Let there be a fat person who only hears 386,169 messages about their body because you refused to pile on the shame and body hate.  That’s brave.

But, if I can come down off my own high horse for a moment, it’s worth mentioning that — however common sense it may feel to me that shaming has no positive effect on a person or situation — the fact remains that we do a lot of shaming in this culture.

And not just about fatness. Almost any aspect of life that comes up for judgement and it deemed to “need changing” comes up for that Nike drill sergeant (“Just do it!”) so beautifully satirized by Laurie Anderson, above. And maybe I’m right, sitting in my own little superiority-tower: maybe we’re all just assholes.

Or maybe there’s some deeper delusion we’re all trapped in, to honestly halfway think that the way to change a life’s path is to try and block off the “undesirable” option with a pile of shit and shame.

Something worth further examination.

———-

Image credit: http://rcoll-rorscharch.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-worst-kinds-of-fathers.html

wood-slice-walkway

Going with the Flow and Against the Grain

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Practicing in the Heart, Self-Acceptance, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My HeadLeave a comment

wood-slice-walkwaySome time last week, I posted about having tickets to see Pentatonix this weekend. Considering how much I love the group, I’ve been struck, as the week has worn on, by my emotions about this upcoming event. Because instead of feeling excited or looking forward to the concert, I was feeling much more a sense of exhaustion and obligation.

There’s a lot else going on right now. Three big proposals all due next week: I’m responsible for writing two of them, and also for wrangling a lot of the extra docs in all three proposal packages. And, of course, it’s tax season, so Mr. Mezzo and I need to give attention there. Plus the usual routine of unpacking and laundry and groceries & cooking — all of which I’m well behind on due to my detox weekend out of town and last weekend’s energy crash.

With all of that on my plate, the idea of a trip into Boston’s House of Blues was definitely carrying a whole lot of pressure around it. The time that it would take. The anxiety of navigating an unfamiliar neighborhood and location. The difficulty of being someplace with food and drink I’m not currently allowed to eat, and knowing I’ll have to go hungry because I can’t figure out how to bring my own dinner along into that setting and past the door guard.

I want the feeling of going to a concert to be a happy step out of the routine, rather than another hoop to jump through. But if I was going to be fearlessly honest with myself, “another hoop to jump through” is exactly how it was feeling.

So Mr. and I have decided to take the concert off of our weekend agenda.

I feel some guilt about having wasted the money — we bought the tickets a couple months ago. And we’ve decided to back out so last-minute that there’s no way to resell anything on Stubhub or the like. So those dollars are just gone.

And I’m also aware that this decision goes against much of the conventional wisdom about how to bring self-care into one’s life and how to prioritize fun and joy in the midst of life’s many responsibilities.

But a big part of the self-care I’m learning during this detox journey is about listening to my body and discerning what is (and isn’t) in true alignment with my system. And, for whatever reason, this planned excursion wasn’t feeling in alignment for me. So I want to practice moving with the flow of my own instincts, even if that leads me to choices that seem illogical or counter-intuitive to someone else.

And this way I know I’ve got a good chance of getting to bed at a reasonable hour for all of the next three nights. Which, considering all my early mornings this past week, is a source of joy all unto itself.

———-

Image credit: http://www.katyelliott.com/blog/2009/03/wood-slice-walkway-inspiration.html

apple corer and slicer

When Apples Attack

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Practicing in the Heart, Topics of Study3 Comments

Obviously, I took last night off from blogging — choir rehearsal may make this a common practice on Wednesday night.  The effect last night was exacerbated by rehearsal being part of a trifecta that included staying late at work (barely enough time to have dinner and get to rehearsal), and an early-morning training today (so my post-rehearsal routine needed to be a pretty direct trajectory to bedtime).

And I’ll admit I haven’t been entirely sure what else to write about my HCG journey these past couple days. Things have been kind of in a decent routine, actually. Didn’t feel like much to say.

But then there are days where the routine gets a little shaken up.

apple corer and slicerSo here’s what my mornings have looked like. After rolling out of bed and having that sleepy-eyed date with the scale, I’ve set myself up with my daily packet of Blessed Herbs. Now, the usual instructions are to mix the packet with some apple juice, but apple and other fruit juices are verboten on the HCG protocol, so I’ve been putting half an apple, some water, and the Blessed Herbs packet into the Vitamix to make my own mini-detoxifying breakfast “smoothie.” Then I’ve bagged up the other 4 apple slices from the corer and taken them to the office for a mid-morning snack.

All in all, a pretty elegant and effective way to start the days.

Until this morning when this happened:

broken apple corer embedded in appleI don’t know what it was about this particular organic pink lady apple, but the corer wasn’t moving smoothly through it. Clearly, it was not going gentle into this good night, but still I figured it was going to come down to the laws of physics: edge and metal sure to win against soft, fruity organic matter.

Obviously, I miscalculated.

So we’re out one snazzy red corer and I have a cut on the side of both thumbs. (It wasn’t exactly like I had my hands at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel, but that’s a close enough description to give you a sense of the injuries.) I know I shouldn’t complain overmuch — the cuts aren’t really that big, and I’ll keep them cleaned and bandaged to make sure they heal okay.

Still, right now they honestly do hurt. And you’re encouraged to stay away from all unessential medications while on HCG, so I’m testing my endurance to see if I can gut through this without taking any aspirin.

And I am so curious about what sort of message there may be for me in this event. I know: it’s a little precious to be always looking for messages in things, and it’s not like I’m expecting all of life’s messages to me to be something hugely portentous or anything. But I’m at a stage in my consciousness work that whenever something really unexpected occurs, I do tend to give it a bit of a closer look to see if that surprising moment is here to show me an internal belief, or an external pattern…. or (in this case) something else I can’t quite put a finger on.

———-

Image credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_corer

Taking It All In

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Fat is Just an Adjective, Practicing in the Heart2 Comments

I’m down here for a 4, 4-and-a-half day experience, which is meant to transition me into a 42-day HCG journey. (Which in itself is intended as the first stage in a lifetime path of detoxing and caring for myself differently.)

I share these calendar details in the spirit of observing that it’s only the end of Day 1, and there is already so much to look at and write about that I could take weeks to do it. I’m assuming that in a week or two, once I’ve settled into the protocol, there will be some time to reflect back on parts of this trip. Given that expectation — and, quite honestly, given the reality that I can only write so much before my weary bones call me to bed — I’m not even remotely going to try and pretend I’m going to capture everything worth saying here in the midst of experiencing everything. Instead, I’m just going to look at whatever is most present to me.

So, one big thing that happened today is I had my doctor’s consult and did my first HCG shot. Which means I’m in the midst of one of the more counterintuitive moments of the protocol: loading days.

Here’s my kindergarten-level explanation of how the HCG protocol works. By combining the hormone shots with a no-sugar, no-starch diet, you’re able to inspire your body to shift into ketosis, where you’re deriving your daily energy from fat molecules rather than sugar molecules. Since the diet restrictions also eliminate fats (new fat intake being what the body would first choose as an ketosis energy source), the body is further inspired to extract energy from the body’s existing deposits of adipose tissue — then allowing the rest of the toxins and gunk from within those cells to be cleared.

However, it takes a few days to shift into that second part of the process, so part of the protocol is to spend the first two injection days eating a whole lot of high-protein, high-fat food — so your system has a short term energy source before the deep detoxing begins.

And I mean a LOT of food.

———-

Now I know that it is impossible to look at someone’s waistline and magically be able to intuit how “healthy” or “unhealthy” their eating habits are.* But I also know that, speaking only for myself, I have indeed been living from a place of emotional eating and a lot of unhealthy eating habits. So, as I talked through my Day 1 “loading menu” with my detox coach last night, I kinda thought I would find this piece easy. After all, everything on the menu — lattes, breakfast sandwiches, bacon cheeseburgers, calzones — are things that I eat pretty regularly.

But even I don’t eat them all together in the same day. And it was surprisingly like a marathon/endurance journey to get through and take in all the calories prescribed to me for this Day 1 experience.** And there’s still tomorrow…

———-

There’s the whole other level of “taking it in” — taking in care and support — that I’m also practicing into. Folks filling my water bottle for me and rinsing my dishes after I have one of these surprisingly difficult-to-eat meals. It is harder for me to allow that, even a little bit harder than I expected it to be. And yet, I am profoundly grateful for the care being shown me.

And that, however halfway-told the story is, and however gossamer-thin its conclusion, is all she wrote tonight. Bed is calling.

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* And, just for the record, even if someone has the “unhealthiest” diet in the ever-loving WORLD, that person is still of worth and value and deserves to be met with compassion and acceptance and respect.

** There’s also a whole other exploration worth articulating — some other day — about the surreal nature of taking eating choices and patterns I customarily express in a deeply unconscious place and to be replicating them in a sober, conscious, spiritually awake place. Wild.

I am a rock. I am an island.

Letting Go of the Steering Wheel

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Practicing in the Heart, Self-Acceptance, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My Head3 Comments

One of the things that intrigues me about the HCG protocol I’m about to start is the fact that HCG is a hormone created in a woman’s body when she’s pregnant.

(Nota bene: nothing of what I say next is grounded in medical knowledge, nor is it intended to claim medical knowledge or scientific accuracy. I’m dancing with metaphors here.)

I’m having a hard time putting it precisely into words, but there’s a resonance for me both in the imagined process of a mother’s body producing HCG as part of the protection and nurturance being created for the fetus, and also in the image of the fetus being nurtured and cared for during gestation.

I see myself and this detox journey on both sides of this coin. Certainly a big piece of the journey is to learn to care for myself in different — one might even say “more mature” — ways. To be a stronger mother to myself, in a manner of speaking. (I’m bookmarking that side of the coin for another day.)

Another area of practice and growth for me — which is what’s noodling around my brain tonight — is around receiving support and nurturance, and maybe rewiring some of my old patterns around that.

Let me own this up front: I am not so good at receiving help, support, love or affection. I don’t need to do the detailed forensic autopsy on why that’s so. Take a sensitive girl child, raise her in a patriarchal system with an average life’s share of bumps and bruises and into-every-life-a-little-rain-must-fall, add a dash of intelligence and ambition and you might get someone who decides that her version of strength should be of the “I am Lobo. I hunt alone” variety.

I am a rock. I am an island.So, obviously, some of the sessions I have scheduled for this week’s trip have very precisely to do with the doctor’s consult around the HCG prescription, learning how to administer the injections, all that stuff. But the center I’m working with has a whole team assembled to help give me lots of other layers of support. Tips for grocery shopping and cooking, both within the immediate dietary restrictions of the HCG protocol and beyond it. Other sorts of bodywork and energy work. I’m even staying at the Center’s “guest house,” and the house manager (and/or other center staff) will be helping drive me around to my different sessions and appointments.

I know these folks. I absolutely trust them, and I know for certain that they are going to take good care of me.

And yet. My inner control freak is not entirely happy with the idea of letting go of the steering wheel, both literally and figuratively. And the fact that I am so strongly feeling the limitations of my capacity to receive and to accept — even in something as simple as accepting car rides instead of taking care of myself through a rental car — well, that’s as clear a sign as any  as to why it’s a good thing for me to try and  unwind some of these old habits around false independence and isolation.

Time to try letting the care in.

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Image credit: http://www.pixton.com/schools/embed/uneyvcdq