Wow, it's been a long time since I last blogged. If you have the patience to read to the end it will be very apparent why. I had every intention of keeping it up however the following 3 weeks after my last blog were some the hardest moments of my life. Being at the ashram doing the training was clearly NOT a retreat. The word "challenging" is like the polite easy going free spirited younger brother of the appropriate qualifier that I would use if there existed a term suitable for an intended PG rated blog. It took me a week after that to come down from that experience and blogging was far from my mind. Let me start from the beginning.
Everything was going ok, the schedule was crazy and stressful but I was enjoying everything except for the 5am wake up calls and the 6am cold yoga classes that were still very much not working for me. Then came weekend 3, the weekend of the big cleanse. It was a digestive track cleanse that consisted of a short fast and then drinking vast quantities of warm salt water. Without going into details, if all goes right the system gets cleaned out within a couple of hours. For about 3 days all we could eat was something called kitchery (overly cooked rice mush) with oodles of ghee (clarified butter). The point of the menu is to make it easy on the body to digest and to rehydrate the system (hence the ghee). The point of the cleanse is to purify the body. I didn't really feel like my body needed it because I have done these types of things in the near past and I was quite certain that my digestion was running top notch. I also am very aware that any sort of cleans can run a person down energy wise and I wasn't interested in being more tired than I already was. I expressed this to the teachers and they encouraged me to do it anyway. I was told that it was a very mild cleanse and then I would have the experience doing it. According to them I would be back in good condition in 2 or 3 days followed by much better health from the detoxing. I decided to do it. Everything went according to plan until day 3 but I'll get to that later. On day 2 of the cleanse I had come to a decision, I didn't want to be struggling with the early morning anymore so I told the teachers that I was longer going to push my sore inflamed body to do it (unless I felt like it) regardless of them giving me my certificate or not. I wanted to get up at a time that made sense to my body and start my day feeling happy. Life is just too short. We discussed the alternatives for me to get the required hours for the certificate and it all good, they understood that it was hard for me to make that decision because I am an a certified over achiever. They were very supportive and were happily willing to work it out with me. After all I was staying for another week after graduation to take a pilot training in yoga lifestyle counselling they were offering for feedback.
Although physically I was drained everything went from being ok to pure bliss for the rest of day 2. Well it was very short lived because this great moment of self-assertiveness and detachment was followed by the drama of day 3. I started the morning with some of the very worst pain I've felt in my life, it was wave after wave of severe cramping in my gut. The pain was so severe that I found myself on the verge of passing out and at one point I threw up. That was followed by 5 more days of cramps and a total lack of digestive function meaning that I was no longer digesting any food. I felt so sick and miserable and completely disconnected from myself and everything I hold dear. I could not understand what I was feeling. I've had my challenges in life but how could I get there a happy strong person and now felt so emotionally numb, empty and lost. I felt so confused. I wanted to be home and I put everything that had been meaningful to me in the last few years in question: doing yoga, teaching yoga, the sale of my house/car/stuff, leaving my job, packing it up and leaving for India and worst of all, my life long desire to go to Africa. In those moments I just couldn't imagine how I would ever make it there and be happy. All this emotional craziness was adding a whole lot of insult to injury. In all my confusion there was 2 things that I was certain about: the cleanse had done this to me as opposed to catching a parasite and the second thing is that although all food was going straight through me, that I was not getting dehydrated. Both good things. VishvaJi used his best Ayurvedic knowledge to ease my pain after the first day which did work however even he was suggesting after 5 days of this that I should go see a medical doctor. I was convinced that a medical doctor would not be able to help me because again, I was certain that it was not a parasite. I did agree to see an Ayurvedic doctor. It took him all of 30 seconds of listening to my pulse to tell me what I already knew, the cleanse did it and he describe the result as a putting out of the digestive fire. In other words the pilot light burned out. He assured me that it was not serious at all and that I was very healthy otherwise. Six dollars later (it's incredibly cheap to see any kind of doctor in India) he sent me off with 2 types of herbal pills with no English names associated to them. He told me that in 1 or 2 days it would get a lot better and that in a week it would be completely gone.
My physical body did indeed heal just as Dr. Aurora predicted but my emotional mind was still very sick, I was still unhappy and empty. A few days before the graduation we had a special ceremony in which VishvaJi gives each of us a spiritual name in Sanskrit based on his own meditation or "download" as he calls it on who we are and our dharma or mission in life. Mine is Dayavati which means kindness. My instant reaction was that I'm being told that I need to be more kind to people and it made me feel weirdly defensive. I didn't get it but at this point there was a lot I wasn't getting. After the ceremony I sat with this and intellectually reminded myself that spiritual names are given based on what you are, not what you are not. For the first time in several days I actually giggled at myself for being such a drama queen.
Finally the day came for our graduation. For the first time since I'd gotten to India 6 weeks earlier it rained. For short spurts on and off all morning and early afternoon it rained like there was no tomorrow. I happened to be doing a class that morning (one of the few mornings I got up after I got sick) in the upstairs yoga room and the rain was deafening on the tin roof. We could no longer hear the teacher's voice. I could feel that something was shifting. VishvaJi told us after the class that rain was a sign that the season was changing there. It was going to get colder. He was surprised that it had not rained before that day, it was late coming compared to other years. I left the yoga room and the air was damp and fresh with the smell of wet wild vegetation, it was odd because if felt to me like being in NB. Although the scenery was still very much foreign the air made me feel like I was plucked out of India and I was at home. After all that struggle it was a relieving feeling.
Later that morning we were finishing off our last training sessions, we were given some time to journal about our fears and expectation around integrated back into our lives after the training. I didn't have a lot to write about because I'm not going back to my life for a while and I don't even really know for sure if I ever will. Even if I did I wouldn't have any fears anyway, for the good or for the bad I've never lived to suit anyone's expectations of me and I can't really see that changing. Deep in that though process it was like something snapped back into place. I was gazing at the smiling face of a statue of the Hindu god Shiva in the room, there was a beautiful song from the yoga band called Wah! playing in the back ground and I was full again. Just like that. Everything that was ever good in my mind, spirit and heart was all put right back where it belonged.
Sitting with it a bit more throughout the day I discovered that there was something that was not put back into place. For as long as I can remember I have been plagued by some form of infatuation or another. It could be someone I knew or not, someone close or far, someone available or not, some had possibilities, some had not one small grain of it. If one died I instinctively started looking to find another one. In the last few years I've been very happy on my own without a relationship but I've never been free of this weight around my heart since my very first crush at 6 years old. It seems that it went with the crap and salt water.
I've come to think of this whole experience as a major reboot. As the Del tech supports in India tell us North Americans "First try turning off the PC, wait 2 minutes and turn back on. That one could fix the problem ma'me..."
Although I had a some hours to complete they included me in the ceremony and gave me my certificate. After all that I had been through I was incredibly grateful that they allowed me to be part of that moment with all my classmates. For all that I went through let me assure anyone reading this that I was not the only one that had my world turned upside down. 32 graduating and 32 very emotionally intense, individual struggles. Many of us would not have survived the course if it wasn't for the fact that we were all in it together.
I did my extra week of training but it was much different then the previous 5 weeks. Different kind of material, different pace, different goal, no stress. Because my first roommate had left (less then half of the students stayed for the pilot training) I also had Carolyn as a new roommate from the course and a new room with a big window which let in a lot of light and also made the room warmer. After all those scary negative feelings I am grateful to have had the opportunity to fully feel the greater happiness that the experience left me while I was still in Rishikesh. Carolyn and I had an amazing time that last week including celebrating Carolyn's birthday!
I left Rishikesh yesterday and am now in Goa. I'm next to the beach, it's 30ish degrees, it's sunny and for the first time in years I have nothing to do and nowhere else to be for weeks. I'm sure I could already say much about Goa but some other day ;)
Everything was going ok, the schedule was crazy and stressful but I was enjoying everything except for the 5am wake up calls and the 6am cold yoga classes that were still very much not working for me. Then came weekend 3, the weekend of the big cleanse. It was a digestive track cleanse that consisted of a short fast and then drinking vast quantities of warm salt water. Without going into details, if all goes right the system gets cleaned out within a couple of hours. For about 3 days all we could eat was something called kitchery (overly cooked rice mush) with oodles of ghee (clarified butter). The point of the menu is to make it easy on the body to digest and to rehydrate the system (hence the ghee). The point of the cleanse is to purify the body. I didn't really feel like my body needed it because I have done these types of things in the near past and I was quite certain that my digestion was running top notch. I also am very aware that any sort of cleans can run a person down energy wise and I wasn't interested in being more tired than I already was. I expressed this to the teachers and they encouraged me to do it anyway. I was told that it was a very mild cleanse and then I would have the experience doing it. According to them I would be back in good condition in 2 or 3 days followed by much better health from the detoxing. I decided to do it. Everything went according to plan until day 3 but I'll get to that later. On day 2 of the cleanse I had come to a decision, I didn't want to be struggling with the early morning anymore so I told the teachers that I was longer going to push my sore inflamed body to do it (unless I felt like it) regardless of them giving me my certificate or not. I wanted to get up at a time that made sense to my body and start my day feeling happy. Life is just too short. We discussed the alternatives for me to get the required hours for the certificate and it all good, they understood that it was hard for me to make that decision because I am an a certified over achiever. They were very supportive and were happily willing to work it out with me. After all I was staying for another week after graduation to take a pilot training in yoga lifestyle counselling they were offering for feedback.
Although physically I was drained everything went from being ok to pure bliss for the rest of day 2. Well it was very short lived because this great moment of self-assertiveness and detachment was followed by the drama of day 3. I started the morning with some of the very worst pain I've felt in my life, it was wave after wave of severe cramping in my gut. The pain was so severe that I found myself on the verge of passing out and at one point I threw up. That was followed by 5 more days of cramps and a total lack of digestive function meaning that I was no longer digesting any food. I felt so sick and miserable and completely disconnected from myself and everything I hold dear. I could not understand what I was feeling. I've had my challenges in life but how could I get there a happy strong person and now felt so emotionally numb, empty and lost. I felt so confused. I wanted to be home and I put everything that had been meaningful to me in the last few years in question: doing yoga, teaching yoga, the sale of my house/car/stuff, leaving my job, packing it up and leaving for India and worst of all, my life long desire to go to Africa. In those moments I just couldn't imagine how I would ever make it there and be happy. All this emotional craziness was adding a whole lot of insult to injury. In all my confusion there was 2 things that I was certain about: the cleanse had done this to me as opposed to catching a parasite and the second thing is that although all food was going straight through me, that I was not getting dehydrated. Both good things. VishvaJi used his best Ayurvedic knowledge to ease my pain after the first day which did work however even he was suggesting after 5 days of this that I should go see a medical doctor. I was convinced that a medical doctor would not be able to help me because again, I was certain that it was not a parasite. I did agree to see an Ayurvedic doctor. It took him all of 30 seconds of listening to my pulse to tell me what I already knew, the cleanse did it and he describe the result as a putting out of the digestive fire. In other words the pilot light burned out. He assured me that it was not serious at all and that I was very healthy otherwise. Six dollars later (it's incredibly cheap to see any kind of doctor in India) he sent me off with 2 types of herbal pills with no English names associated to them. He told me that in 1 or 2 days it would get a lot better and that in a week it would be completely gone.
My physical body did indeed heal just as Dr. Aurora predicted but my emotional mind was still very sick, I was still unhappy and empty. A few days before the graduation we had a special ceremony in which VishvaJi gives each of us a spiritual name in Sanskrit based on his own meditation or "download" as he calls it on who we are and our dharma or mission in life. Mine is Dayavati which means kindness. My instant reaction was that I'm being told that I need to be more kind to people and it made me feel weirdly defensive. I didn't get it but at this point there was a lot I wasn't getting. After the ceremony I sat with this and intellectually reminded myself that spiritual names are given based on what you are, not what you are not. For the first time in several days I actually giggled at myself for being such a drama queen.
Finally the day came for our graduation. For the first time since I'd gotten to India 6 weeks earlier it rained. For short spurts on and off all morning and early afternoon it rained like there was no tomorrow. I happened to be doing a class that morning (one of the few mornings I got up after I got sick) in the upstairs yoga room and the rain was deafening on the tin roof. We could no longer hear the teacher's voice. I could feel that something was shifting. VishvaJi told us after the class that rain was a sign that the season was changing there. It was going to get colder. He was surprised that it had not rained before that day, it was late coming compared to other years. I left the yoga room and the air was damp and fresh with the smell of wet wild vegetation, it was odd because if felt to me like being in NB. Although the scenery was still very much foreign the air made me feel like I was plucked out of India and I was at home. After all that struggle it was a relieving feeling.
Later that morning we were finishing off our last training sessions, we were given some time to journal about our fears and expectation around integrated back into our lives after the training. I didn't have a lot to write about because I'm not going back to my life for a while and I don't even really know for sure if I ever will. Even if I did I wouldn't have any fears anyway, for the good or for the bad I've never lived to suit anyone's expectations of me and I can't really see that changing. Deep in that though process it was like something snapped back into place. I was gazing at the smiling face of a statue of the Hindu god Shiva in the room, there was a beautiful song from the yoga band called Wah! playing in the back ground and I was full again. Just like that. Everything that was ever good in my mind, spirit and heart was all put right back where it belonged.
Sitting with it a bit more throughout the day I discovered that there was something that was not put back into place. For as long as I can remember I have been plagued by some form of infatuation or another. It could be someone I knew or not, someone close or far, someone available or not, some had possibilities, some had not one small grain of it. If one died I instinctively started looking to find another one. In the last few years I've been very happy on my own without a relationship but I've never been free of this weight around my heart since my very first crush at 6 years old. It seems that it went with the crap and salt water.
I've come to think of this whole experience as a major reboot. As the Del tech supports in India tell us North Americans "First try turning off the PC, wait 2 minutes and turn back on. That one could fix the problem ma'me..."
Although I had a some hours to complete they included me in the ceremony and gave me my certificate. After all that I had been through I was incredibly grateful that they allowed me to be part of that moment with all my classmates. For all that I went through let me assure anyone reading this that I was not the only one that had my world turned upside down. 32 graduating and 32 very emotionally intense, individual struggles. Many of us would not have survived the course if it wasn't for the fact that we were all in it together.
I did my extra week of training but it was much different then the previous 5 weeks. Different kind of material, different pace, different goal, no stress. Because my first roommate had left (less then half of the students stayed for the pilot training) I also had Carolyn as a new roommate from the course and a new room with a big window which let in a lot of light and also made the room warmer. After all those scary negative feelings I am grateful to have had the opportunity to fully feel the greater happiness that the experience left me while I was still in Rishikesh. Carolyn and I had an amazing time that last week including celebrating Carolyn's birthday!
I left Rishikesh yesterday and am now in Goa. I'm next to the beach, it's 30ish degrees, it's sunny and for the first time in years I have nothing to do and nowhere else to be for weeks. I'm sure I could already say much about Goa but some other day ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment