purging and starting anew

the past twelve months have been an insane series of emotional highs and lows, to say the least.

the honor of being selected to join a group of notables in an upcoming anthology on yoga and body image, the shock of being told that my ailing mother had passed away, the frustration that made me consider quitting my job over and over again, the joy of having both of my daughters spend christmas here in LA with me, the excitement of being gifted with a trip to washington DC to visit a much-anticipated yoga art exhibit, the grief after being told that my father had suddenly passed away less than a year after my mother...

and if that weren't enough, there were financial, relationship, and health issues continuing to simmer under the surface.

i looked in the mirror one morning and realized i no longer recognized the person staring back at me. she looked tired and unsure of where her life was headed. and she looked like she'd put on a few pounds, too. this was no way to start the new year, that's for sure.

what to do?

it finally came to me one day: i needed to find a way to purge out all that was toxic, all that was slowing me down, all that was keeping me from being the person i'm supposed to be. get rid of the brain fog. get rid of the stress. get rid of the extra weight.

and as if my subconscious had sent out an SOS to the universe, i somehow found myself running into a friend i rarely see, nykki hardin, at an event i'd decided to attend at the last-minute when my other plans fell through.

we chatted about her cleanse program, reset self, and the more i talked with her about it, the more i realized it was just what i needed.

it didn't require me to subsist on just juices or shakes for days on end.

or raw food.

or prepackaged meals that would cost me an arm and a leg.

it did require that i abstain from eating meat, which i pretty much do, anyway (being a pescetarian, i'd have to give up fish and seafood, but it'd only be while i was on the cleanse.)

it also required me to abstain from caffeine and alcohol, which i'd already given up since the first of the year. and soda, which i gave up years ago. and nicotine, which i never had to give up because i'd never smoked. ever.

but i'd have to give up bread and pasta. and milk, eggs, and sugar. as well as cakes, cookies, crackers, cheese, and CHOCOLATE. ohmygodohmygodohmygod.

but i only have to go without for fourteen days. two weeks. half a month. i was recently in the philippines for longer than that and time just flew right past. so it shouldn't be too painful, right? right???

before i had a chance to change my mind, i jumped right in, paid nykki for the cleansing tonics and program details, and headed right into the pre-cleanse portion of the journey.

so far today, i've had a cold-pressed vegetable juice from pressed juicery (bought with a 2-for-1 coupon), a salad from the food court at a nearby office complex, roasted veggies on quinoa from veggie grill (discounted thanks to a rainy day special), and a pumpkin sticky-rice dduk and kombucha-like enzyme tea i'd picked up at meedodduk in koreatown two days before.

oh, and a handful of choc nut pieces that i'd brought back from manila. eek. i haven't even started the cleanse and i'm cheating already.

i can already tell that this is going to be quite the adventure.

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today's yoga class: a level 2/3 with riayn shumacher at santa monica yoga