Spring cleaning.

It’s that time of year again.  The time to spring clean your life—clear the clutter, shed the excess weight and let go of old limiting beliefs.  How do we collect so much over the winter months?  

I sat in the question and made the decision to begin the process of removing the excess in my life.  Ok, where to start?  The closet?  Sure, I can lose those extra pounds and maybe fit into those cute skirts I wore five years ago……or maybe not.  I’m not sure if I’m in that space anymore.  Ok, out with the skirts and short tops and trendy ‘stuff’…let’s see, what’s left to wear?  You have to get rid of the old to make room for the new,  right?

In anticipation of the pending wardrobe update, I decided it was time for a 7-day cleanse.  How do you prepare yourself for a cleanse?  It’s more of a mental preparation than a physical preparation.  Yes, you can begin to change your eating habits a week or so ahead of the cleanse, but you also have to change your thoughts regarding food.  Looking consciously at your food choices, notice where you resist the very thought of ‘giving it up’ for 7 days.  It’s only one week of modifying your diet–ok, giving up the afternoon coffee and pastries, the pancakes on Sunday or the late night snacks.  How hard could that be?  A little difficult if you continue to co-exist with friends or family who put that chocolate cookie under your nose.

So I decided to engage the yogic practice of Svadyaya, or self-inquiry, to uncover the truth of who I am–and in this case, who I am in relationship with food.  Yes, food is nourishment for the body, but it’s also feeds the soul.   Think about all the ways we engage with food.  We are a society of rituals–we celebrate birthdays, holidays, life transitions–everything with food.  We feed our emotions with food–food for depression, food for happiness, food for success, food for failure–I was already planning my first solid meal post- cleanse. 

So my next question was, why bother to do a cleanse at all if I’m already planning my exit strategy?  It occurred to me that I had a choice to just continue down the path of eating myself to an early death or changing my life for the better.  I can choose foods with a higher vibration–living foods with a higher life force energy–that will support my being on every level.   Processed foods are dead foods that have very little life force energy to sustain the living tissue in the body.   So I went to the market and stocked up on a variety of vegetables and fruits.  My energy level increased just in the preparation of the cleanse.  Imagine that?  Spring is the time for new beginnings, a time for renewal and rejuvenation.  Set an intention to give yourself the greatest gift of all–the gift of health.  Without your health, what do you really have?

It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.  Mohandas Gandhi

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