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Recap of Week 1
Congratulations! The first week tends to be the hardest week of this cleanse and you have made it through intact. Take a moment to celebrate this success and then take a deep breath and move your focus to the upcoming week. If you slipped up a bit during the first week, don't dwell on this or use it as an excuse to discard the entire program. Take this moment to recommit yourself to this cleanse. Remind yourself of all of the reasons why you signed up in the first place and write these down. If you haven't already, take the time to listen to our calls from last week, visit the Discussion Forum in our Virtual Living Room, and connect with the energy of the group. The following weeks will get easier and easier physically; but mentally and emotionally we will need to continue to dig deep within ourselves to stay the course. The power of the group will help carry you through when this month seems too difficult - so make sure you are tapping into and contributing to this energy on a consistent basis!
Last week we presented the concept of "Discovering Your Power." You probably had many opportunities to exercise your inner power muscles last week - by coming up with strategies to endure the hunger you felt during the day, staying the course through uncomfortable detoxification symptoms, saying "no" to non-life generating activities, or affirming your commitment when faced with temptations. Just like a muscle in the body, the more you exercise the power within, the stronger it will become. As we mentioned last week, the result of this will bring many gifts - inspired thoughts and actions, confidence, vitality, joy, inner peace, limitlessness, and a magnetic capability to draw to you situations, people and experiences that serve your highest good and ultimate purpose.
Putting Awareness into Action - Cultivating Your Power
Now that you recognize the power within you, begin putting your awareness into action with the concept of cultivating your power. In order to cultivate our power, we need to first recognize what helps us gain or loose power. Thoughts, actions, conversations, stories we tell ourselves about who we are and why we do things, limitations we put on ourselves, the way we speak about ourselves and others, the way we interface with the living world, the foods we eat, and even the fabrics and colors we wear, all carry an energetic vibration and therefore, have an affect on our power. All of these things can either generate or drain our power depending on the choices we make.
An easy way to pinpoint whether or not something you are doing, saying or thinking is leeching or building your power is to pay attention to the way you feel. How do you feel after having a negative conversation about a colleague or family member? Is there an initial surge of "power" and then a noticeable dip in your energy? Conversely, how do you feel when you offer someone a sincere compliment or you notice a beautiful sunset, flower or cloud in the sky? Although the latter may momentarily make you feel "powerful," you will notice that this feeling is fleeting. The energy you build by saying, thinking, observing, and doing positive things will feel deeper and last longer.
To begin cultivating your power, pay attention to the interactions, situations, conversations, and thoughts that you are engaging in on a daily basis. They ALL are either helping you to build or taking away from your inner power store. When it comes to energy there is no "neutral" - only life-enhancing or life-deteriorating, so pay attention to the net result of all of your interactions with yourself and others! Recognizing that your energy is either building or draining (enhancing or depleting), you can use the 30 days of this cleanse to begin consciously engaging in situations that are helping you cultivate energy and disengaging from situations that are leeching energy.
The Alkaline Reserve
By abstaining from eating energy draining foods all day, abstaining from most acidic substances, and flooding our bodies with alkalinity, we are building what is known as our "alkaline reserve." You can think of the alkaline reserve like a bank account. Everything alkaline that you put into your body adds to your account and everything acidic takes away from your account. This alkaline reserve exists at a biochemical or molecular level and your body will tap into it when it finds itself in stressful situations physically, mentally or emotionally.
We want to keep our alkaline reserve "bank account" extremely strong and healthy. You can use this cleanse to begin tapping into the status of this alkalinity reserve. Once per day, you can ask yourself, "Where is my alkaline reserve right now?" Based on the answer to this question, you can make adjustments. If you feel like your day has been weighed down with acidity in your foods and/or environment (e.g. you have spent all day indoors in front of a computer under fluorescent lighting), you may choose to build your alkaline store by having a completely raw salad, raw vegetable sushi rolls, going for a walk in nature, and steering clear of computer, television screens and smart phones for the rest of the day.
Setting Boundaries
To protect our inner power energetically and physically, we need to set healthy boundaries around ourselves and have a good warrior at the gate. Your inner power and alkaline reserve are essential to your vitality and the quality of life that you live; certainly well worth protecting with a gentle ferociousness! You are getting stronger and stronger every day and as you feel this power surge, use that momentum to make decisions in favor of more inner power, more joy, and more peace. Sometimes the need to enforce boundaries can bring about tough decisions but standing up for what is truly important for your health and well-being will always pay off in the long run - for all parties involved!
What's Happening in Your Body - Week 2
You should definitely be feeling much better this week! Detox symptoms may have been prevalent in the first week but now that we are entering Week 2, you should be seeing and feeling positive results. Throughout this week you will also notice that:
If it is the former, the fact that your body is repairing the vital organs that keep you alive is a good thing! Don't let the absence of immediate results on the scale discourage you from keeping with this cleanse. Rest assured that when your body is at equilibrium, weight loss will come. What is important is that you do not give up at this point and do not allow the thought, "Maybe my body is just different and not responding to this cleanse" to take root in your mind. Differences between individuals may happen but only at the level of the small details. For example, some people find they do better with more fish and less starch or vice versa. These types of differences can happen but the concept of removing waste and detoxification for better health works for everyone. This is not the time to stop and question whether or not it is working for you - a week is not long enough to determine whether the weight is going to come off. Just keep at it and allow your body to work for you.
We've seen it happen countless times that a small percentage of cleansers do not see weight loss in the early days and even weeks - those who stick with it do see it happen. Its around the corner. But you won't have that wonderful water shed (or "weight" shed) experience if you resign now. Your body is hard at work. We encourage you to honor all that your body is doing within because you've provided this perfect environment for it to do so. Notice the positive changes you are seeing and know that the weight loss is a natural bi-product that has to come as the waste leaves the system.
It is very important that you remain focused and alert throughout this week. Avoid the "boredom" trap by staying connected with your peers in the Virtual Living Room and revisiting the contract you made with yourself often. This is the time to stay the course and continue learning, growing, and paying close attention to all of the changes that are happening within your body.
Practicalities This Week...
It is important that you are as prepared for the upcoming week as you were last week. Use the Pre-Cleanse Preparation Guide to make your shopping list and do your shopping ahead of time. Freeze soups and broths if that is helpful for you and order anything in advance that you may need. Book your appointments for colonics (or plan when you will be able to do your enemas) and consider how you will fit your movement, sauna, and/or meditation in with this week's schedule.
Also, use last week's experience to make adjustments this week. Are you finding that you need food earlier and sometimes get into an eating frenzy because you waited too long to eat? If this is the case, pack a bag of olives, cherry tomatoes and carrots for the drive home from work or while picking up the kids. If you are meeting friends for drinks and know that a glass of wine will probably give you the "munchies," bring something with you that will help you avoid the temptation to dig into the bread basket because you are tipsy and starving! Go in knowing you will want something to munch on and don't be shy about whipping out your carrots or olives! Order a salad at the bar...do whatever it takes to ensure your success in any social setting.
Lifestyle Considerations
Some of you may not be accustomed to focusing this much energy and attention on yourself! If this is true for you, aspects of this cleanse may seem indulgent. However, this is the level of care that is required for us all to maintain healthy, vibrant bodies for a lifetime! You may be spending a little more on organic foods, juices and colonics but consider what is the best use of your budget? While you may be spending a little more in one area, you are saving money by not eating lunch everyday, skipping dinners out here and there, and not buying things you don't need that are actually harmful for your body. In addition, what you are spending money on will have long-term benefits for your health and therefore you will spend a lot less money on doctors, medication, and surgeries in the future. Maybe look at it this way: you're giving yourself the most powerful cleansing SPA experience without going to a spa. There's no where in the world that you could go to renew yourself that is more powerful than what we are doing right here - awakening and releasing your inner accumulation!
What you are spending on now in both time and energy will be used to build your internal power, health and long-term well-being...consider the value of this!
Mental & Emotional Work This Week - Going Deeper...
You will find that you are seeing things beneath the superficial layer that you may have seen before. There is a concept called the Ring-pass-not. This is the limit in spiritual, intellectual, or psychological power or consciousness, beyond which an individual is unable to pass until he evokes from within the strength and the vision to carry him forward and over the circumscribing limits. These limits are set by that individual's own experiences and conditioning and are illusions based on the past. For example, you may have a ring-pass-not around how far you can run and at what pace or how long you can go without dense foods or wine. These ring-pass-nots are simply inabilities to pass beyond the limits set by one's own strength. They refer to tangible and intangible, albeit temporarily impassible, frontiers or barriers.
Use this week to figure out what your ring-pass-nots are and how can you push beyond them. What limitations have you set in your life? How can you go beyond these now? This Cleanse is about resetting patterns and breaking new ground in all aspects of our lives. Where are you holding yourself back and how can you start taking steps to move your boundaries further and further out?
Homework
Commit to journaling every day this week...consider the mental, emotional, practical and spiritual topics we brought up in this week's lesson and write down your thoughts. It will be amazing to look at this in the future to see much your perspective changes! Also, take time to consider and write down what is and isn't working for you right now. Can you bring any of this to our Thursday call to share with the group?