Note: Your Detoxtheworld.com is a separate account and will not work in this area. You must have a separate account to access this area
Introduction
Welcome to Week 3! We are over halfway through our 30 days together and we want to congratulate you on making it this far. The theme of this Cleanse has been centered around inner power and we trust that at this point, you are truly beginning to notice, exercise, protect and consciously cultivate that power. Your relationship with yourself and your personal power will be a lifelong one so our intention is to set you on a path of discovery and love that you will continue long after the 30-day cleanse is over.
Last week we discussed the concept of cultivating power - actively and consciously paying attention to situations, experiences, thoughts, and patterns in your life that either take away or add to your power. You probably had many opportunities to notice this and make shifts toward a positive balance in power or energy. This week we would like you to begin to actively QUESTION POWER.
What Does It Mean To Question Power?
There are two major questions we will be exploring this week. First, what has power over you and second, what does it mean to actually gain power? Most of us would like to believe that nothing really has that much power over us - that we make our own decisions and live our life according to our self-determined beliefs, choices and actions. However, more often than not we are not really making conscious decisions and ACTING upon those decisions, we are actually REACTING to situations and occurrences in our lives based on the stories we have accepted about our world. This is called our "world view." Our reactions are generally based on a combination of social norms, cultural programs and past experiences. In short, we do what we believe we "should" do or what we have been programmed to do. Very few actually self-direct from a self-sovereign state of mind. The main reason: unawareness that something else has power over our lives. But, we hope that soon you will all gain that supreme authority. I cannot think of anything more valuable than to be a sovereign human being. From that comes all other things of value.
We gain power by being able to see through the areas where we have been blinded or otherwise asleep or hypnotized by false powers, past experiences and other people's opinions. Once aware of these places in our life, we have the CHOICE to live our most authentic life from a place of true power and absolute free will.
This cleanse is helping us identify our power blind spots by removing the obstructions that are keeping us from feeling the authentic life current in our bodies. By consciously choosing what, when and how we put foods into our body, we are saying "no" to false powers that have gone into our bodies in the past and have kept us in cycles of addiction - the sugar, the "fake" foods that are basically a conglomeration of chemicals, the starches, the coffee, the hormone and antibiotic laden meats. When we allow these substances to enter into our bodies, we allow them to cover up our power and keep us in a place of addiction. At that point, we are no longer choosing these foods because we authentically love them, we are choosing them because we have no power over our ability to say no to them. It is possible that when we take our power back we will still occasionally choose to consume these substances, but we will be making this choice consciously and from a place of inner power
Where Else Can I Take Back My Power?
What we put into our body is a great place to begin noticing our power blind spots. However, the clearer we get physically, the more our perception opens up and we start to see all of the other things that have us under a spell. This week, we can begin asking ourselves, "What else is casting a shadow over my ability to make my own decisions? What else is obstructing me from living my most authentic life? What is "keeping me down with a sword" and making me act out of fear instead of power?"
You may notice that certain commercials on TV make you want to eat foods you otherwise would not consider. Maybe seeing images in magazines makes you feel like you NEED to be wearing certain clothes or that you need to look a particular way - perhaps you then find yourself over-spending on a bunch of cosmetics and clothes you barely ever use or wear. Conversations with others may make you feel superior or inferior about your job or social status. Maybe you feel like you have to drive a certain car in order to feel of value. Maybe you find it difficult to speak your truth because you are afraid of what others may think or say about you. Whatever it is that drives you to act compulsively and from a place of "reaction" instead of "action" is worth evaluating.
Awareness is the Key!
Once you become aware of the people, substances, experiences and situations that have power over you, you will notice that their power begins to fade. The beautiful thing is, the more your awareness and perception grows, the more perception you'll be able to gain leading you to deeper insights and additional capacity to take back your power. Whatever leaps you take in reclaiming your power in the beginning are just a taste of what is coming as you continue removing internal obstruction and broadening your awareness! Whenever you think you've learned to see things as they are, just wait because you ain't seen nothing yet!
Self-Sovereignty
After "awareness" you will begin to move into a place of self-sovereignty. You know that you have reclaimed your inner power when you're in this position - when you can no longer be dictated by addiction or others' opinions of you. When you no longer have a "yeast monster" telling you to eat the pastry, doughnut or cookie. When you no longer feel powerless over alcohol when you're with a group of friends and everyone is drinking. When you no longer blindly buy items at the drug store because the packaging says you will feel, look or be better somehow if you take their product. You will no longer consume "remedies" without understanding what they are doing in your body. You will not be addicted to television, your computer, your smart phone, or your job.
When you are truly self-sovereign, you will be entirely conscious in every moment. You will realize that you've taken the biggest leap in your life when you start to notice things that used to have control over you and realize that they no longer have power over you. At this point, you have become "king of your castle!"
Free-will is a birthright that many of us are not exercising at this point - when you address your addictions and consciously take your power back, you are truly exercising your free-will. We are not saying that you will no longer choose to partake in the activities that you were doing before - we all do silly things at times - but when you are aware of these things and they no longer have power over you, you can then make your decisions from an empowered place...and this is a beautiful thing!
Week 3 - What's Happening In Your Body
Now that you are beginning to recognize that you have addictions that you weren't aware of before and now that you are not allowing yourself to give into those addictions, there may be times when you feel a certain "emptiness" or lightness that you are not used to. Addictions keep us very numb and when they are removed it can be a bit unsettling. The sensation of lightness in the body may feel foreign at first but in the near future, if will become something you don't want to live without.
You may notice that you have an inclination to overeat at night. This is par for the course for many cleansers. Often people will still want to binge because they come home from work or a busy day tired, lonely, bored...whatever the case may be, if you have this inclination to overeat just notice it and make sure what you are eating is of the highest quality. The fact that you are overeating can be addressed later - don't be too hard on yourself! Recognize that you are now overeating on salad and vegetables and this is a huge improvement to what you were probably overeating on before! You are making huge steps by keeping with this cleanse everyday and this should be celebrated. We are focusing right now on changing the ingredients...later we can focus on changing the quantity.
Remember that this work does not always appear linear. You may have noticed some detox symptoms in Week 1, none in Week 2 and some this week. You may cruise along and feel great and then get hit with some big detox symptom. This is all ok and very normal! This just means you have hit another layer of noxious waste and/or post-putrefactive matter. This awakened waste is just passing through. The last thing you want to do is get nervous and stop! Let is pass and you will be excited to see that on the other side of this symptom you will feel better than ever!
At this stage, the consistency of your movements should be getting better and better. Your eliminations should be well-formed and moist and you are probably not experiencing diarrhea or constipation at this point.
For women, as our bodies are recalibrating, sometimes our menstruation cycle gets thrown off. Sometimes menstruation can disappear altogether for a few months and then come back as a much healthier cycle. You can look forward to much shorter, less dramatic, less painful and less symptomatic periods in the future. Your reproduction system will only strengthen through the cleanse and how you experience your period is one of best indications of that. In addition, the more impacted your colon was and the more clear it becomes, the more breathing room your reproductive organs will have making them more able to function as intended.
Practical Considerations
There may be some boredom that has set in this late in the cleanse - 30 days can be a long time to stay focused and motivated! Dig yourself out of a rut by trying new recipes and activities. There are many great suggestions in the Living Room as well as new recipe suggestions from the DTW team this week. Play around with different soups, new vegetables, different herbs and spices, different ethnic flavors they love (think curry, cayenne, chili powder). Maybe you have done more starch-based meals so far and could consider fish or eggs for dinner one night? Or conversely, maybe you have done a lot of "flesh" and could consider some squashes you have never tried like acorn, spaghetti, pumpkin, or Kabocha...add marinara or other sauces you love to make these delicious. Dinner should be a joyous time of the day and you should love your food, so take the time to make a list of dinners for the week and make sure all items in your line-up are delicious and satisfying!
Are you enjoying your exercise routine? Are you moving every day? This could be a good time to reevaluate what you are doing for movement and either begin to introduce movement this week or change things up a bit. Remember, we recommend movement so the chi in your body can flow freely - this will help you continue moving waste out of your body and feeling energetic and vibrant.
Lifestyle
If you haven't already, maybe you want to try eating out at a restaurant for dinner this week. You can definitely do this while successfully cleansing! You may want to bring some raw veggies to start (olives, carrots, sweet potato slices, cherry tomatoes) and then look at the menu carefully. Decide if you want to go "flesh" or "starch" and then choose your salad and entrée accordingly. Look at all items on the menu for sides that aren't specifically listed in the "Sides" section (oftentimes restaurants will serve creative vegetables with steak, sandwiches or other entrees), sauces that could go on top of your meal choice, and make sure you do visit the Side section of the menu as they often have yummy selections to go on top of your salad or as a main meal.
If you will be eating at a friend's house, remember to volunteer to bring a dish. People are normally so surprised at how good the food is so it's a great opportunity to make sure you have what you need AND introduce people to another way of approaching food. There is always an elegant way to take care of yourself while staying social and engaged as much as you want to!
You may be surprised at how much you are enjoying this new lifestyle of yours. This can actually scare people a bit because they begin thinking that maybe they won't be able to fit into their same circles anymore. Perhaps they will no longer enjoy their job or decide to live somewhere more life generating than they do today. Don't be alarmed, it's completely normal to start questioning a lot of what you took for granted as "normal" before you began this cleanse. If you want to stay in the same type of life that you had before but continue cleansing and expanding your perspective, you will have to be ok with everything not being perfect around you. Ask yourself this question, "Can I be comfortable doing what feels good to me even if those around me don't do the same thing?" If the answer to this is "no" then you may need to take a break from being where you are or evaluate why you are having difficulty doing what you know is best for you.
Mental & Emotional Considerations
This is a really good time to persevere with your daily meditations. If you are in need of some new inspiration, you can try any of the suggestions we have in the Products section of this site or visit detoxtheworld.com and dive into some more of Natalia's favorites. The Chopra Center also has some wonderful guided meditations you may want to work with. You can also re-listen to our Tuesday and Thursday calls to keep yourself centered and grounded and to remind yourself of why you are cleansing your body.
Homework...
Watch some inspirational, perspective altering movies this week! We love "Thrive," "The Greater Good," "Food, Inc." and "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead." All of these movies will serve to give you a bigger perspective on this work and will be entertaining and fun to watch as well!