The Toxicity of Cleansing

3 weeks in…2 weeks of just eating super healthy and 1 week of cleansing, 2 more to go…I’ve lost 11 pounds and I feel…awful! Not what you were expecting? Then I guess you’ve never cleansed before.

Everything is so close to the surface and I am just so raw…PLUS I have no crutches to fall on…no cigarettes, no booze, no rich, delicious comfort food. Instead I get to cram a handful of herb capsules down my gullet every couple of hours. I get to drink some clay and fiber in the morning and a black glass of charcoal matter at night with all the water I want in between. I don’t want to be around people because I resent them for getting to eat all of the things that I cannot. I feel itchy, my face (and other parts) are breaking out, I have lots of abdominal cramping, I’m tired at 11am, my tears are never too far away, my house smells like a vegetable and while the weight is slowly but surely melting away, it is not happening nearly fast enough.

All my shit is coming up, literally and figuratively, and I have the unfortunate experience of witnessing just how much there is and all I get to do is be with it, with me. I tried to break up with my boyfriend the first week and have thought about it every day since. One thing I’ve gotten clear on is that I like to blame all my negativity on him. Luckily I had a flash of insight that helped me see the amount of projection that’s happening here and the bottom line is every single thing I blame him for I am doing too….maybe not to the same extent and maybe it does not take on the same form, but it’s there. So then what? More being with me…fantastic.

What am I seeing? How much I’m not typically with me...how often I abandon myself. Yes people the truth hurts. So now every time that this angst rises in me, and I’m getting a lot of practice, I turn inward and say to myself “Amy I love you, and I’m not going anywhere. I will always be here for you.” This simple but not so easy practice is actually rewiring my brain. The 38 years of reactive programming is certainly still there, deeply entrenched but this is how I can start carving out a new way. When no one else can be trusted or relied upon, there will always be me and that is nothing to sneeze at.

Then I wonder what exactly is this dual awareness living inside of me? Who am I talking to? Well, I believe my higher self is talking to my younger self that was abandoned and this is reintegrating all the parts of me so that I may be whole. From this place, I don’t need anyone to be any certain way. The lies, deception, and gross unconsciousness does not hook me and threaten my balance. I can just watch the struggle from a place of compassion and turn the focus to what I’m doing instead.

Easier said than done but I’m working on it…one leafy green at a time.