“Between the sun and the food and the people, I just feel… I feel so…” I struggled to find the right words to describe my experience thus far in Maui to my new friend. “I just… I FEEL.”
Tomorrow begins day one of the Liquid Love Juice Feast. Over the past week, I have been working with Tarah to make her vision of sharing this guided juice feast with about forty yogis and yoginis across the country possible and … welp, here it goes!
This feast (or fast, if you must) is about letting go, healing, and having a new set point from which to move forward from. It is a very conscious decision to nourish my body in a new way and thus make space for so much more. After a week of eating raw foods and soaking up sunshine, I am ecstatic. My eyes are bright, my skin is clear, my body feels GOOD in a way that I can barely put into words. I am happy, I am healthy, I am whole – that mantra keeps playing in my head and heart and it feels GOOD.
Anyone who has known me prior to 2007 would be shocked to hear the things I am eating and that there is no more steak or potatoes. Not that there is a damn thing wrong with meat or cheese or sweet, sweet beer… this is a chance to experience a change in my diet and thus feel more deeply than I have ever felt before. I took a bite of an apple today at the beach after a dozen dropbacks and some frolicking in the waves and the sharp, crisp taste was so incredibly potent in a way I have never experienced from an apple.
I have for too long fought a difficult battle with food, feeling it was cumbersome and troublesome to have to pause and eat. That to eat meant to shove food in my face, get that tell-tale heavy feeling in my belly and move forward from there. But nourishment is so much more than that… and that is what I am learning. You can throw yourself into a backbend or crank your leg into a complicated yoga pose, but it will only serve you and your body for so long until it starts to damage you, injure you, or make it impossible to live in that way. The exact same is true of eating – if you take the time to really feel your way from step to step in the best possible alignment, then you end up at the feast and have savored every flavor along the way.
Trust that I will be keeping you in the loop of how I feel over the course of the next few days. The feast goes for up to seven days, but I am committed to four since it is my first feast. And please do not confuse this for a fast – hence my use of the word “feast.” I am going to be divulging in tons of fresh juices empowered by Superfoods as well as other raw soups. This is coming from a place of abundance and prosperity, not scarcity or lack. I will not be starving myself – my body will actually be getting more nutrients than it has been getting on my day-to-day diet when I am left to feed myself. This is going to be good. This is going to be hard. This is going to be… well, it’s gonna be something.
I should probably eat another piece of raw love pie (cherry/blueberry/cacao filling on a raw mac nut/date crust) before bed. Gonna be the last thing I chew for the next four days.
I finished the last mouthfuls of my green smoothie, relishing in the sharp taste of cacao. It’s my third morning in Hai’ku, Maui and my diet has consisted thus far on raw foods. Yesterday I swam the churning ocean and practiced yoga twice with Tarah and this morning, I felt sore (in a good way) and in need of a little extra sleep. I started doing a little yoga after breakfast and very clearly heard my body ask me to stop. I sat on my mat and ate avocado and sunflower nut pate sprinkled with cayenne while the girls practiced. After I felt nourished, I wandered out onto the porch and curled up on the lounge chair, bundled up in jackets and knee-high socks and scarves. It is winter, after all.
kitten tries to interrupt my hard work
On Tuesday, I begin a juice feast liquid love live-it (vs DIE-t) with my radical friend, Tarah. This week of raw foods is the perfect preparation for me, and I know it – but it is going to be quite the challenge. I feel blessed to share the company of others who are participating with much knowledge and support for my experience. This is already one of the most nourishing and empowering “vacations” I have ever taken – leisurely mornings on the porch, dabbling in a few projects; an hour or so at the beach, taking in sun on my hungry skin; taking sample shots of kombucha (best. Kombucha. EVER.) and munching on new foods prepared in many different ways; sharing stories girl-to-girl heart-to-heart; bending on the mat and opening my heart to the warm scent of flowers.
Yep. I feel the island welcoming me brightly into its embrace.
At the end of my morning practice at Studio Maui yesterday, I began to rouse my breath in Savasana to transition up. I had a clear vision of a big red disc, almost a giant button that rolled into view. It read, “RAW” in big block letters. A ladder flew in from my peripheral and reached from the darkness around the button right up into the center of it. I am taking big steps into a new experience, climbing up towards something different and radical. Something that I expect will leave me raw and exposed – and I am ever so ready to let go of all this needless negativity that still clings to me. I understand the expense of taking on a raw diet, of spending a few days on just juice. I understand this is a commitment. A sacrifice that I offer up into the fire with a big “swaha!” – an exclamation of devotion to everything I have lived, every mistake I have made, every heartache and heartbreak and fear and pain; the pieces of my life that have made me exactly as I am.
The thing I remember most about Hawaii from my visit to Oahu five years ago was the overwhelming smell. It is a difficult-to-identify conglomeration of warm sand, cool salt water, rich earth and sun-kissed flowers.
When I arrived at 11:30 at the Kahalui Airport last night, the second I stepped off the airplane, I recognized the scent. To my delight, it was raining and that seemed to just intensify the juiciness. Tarah picked me up in her VW, and after giggle-laced hugs of excitement, she handed me a can of coconut water. It was perfect for sipping as we drove down the dark roads in the rain.
We sat and played with the kittens as we chatted before bed, watching the little one run around attacking a crumpled up piece of paper with the determined stealth of a ninja. By the time I slipped into bed, I was ready for sleep to fall heavy on me, like the rain falling on the roof.
I woke up this morning and crawled out of bed into the little adjacent enclosed porch off my bedroom with my sea-green silk scarf across my lap. The window was open and a breeze dragged through the room and across my face, quiet as a flower-scented whisper. The atmosphere still was thick with last night’s rain and I sat smiling while listening to the palm leaves play in the wind. I practiced my pranayama, sometimes unsure of which sounds were my breath and what sounds were the world outside.
And now, Tarah and I are getting ready to adventure. Beaching and bending is the general consensus. Make mine a double.
“Floating on this raft in the middle of a lake, envision the lake filled with your loved ones. How they hold you up, support you and fill you with a gentle warmth,” Heather said. I smiled, eyes closed, quite enjoying the guided meditation. I could feel the warm sun on my face through my imagination, and watched off the edge of the raft into the beautiful depths of a lake filled with the love of those closest to me.
“The lake also becomes filled with the presence of those you do not care much for, those who are more difficult to live with, harder to smile at…” My softened consciousness was having a hard time understanding what was going on, and I looked around my raft, trying to make sense of the new instructions. I whirled around and bumped face to face into my ex-boyfriend and nearly knocked myself off of the raft. “Send them love as well, even as they support you.”
What in the hell, I thought. I was really enjoying all of this until I accidently conjured up his friggen face. Was that really necessary? I took an incredibly deep breath and steadied myself back on the raft. I dipped a foot carefully into the water and let my toes steep in an increasingly turbulent lake, awaiting further guidance from my teacher.
It was an interesting conversation, and one I had not thought of before. At the beginning of many yoga
classes, the teacher would made a suggestion of setting an intention, dedicating a practice. I would very sweetly dedicate my practice to a friend who was having a tough day, to my cousin who had a headache, to my sister who was about to start college, or perhaps even modestly practicing for myself, each chaturangaupdogdowndog a sacred homage to those who meant most to me in my life. Gratitude for their love and support as I was fearlessly trying to shift the story of my life.
But to dedicate my practice to someone who had hurt me? Who irritated the hell out of me? This was not a thought that had ever passed through me – but then again, who would think of dedicating their hard work and effort to someone that did not deserve it?
I began contemplating that thought, however. Deserving of love? Who was I to make that judgment?
The next class I took, I dedicated my practice to the ex-boyfriend. I had loved him very much and I would never deny that. But in the end, we had surprised ourselves at how much we were capable of hurting one another. During the opening meditation of class and for the first time since our breakup, I held his face in my mind and said, “I’m sending you love, Mike.”
Through the practice, I determinedly kept my focus, sometimes almost shouting IM SENDING YOU LOVE, DAMMIT, MIKE during the difficult holds or the one extra connecting vinyasa, sometimes almost laughing with the absurdity of my experiment. Then it came time for headstand.
photo by Shannon M Casey
I generally came at headstand with a light-hearted attitude, allowing myself a playful spirit as I experimented with lifting one foot off the ground, then the other, but at this point in my practice had yet to actually achieve lift-off or even get my ass over my head. I set my foundation and shot myself a smirk in the mirror. I found a focus on my stinky sticky mat and began chanting “I’m sending you love, Mike. I’m sending you love, Mike.”
Belly button pulled to spine. Elbows hugged toward the midline. Ass lifted up. Knees drew to chest. And I suddenly realized I was whispering almost audibly, “I’m sending you love, Mike.”
I had a moment of shock when I also realized that my feet were straight up in the sky and I was fully inverted. I gasped. I squealed. I giggled. And I somersaulted right over, crashing into the window.
When I finally found my head back over my butt and untangled myself from my fit of giggles (much to the concern of everyone around me), I sat on my mat and closed my eyes, smiling to myself. In Savasana, I held his face once again in my mind and recognized the genuine gush of love that came forth when I repeated my mantra once more.
“I’m really, honestly sending you love, Mike.” And then I let it go.
Love flows. Undeniably, love will pulse. Even if it comes up against a barrier, water will not stop lapping up along that boundary, be it shore, rock or cement, waiting for its chance to pour forth.
I can choose to either build dams or tear them down – the love will inevitably flow, regardless.
I was inhibiting my own growth and evolution by ignoring a whole huge opportunity for love in my life. When I finally let go of the resistance and fear of who were the deserving parties of my love, I was able to completely turn my life upside down and see things in a totally new way. And yep, I tumbled and fell – but what is the point of not taking that chance when it comes?
Letting go is a big part of the yoga practice of life-in-general. There are so many reasons to hang on, so many excuses to not let go. At some point though, you have to ask yourself; are you allowing yourself a chance to expand or are you inhibiting new opportunities from arising?
Is it really worth it to remain cold in your heart for fear that someone does not deserve your warmth? And ultimately, doesn’t it just make you feel chilly?
Me, she-who-analyzes-everything, I hadn’t even considered the symbolism of a kidney stone yet.
I of course immediately updated my friends and family via Facebook about my current kidney stone situation. And it sucked. A friend commented, quoting a book, defining kidney stones as things like lumps of undissolved anger. The affirmation being, “I dissolve all past problems with ease.”
I limped over to my own bookshelf to pull out Your Body Speaks Your Mind by Deb Shapiro. Doubled over, her thoughts echoed my friend’s.
“Unshed tears that have become solidified. They should be released and let go of, but instead they are held on to, enabling them to grow. Are you repressing or holding on to negative feelings, such as fear, anger, resentment or bitterness?”
Oh. Gosh. Welp, lookie here, I thought to myself, leafing back in my journal to an entry from two days before I began hurting.
6/27/2010 – I’m still so angry. I try to not be, but I am just still so angry. So hurt. So infuriated that I believed for so long. That I was fooled…. I’ve completely shut down and am totally disinterested in talking about it, yet still harbouring so much anger.
And even more than that, a half a dozen other mentionings of being hurt, still being angry, and feeling disempowered even in the midst of being simultaneously empowered in many other facets of my life. I began to realize through re-reading my ramblings that my reactions to the particular situation had become automatic. I immediately would acknowledge “I am angry” as my affirmation, yet I began to realize – am I really though? Or do I just refuse to pry that anger out of my obstinate fists for fear of admitting defeat?
Toxicity. Poison. Hazardous.
And so, I got PISSED that I had a kidney stone because I was mad about something else. I cursed in the face of what had hurt me most and hissed, “How dare you still upset me like this. Who do you think you are, still berating me? Let me let go of this, you a-hole!”
On the fifth morning of hurting, I awoke at 4am to the most horrific pain I had experienced yet. I hobbled to my sister’s room and begged her to go buy me a heating pad, it being the only thing I could think of that would perhaps alleviate the stabbing throb in my right kidney. As I curled back up into bed with the gentle heat, I began to pray.
At this point, there was no reason to feed into the anger. I began making a list of questions in my head and steadily asked each one breathlessly aloud.
Am I angry about where I am in life?
Am I angry that I am without that in my life right now?
Am I angry it was ever a part of my life?
Am I really hurt right now (other than my goddamn kidney)?
Am I unhappy with my life right now?
I kept answering, “No.”
Bitterness and resentment are emotions of clinging to the past. It thereby empowers long passed anger in the present.
Anger happens. Sometimes without warning. Heartbreak happens and can linger.
I am not actually angry anymore, I realized. I have no reason to be upset anymore. I really don’t. I realize how much I wanted to stay bitter and resentful, but it will really only hurt me. After all, I was the one with the kidney stones, no one else. (Although believe me, if I knew how to give someone else kidney stones, I might be tempted to do so in a few special outstanding cases)
Dignity means portraying behavior worthy of respect and high esteem. Why hold a grudge and carry that shadow everywhere I go? It will only darken my skies and damper someone else’s. I’ll be the one with the kidney stones and the exhausted heart.
I do not want to be the bitter old woman. I do not want to be a cynical twenty-six year old. I have seen those people before and I solemnly swear to consciously choose not to be that.
I am worthy of living my life without resentment and I choose to not live in the echo of my anger.
After that morning when I prayed, affirming that I was indeed no longer angry, the pain began to slowly retreat. I spent my time healing with the most incredible people in my life – my cousin, who had flown in from Boston and my best friend, who flew in from Milwaukee for a Fourth of July camping trip that never happened (thanks kidney stone) and of course my sister – and I realized that I really, truly had nothing to be mad about anymore.
My heart, in the form of my best friends.
Each time I went to the bathroom to pee, I’d wash my hands and return to my spot on the couch amidst my favorites. Even though I was still hurting a little bit, there was no reason to hold on to any of that hurt anymore. I let it pass, and it passed without drama.
A student of mine gifted me a bottle of really nice champagne for my birthday back in July. When I saw the gold-foiled top of the bottle amidst the tissue paper, I smirked in delight. After class, I found out that this was no arbitrary bottle of champagne – it was a bottle she had been saving for her wedding anniversary. As her husband had just recently dropped the heartbreaking news that he wanted a divorce, my student had been wondering what she would do with the bubbly so that it would not go to waste. She had determined that I would be the most likely to do it justice and find just the right opportunity to celebrate. She told me that knowing it was in my hands gave her joy. And suddenly, I had never been so intent on effectively drinking a bottle of champagne.
A month later, I popped the cork. And I feel like I really did it justice – I had been up crying, worrying, fretting and stressing on a Thursday night about the fact that I had overwhelmingly decided that I needed to quit my job. I woke up Friday morning, still in tears, stomach bottomed out and not quite sure what was going to happen. All I knew was that I had to be early to a meeting so I could catch my boss for a smidgen of alone-time to tell her of my completely unanticipated decision. There I was, feeling like I was about to break up with my most intimate of lovers, one of my longest romances ever being of that with this yoga studio and the people and my teaching… and worried because the last time I broke up with someone, it ended so horribly…
I had been anticipating the worst the entire time but instead, my resignation was accompanied by the best-case scenario. My boss (/sister/mentor/friend) told me she loved me and she supported me and that she was always there for me, no matter what. It was the longest Friday of my life. I taught a class that afternoon, feeling 1008 pounds lighter than I ever thought I would feel again and worked until the early evening, feeling weak from all the residual effects of worry.
After work, I drove home, picking up a Lil Caesar’s pizza (and crazy bread, duh) and a bottle of Gewurtztraminer. I walked in the front door of my empty house, opened the wine, started a bubble bath, set the pizza box on the floor by the tub and stripped down to sit in the water as it filled up. Once the tub was filled though, I realized… I had a bottle of champagne that I had been entrusted to drink on a very special occasion… and if there was any better time than that very moment, I could not think of what it might be.
Still covered in bubbles, I dribbled my way into my bedroom and grabbed the bottle (still in the box and hidden in one of the drawers of my dresser for the most perfect auspicious moment), put a couple ice cubes in my goblet (yes, goblet, and yes… ice cubes. Blasphemy, I know), and slinked back into the sudsy tub.
I can assure you that I did that bottle justice. And I cheers’ed to my friend every time I refilled that goblet.
“To letting go!” I giggled.
“To being scared!” I chanted.
“To new beginnings!” I sang.
I ate all but two slices of the pizza and drank the entire bottle of champagne by myself – in the bathtub. It was the most purely delightful Tantrikan celebration. And I sat there past the point of reasonable raisin-ing of the fingers and toes for an hour and a half, singing at the top of my lungs along with Mumford and Sons and Florence and the Machine, feeling lighter in my heart than I had in ages. Sure, maybe it was the bottle of bubbly, but I know I could have laid there, drunk, without having had a single drop and have felt just as ecstatic.
To being afraid to let go but knowing that you are never alone as you take that first step toward a new beginning – cheers.
This could easily be seen as a setback. A momentary hiccough. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t help but feel like I am exactly where I need to be.
And where am I? Living back in my old bedroom at my parent’s house in unincorporated Arapahoe country, surrounded by glow-in-the-dark star studded walls and colored pencil doodles of fairies still scotch-taped to my closet doors. I drank a glass of Malbec last night in a Winnie the Pooh collector series Smuckers jelly jar circa 1998 while I snuggled under my down comforter, talking quietly on the phone with a friend until the wee hours of the night. This ought to seem like a setback.
My heart spoke; I listened. I had no choice really, with as loudly as it was shouting from the depths of my chest, periodically gripping my stomach with an indistinguishable but overwhelming fear that I was not to take another single step forward in the direction I had been going for over two years. So I quit my job. I stepped back from teaching. I broke up with my longest relationship – my two and a half years as a professional yogi.
I remember being warned in my very first teacher training in January of 2008 that the quickest way to ruin your yoga practice is to become a yoga teacher. Try immediately becoming a yoga teacher AND an administrator position within the yoga business. That shit ain’t easy – and if you did not have a strong personal practice to begin with, good luck maintaining one.
I became lost in the service of others. Which, as Gandhi or someone brilliant once said, is the best way to find yourself. However, it was not so much that I found myself so much as I stumbled across myself and thought, “Wait, who is this?” And then I would receive an email or a phone call or a question that seemed more important than offering a hand to myself – so I would, time and time again, put myself down further and further on my to-do list.
Please don’t misunderstand – I loved my job. I honor those friends and colleagues from that job. I am grateful for the support and endless encouragement that I always received from each of them.
And so, my quest for my own personal practice begins. Specifically, begins tomorrow with Amy Ippoliti’s Anusara Yoga Immersion. I am so thrilled, I can hardly stand it. I can honestly say that I am doing this for ME – I want nothing more than to delve into my own heart and answer my own questions and be responsible for me and nothing more than me, at least for the time being.
As I put together the interview footage for a testimonial video for Amy, I met with a number of Immersion graduates to discuss their experiences. A number of folks shared with me that after the Immersion, they felt empowered and made huge life changes, such as quitting their jobs and seeking something new. Well, hell – I have already quit my job and I wait patiently and with curiosity on the edge, wondering what gust of wind will raise up to fly me to my next perch.
Which makes me wonder – Lordy, what is about to unfold??
I spent this weekend up in Carbondale, Colorado with a conglomeration of friends and fellow musicians. We were invited by True Nature Healing Arts to come and rock the shakti with a little kirtan love. The facility is beautiful – you gotta check it out if you’re ever in town.
Branden (of TNHA) offered us this beautiful treehouse to stay in for the evening – it’s the kind of place that makes you seriously consider being an 8 year old for the rest of your life.
This was ultimately my first real performance… ever. I’ve sang a zillion times and performed a gazillion times… but this time, I was part of the entertainment. I was even (gasp!) PAID for singing. And between chants, a handful of folks came and dropped off their business cards with me, wanting to have us come and play again.
Have I mentioned how happy I am? I have stepped back from so much (that’s a whole other story… for another time…) but here I am, enjoying the space to express myself creatively – and who knew? Things are even more supportive and empowering than I had hoped they’d be.
Leap, and the net will appear. And there will be friends, music, campfires, breakfast potatoes, shooting stars, beer, adventures and zebra cakes galore.
Another round of endless THANK you’s to Ryan Hader, Damon the Zen Drummer and Darren Willis. You dudes rock.
I’m taking a creative hiatus from teaching to step back and fulfill some of my heart’s greatest desires. What are those? Yeeeeeah, I’m not completely sure. But for the past few days, I have been road-tripping with my sister-Cousin from Boston to the great West (aka back to Denver). Check out our adventures at www.eLLeLo.com.
For now, all I can say is that things are exciting… and just stay tuned…
“I’m feeling a little wobbly right now, like my training wheels are off – except I look back and realize they were never actually there and I was holding myself up all along.”
“Ah, you and your metaphors, Elle.”
“There’s just no one holding up my seat and running beside me like I thought there was,” I said to him. At him. About him. And I know he knew I meant him.
I think there is always an empty feeling once you lose a pillar you always entrusted to hold you up. But the feeling comes on twenty-fold when you realize it hadn’t been there for a long time.
When you look around and feel like your life is completely uprooted, like a scene from a Tim Burton movie where nothing is fully plugged into the ground and at any moment a tree may begin dancing on its upturned roots, there’s an excitable sense of terror. In a fun way. And you just want to put on your 3D glasses and see the miraculousness of Lila, divine play, in everything around you. The problem with 3D glasses is that everything seems to be coming straight at you and even though you know you aren’t really in any danger of getting knocked over, you duck and dodge anyway.
I feel like right now, life is pointing a pistol at my feet and saying “Dance!! DANCE!!” Luckily, I’m an Irish Dancer and I am quick-footed. But at any moment now, life might start shooting the pistol on either side of my hips and shout “Shimmy, bitch! SHIMMY!” Then I’m really screwed.
Until then, I won’t stop banging my feet on the sturdy palm of earth in a brilliant display of the million different ways I can hold myself up.
And you never forget how to ride a bike. Besides, I happen to have the greatest crash equipment money can’t buy – these people.
Tomorrow begins day one of the Liquid Love Juice Feast. Over the past week, I have been working with Tarah to make her vision of sharing this guided juice feast with about forty yogis and yoginis across the country possible and … welp, here it goes!
