The Fasting Experience

Hi everybody,

I trust that you had a blessed and peaceful Christmas. For me Christmas celebrations were a little different than usual this year. For one, I did not spend time with my family in Germany (which I do every year) and secondly, I did not have a big celebration meal with a glass of wine and dessert. Instead I have been breaking my 10-day Fast on Christmas Eve and celebrated with watery fruits and coconut water. Did I mind? Not at all – on the contrary, the Fast experience was amazing and I would like to share a little more about it in this blog today.

Expectations
This year was a Transition & Learning year for me with participating in additional Coaching certifications and finally setting up my own company Flow & Balance. It was not a light-hearted decision, but rather one I prepared myself for the last 2 years. In addition, my partner also re-set himself and started off into a new direction. The cost of learning and preparing for internal & external change was certainly felt in our drop in income this year, yet we managed to move to a different apartment, have our holidays AND pay our bills somehow. Just to say that there is always a way, if you are seriously moving into a direction with purpose.

My intentions ending the year with a 10-day fast & detox were to prepare myself for a “new” life and consolidate and fully internalize the learnings’ and experiences of this year. And set myself “right” so to speak. I had never done a Fast before and was a little anxious whether I would be able to hold it through. However, I did many experiments with my eating habits before including being a Raw Foodist which made me very sick after 6 months. From hindsight I realize why, because I hadn’t prepared my body with a fast and didn’t really have enough knowledge about eating balanced and well on raw foods only.

This time I wanted to make sure I do it right and learn more about foods and the body. And Dharma Healing (www.dharmahealingintl.com) run by Hillary was the perfect choice for that. Every day during the 1st week of the fast, Hillary would spent at least 2-3 hours with us to take us through how the digestive systems works, what Vitamins & Minerals we need, what foods to avoid, how to prepare raw food etc. She is a loving and very wise woman who has been walking the talk for many years and her support & giving is unconditional. Yet, she is also tough – there are no excuses. Being a Buddhist, she believes in the concept of “suffering” to get over our attachments. In addition, we had and Iridology reading, Yoga and Meditation Classes, a Dharma Talk, experienced Tibetan Singing Bowls and a Coconut Class as part of the weekly fasting schedule.

The Group
In my fasting group were about 9 people, interestingly only 1 of the group was living where he was born. All others have been living outside their countries for a long time. We had people originally from South Africa, Denmark, USA, Turkey, Indonesia, Japan, Canada, Australia and Malta. Everyone has been on their own journey and came for very different reasons ranging from gaining clarity, overcoming grief & loss, finding a new career path, coping with depression & loss of joy to finding more balance and mental clarity in their lives. Most of them had done fasting at least 2-3 before and returned, because of the tremendous benefits they felt afterwards.

It was a great group with love & care for each other and I am happy for some that it was a break-through from an emotional, mental, behavioural and spiritual standpoint.

The Process
The Fast had essentially two components, a cleansing of your colon via colonic treatments that you gave yourself twice a day as well as a detox of your system via non-eating, taking herbal & vitamin C drinks, teas, coconut water (twice a day) and a broth in the evenings. Admittingly, the “colonics” as they are called were the most difficult part for me since you are required to pump up a mixture of water & herbal tea (evenings) or water & coffee (mornings) through your anal canal into your digestive organs to clean out the debris, worms, biles, stones and whatever got stuck there ages ago. It wasn’t a pleasant procedure, but certainly one that enhanced the effects of the fast and accelerated the cleansing process. I also went twice for a professional colonic (2,500 Baht per session), in the middle of the fast and at the last day of the fast. This was a worthy investment since I felt that the cleansing was done more thoroughly than I could have done it on my own.

You could also buy a daily shot of wheatgrass juice for oral taking or even use it for a colonics. I did the wheatgrass colonic once, but didn’t really know whether it was effective and how much of the vitamins my intestines were able to absorb.

In addition to the daily cleansing rituals and activity schedule, Hillary invited therapists and healers to speak about their services and I managed to go for a Hypnotherapy session, an Angel Workshop, a Reiki Workshop, a Therapeutic-Energy Healing massage and 2 Body Massages (that were for free included in the fasting package) within the 10 days. It was great, all the things I wanted to complete this year just came to me and I had amazing experiences I am eternally grateful for.

I think one reason why this fast is so effective is the fact that you are in a loving, caring and spiritually enlightening environment which provides the right conditions to do inner work in a short period of time. Therefore all the experiences you have, become more intense, focused very much to bring the maximum healing about in the shortest amount of time. The therapists and healers are used to work and leverage this intensity for their clients’ benefits. And while all participants in the fast are from different walks of life and at different stages of their life, the intentions are the same: clear out physical, mental, emotional and spiritual blocks that keep you stuck and unable to move forward in life.

The fast is therefore a process you go through to achieve mental clarity by dropping off unwanted thoughts, emotions and behavioural patterns. Can you see the close connection to the coaching process I advocate at Flow & Balance?

My Learnings’
Certaintly someone needs to be ready and have the desire to go on this journey of cleansing the mind & emotions through cleansing the body. I had to become 32 years old to really develop this desire (while I have to say I have always paid attention to what I eat and do generally consider myself a healthy eater). But once I have found it and experienced the benefits, I know I will make it a regular habit from now on.

I feel much more alive, alert, mentally clear and calm after the 10 days. It opened my eyes that the way for personal development and progress has to include the body at some level (I always knew this cognitively, but never FELT more convinced about than now). We can’t live a healthy and balanced live if we do not pay attention to what we put into our bodies and how we nurture them. Food is energy, it vibrates, it is conscious, it gives us life. How can we eat a cow that is a fellow living creature that has been pumped full with hormones, cruelly treated and murdered and expect to nurture our body? We not only have to digest the animals fats in our body (which is the hardest thing to do for the body since these animals are made up very similar to the human body and are not meant to be eaten), but we also have to deal with the karma we are taking on from this animal. Do we really believe eating this way will not affect us and the consciousness of our cells in the long-run?

Food is self-love, it is self-respect and respect for the universe, for fellow living beings and the beautiful natural environment we are a part of. How can we not be grateful and wondrous about the delicious vegetables, fruits, wholegrains, nuts, seeds, oils and water we are provided by the earth NATURALLY (if we treat the earth with respect & love as well)?

My choice is clear, I am committed to live a wholesome life and therefore the food I am taking, the way I am eating and the way I am taking care of my body day by day is a reflection of the love for myself, all people, the environment, the universe and God. And if you see it that way, what tiny sacrifice is a 10-day fast once a year to reinforce and renew this commitment?

I wish you a healthy, happy and successful 2010! It is never too late to become the person you really meant to be.

Love & Blessings,
Vanessa