So it is true. This Green Cleanse is recommended for the spring. The season of spring just spells green. We awake together in spring from the winter hibernation. The new leaves on the trees are appearing, the temperature and the angle of the light is just perfect somehow. There is a feeling of possibilities and new opportunities in the air.
Enthusiasm (with a capital E) starts to stir inside of us. We feel alert. We feel as if we can be reborn. What is that joy stirring in us? We humans are affected by the seasons. Spring is the time that we reconnect to ourselves and life. We become alive again. We want to open up the windows, let the outside come in and we want to spring clean everything from our body to our home. When the spring comes we begin to honor ourselves.
Hence this is the time that is recommended to do the Green Cleanse diet. It is absolutely clear.
The 40 day green cleanse diet was recommended by Yogi Bhajan and it is what it says.
It is a cleansing diet that opens up the clogged pipes in our body by removing the gunge and then feeding it green natural (preferably organic) food that increases the amount of oxygen and food in our cells. It's a kind of "clean you out and pump in the life back into you" diet.
What is so amazing about this process? How does one start? For many of us it starts with depression. Even if you have done this diet many times (as I have) the only thing I can see in a positive light is the end. And yes, 40 days seems like an eternity! If I had not experienced it before I would never choose to do this. However I am so enthusiastic about the diet because I know how amazing I feel within a few days and so enjoy the truly amazing moments during the next weeks when I really feel what's really going on in my body, mind and heart, so I concentrate on each day, till we conclude.
So I have made the decision to do the Green diet. I am selfish. I choose to do it before my annual trip to India and so I convince you to do it with me now. You wonderful people! I am always amazed when you decide to join! It really helps me a lot. Watching your progress and enthusiasm makes it a lot easier each year.
For me it starts something like this:
Day 1: no coffee. No coffee=BIG HEADACHE! I say to myself I can do this! Encouragement always works.
Day 2: Headache still there and I feel hungry. I am cooking green, eating green and I begin to count the minutes in a day. Each year I take out my calculator and work out how many minutes there are in 40 days! Just for your information there are 1440 minutes in a day. If you want to work out how many minutes in the total of 40 days, you just multiply it by 40. If you get as crazy as I feel on day 2 and you want to know many seconds in 40 days just multiply it by 40 then multiply that by 60. 3456000 seconds (what a great number 3,4,5,6,!)
The green cleanse has a lot of seconds in it!
The good news is that there is beauty in the numbers. The 40 in 1440- The sequence of 3456 also blows me away… I take these numbers as a sign that I am on the right path.
Day 3: Headache and Bad (BAD!!) mood. Seriously? I am so reactive. I am so oversensitive. I cry, I yell inside of me and as far as I am concerned it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the green diet. Why is everyone so irritating?
Day 4: No headache, I think. Still counting (but less). Now the gas starts. Oh yes… cleanse is working.
Day 5: No headache, no counting, feeling happier. Tummy is bloated still farting (a lot-excuse me for that).
Day 6: Yay! Green poo! Now I feel like things are really happening. What an accomplishment!
Day 7: I start to calculate again…my mind is having the best time…10080 minutes have passed (no Lea, that's tomorrow count) – till today 8640 minutes have passed…well the 40 is there- That's a sign. Hang in there. Keep up!
Day 8-14: Still see a long time to go. But what is 40 days in relationship to eternity? My body is adjusting. I need a lot of time for myself. I am enjoying the quiet within. I feel like I want to spend more time at home. I want to read and write. I am starting to feel things. The mantra I repeat is DAY by DAY. I listen and actually hear what is being said.
Day 20: By the time the middle of the Cleanse arrives, I feel good and really energetic. I wake up easily and to go to sleep easily. There is a kind of flow. I am dreaming plenty (I even remember some of them and write them done). A lot has to do with relationships (past and present) and how I have and still do behave in different roles. I take note.
Day 21-40: I am very awake and notice so much more and feel AWAKE. A M A Z I N G. I DID IT!!! But not quite…. I go through days of VATA … so weird, not able to concentrate , becoming a little dyslectic and my math's seems to have vanished, but I have great ideas, feel connected to everything but earth…. too relaxed… disconnected. So disconnected that I pop a bagele into my mouth at an event without even thinking!!!! I go to Lital (my aryuvedic doctor) to check things out and she puts me back on track… the secret? Lentils Lentils Lentils… .A few days pass and I am back on track. I know that I am going towards my goal. I feel GOOD!!! My skin is clear (I wonder whether it's the coffee or flour that makes it more blemished). 40 days over…
Day 41: I remember this feeling each year.Now what? Where do we go from here? Today, I say to myself , is like every day. It's a practice of being in the NOW. I look back on the journey, I read the notes I wrote. I see that taking each day as it comes keeps me staying on track. I am centered. I am I am. If I do not have to think too much about food I experience the abundance. I want to stay clean if not green. This feeling is good. Another year of GREEN over and we did it together… Feeling the gratitude, the love and at peace…
SAT NAM…