#365yoga Day 112: Binging and Purging and Washing it All Away. #yogadork

Put down the phone.  Stop emailing A&E tv.  No one needs to contact Jeff Van Vonderen – I do not need an intervention.  It’s not food that I am binging and purging: it’s myself.

Wha???

Things are changing in my life and changes bring me to a place of introspection and evaluation.  It’s really a pain in the ass, honestly.  The changes aren’t big or major and are nothing more than what you are probably going through yourselves at this very minute, but still, things are moving and a shaking and I’m a thinking and a fretting and it’s just a little too whackadoo for my liking. It feels a little out of control because, well, because it IS out of control.  Everything is out of control for everyone all the time, in a way.  I mean, the only thing we can control is what’s in our own little hula hoop (read: ourselves.) Trying to control what happens outside our little hula hoop is the very definition of whackadoo.  Crazy making, I’m saying.

We can, however, control and make changes in ourselves.  At 11:20 last night, I became abundantly, overwhelmingly aware that I need to make some changes in myself, I need to take charge of myself, I need to take my own inventory and clean internal house, as it were.  Being that it was so late and I was already exhausted, it was too damn late to do anything about it last night other than to go to bed and fret about it during my hours of insomnia.  Awesome, eh?  hrmmm  Not awesome, but not horrible, either, really because it allowed me to think and see what I might want or need to do, where things went wrong, where things went right, and how to somehow get everything to meet in the middle.

I realized that I need to purge a lot of stuff from within me.  Physical toxins, certainly (even Outlaws have their limits,) but also mental, emotional, and spiritual toxins, as well. There are beliefs and ideas and old tapes that I am playing to myself that are not serving me. There are feelings that I need to remember are not facts.  There are attachments that need to be broken and decisions that need to be dissolved, and there are ideologies that need to be erased.  I need to purge all of that from me.  I need to bring it up and out and away.

I also realized, however, that I need to do some serious binging. I need to binge on myself. I need to honor what I *know* I need.  I need to allow myself time to sit and meditate, even if the laundry doesn’t get done. I need to dedicate time to my journal, even if I don’t know what words to write. I need to swim in the sea of Savasana, read of the riches of yoga, spirituality, humor, life, love, fiction, fantasy, fulfillment, and I need to feed the hungry spirit craving samadhi. I need to dive deep, binge on me, and feel life drip on to me and from me like warm honey.

I journaled.  I made lists. I made vows to myself. And then I made my way out to the deck with my mat for practice. Lilacs grow right in front of my mat place and as I bent and stretched and twisted deeply, I smelled their goodness as I felt the ugliness rise up and out of my digestive, endocrine, and pranic systems and leave my body on my breath. I sat in Baddha Ardha Matsyendrasana for quite a long time.  My shoulder rotated open and my heart bloomed.  I felt my sacrum release and my tail reach further into the mat. I felt the purge deep into my being and then, when I let the breath unwind me, I felt free. As I lay down for Savasana, I heard the sound of thunder and felt rain sprinkling down upon me. A storm was rolling in and I had the decision to either roll up my mat and skip the sacred quiet end to my practice OR to stay and let the rain fall and wash me clean.

My drenched mat is drying right now alongside my soaked yoga clothes and I have never felt so empty and so full at the same time.

It’s hard to look at ourselves and see what we need more of and what we need to eliminate. It takes courage and faith and strength. Yoga gives us the understanding that we can do it, that it will be okay, that there is a deeper peace in honest understanding than there ever is in dishonest role play. We are strong, worthy, and capable of the work.  Practice and all is coming, even in the midst of a storm.

Namaste