peace and a cleanse, days 4 and 5

I got up early this morning, 6:00. My initial plan was to get up at 7:00 and review notes for the intro to ayurveda workshop I'm teaching today (you can still come!). However I woke up at 6:00 and pretty happily got up outta bed. Bella, mine and Andy's dog of 12 years follows me sleepily out of our bedroom.y

I gather my notes, notebook, planner, and pinktop to put on the chaise lounge. I make a cuppa healthy fasting tea from Yogi Tea. It's sits for five minutes then I add a splash of soy milk.

I return to the chaise lounge and begin reviewing my notes and timeline for today's workshop. All of a sudden I'm struck by a deep sense of peace. It was one of those moments you wish you could bottle up and savor again on a rainy day. I think it was a combination of the quiet, still dark, yet growing lighter by the minute time of day. Right now I begin to hear birds chirping. People are awaking. And driving as cars begin moving up and down the busy street I live on. It's the moments like these that remind me that peace can be tapped into at any time, if we so choose.

I also feel like the cleanse this week has created a clearing of some sort to allow this peace to be felt. To be known and appreciated.

The last two days have gone even better than I have expected. Thursday for breakfast (after teaching my 9:15 class) I had a pear. I went to Coffee Times to work for a few hours and had a cider chai. I imagine there was some sugar in this (and not just the natural sugar from the cider). It was actually waayyyyy too sweet for me. I didn't even drink half of it. That's a (big) change for me.

I met a friend for lunch at the co-op and had a cuppa red pepper soup, greens (I love em' here), and a small amount of a veggie casseroley dish. I did check all the labels to make sure there was no dairy in the ingredients.

Dinner was another cup of tomato soup.

I was a lil nervous about yesterday because I invited some friends over to our house for dinner. It was a Mexican theme AND I still ate the right foods for my kapha cleanse. I made black bean tacos, bought mushroom quesadillas from Whole Foods, and made a salad. For the tacos I mixed ginger and curry powder in with the beans to spice em' up. Also had loads of cooked onions, red and green bell peppers, tomatoes, and guacamole to top them with. I took all the veggies. And left the guacamole, as it's not a food I should be having this week. We also had chips...that I didn't eat. I didn't eat the quesadillas. And my friend brought a dessert....that I didn't eat. I couldn't believe that it was so easy to say no to the dessert. So I stuck with the black bean tacos and salad and felt reallllly good about it.

Last night we were hanging out in the kitchen and talking about cleanses/fasts. Of course Andy chimes in because I have somehow managed him to do some cleansing with me, most recently in the spring. And my sister who did about half a day of the master cleanse last fall when I did that one.

The difference to me is this is the first time I've done a cleanse and it hasn't really felt like a cleanse in the sense that I feel like I'm depriving myself. So that's a really new (and cool) thing too.

When I started this cleanse I wasn't sure how long I was gonna do it. I'm into day 6and it really just sorta feels like this is simply how I should be eating. I'll have to see what this means for me. Will keep ya posted with the eats!