On the Twelfth Day of Yoga

Today is the twelfth day of my forty day Kundalini yoga challenge.

And what a challenge it is.

I mean, the word 'challenge' doesn't accurately describe the rough edges and sadness that can emerge from practicing intensely on a daily basis. 

We store so much in our bodies.

The challenge is not in the forty day timeline per se - it is in the commitment to practice through the craziness that comes up for us.  The commitment to get through and bear witness to the process, to wait and see what is on the other side.

After yoga class, I hope for a certain peace.  Yet I have found myself the last few days both during and after class feeling irritable, annoyed, angry, upset....all of those emotions i much prefer to hide from.  In fact, the emotions that I bring to class are precisely what I aim to escape: feelings from work, the non-profit industrial complex, old wounds, memories I haven't thought of in years - but these thoughts continue running scripts in my brain, new ones emerging from my body.
My brain wants so much to understand these thoughts/feelings and their origins - and yet, as my dear yogi friend Kaytee says, it's all a mystery - there is no need to analyze, simply let it out, let it go.

What does this have to do with our food blog?

Well - I think there is something about the mind/body/spirit split that yoga attempts to heal.  I think this healing is sometimes 'challenging.' I think also that the ways we eat well for our bodies or not are related to the mind/body/spirit split as well.   There's a lot to say about who has access to living well, in their wholeness.  There is a violent history of fragmenting the bodies of women, queer and trans folx, and people of color in this country.  All of this comes up for me in ambiguous, searing ways when I am practicing yoga.  Much more than it did, at least consciously, when I was seventeen, and wasn't riddled by these thoughts incessantly.

How do we live as healthy QTPOC people when we are haunted by so many thoughts on the daily?

On the comida side of things:
I notice when I practice that I don't have a taste for 'flesh' foods (this is super interesting to me), or nutrient empty foods.  It feels like my body wants juices and raw foods.  When I eat against the grain of what my body wants, I feel literally sick.  And I lose sleep.  And I feel more irritable.

Exhale.

I noticed, too, that when I over-eat, or when i have alcohol or cheese, my breath is shallow.  I  can't breathe in or out to my lungs capacity.

Today for lunch, all I wanted was live, green juice with lemon.

For dinner, I just wanted a spinach salad with carrots and garbanzo beans and seeds.

Amazing - that plants & legumes are enough.

All of this - body, mind, spirit, sadness, memories, oppressions, yoga, food - all of these mix up into a swirling mess, and all I can do is pay attention.

Inhale.

Tomorrow, I wonder what the day will bring.  I wonder how I will feel. I'm scared it might not be all fluffy kittens and rainbows, or even, just, plain and simply good.  But, I guess that's what 'healing' is all about - letting the emotions out of our bodies.