Day 1 - a practice in distraction
“if I wasn’t eating, watching something, working or on my phone - I started crying. ”
After six years of a daily kundalini yoga spiritual practice, making progress on healing and freedom, I feel like I'm back at square one. It reminds me of "Do not pass go and do not collect $200" from the old monopoly game. You think you are doing well and then boom - knocked down and fall back. I didn't know that would happen. Why did it? I didn't know I could fall back - fall down - so dramatically and painfully. My knees skinned, on the ground. I felt so uncomfortable with my emotional state, that I sought distraction. I continued my spiritual practice, but the rest of the time - it was a practice in distraction. Phone, food, netflix, work and my old food issues bigger and more present than in a long time. My heaviness, achy joints and cravings dragging me lower. If distraction was an art? I was a master.
Let me back up and explain the conditions that led me to trip and fall. 2023 was a big year - (If you know me, skip to next paragraph) I released my memoir "Field Notes on Letting Go - a memoir of truth-seeking, healing and personal freedom" and its accompanying pondering workbook. I received certification as a master practitioner of shamanic energy medicine and released a 13-part, on-demand workshop, "Read, Write & Release." The workshop pulled together themes from the book, writing prompts from the pondering workbook and kundalini yoga in alignment with each theme. When it was released in October, it was a period of completion and time to rest and reflect.
I have hosted over 430 Air BNB guests in my healing home. After the Shamanic Energy Medicine Certification, I put together a "Basket of Energetic Offerings" where I could travel to retreats or other healing events with my energy medicine offerings. I didn't want to be tied down with Air BNB so for the first time, I rented two of my rooms for the semester - Summer til December 31, 2023. The tenants could help feed the cats when I was traveling.
I don't want to write about the traumatic experience too much, but one of the tenants was aggressive and unwell. I felt unsafe in my own home and had to figure out how to get through the semester - with the lease ending at year end. My strategies included doubling down on my kundalini yoga spiritual practice, staying in my bedroom a lot, watching movies on my computer, making popcorn and other treats every night, getting back into the caffeinated coffee habit, sleeping with headphones and mantra music and having respite by staying with friends. Eating was a soothing strategy that I picked up as a young girl growing up in a dangerous home. My food issue reared its head after the book release and was taken to the next level with this experience. After the tenants left at the end of the year - if I wasn't eating, watching something, working or on my phone - I started crying. As Wendy, my therapist said, “then cry.” I tried to avoid it because it felt too big. I knew I was going to Hawaii to volunteer on my friend’s foundation’s land and there I could have the space and time to feel the terror that the recent experience stirred up from my childhood.
I trust the universe and my higher self and know this experience served an important purpose. I was ready to feel and release the terror that grew from my childhood trauma. I had increased compassion for myself. If I felt this terrified with a stranger in my home - I could better imagine the terror of my childhood - where the aggressor was my father. My childhood wasn't a six-month lease. There was no end in sight. It was my life. I didn't see a way out or anywhere to turn. I figured out my own way of navigating life - I lived in a dream world, told myself that good things were ahead, loved soccer and used food for coping. And screamed in my sleep.
While I fell on my bottom from this recent experience, and reverted to old strategies that I thought were gone, I can also compare this current experience to my childhood and how different it is. No longer am I suffering in silence. No longer do I have no voice or no recourse. I have friends and family who helped me get through this traumatic experience. I have the power of kundalini yoga and mantra and writing. I trust the universe and I trust the healing qualities of the natural world. I know I will get through it. I know there is wisdom to be earned and healing to be received. I am frightened.
I am back in Kapaau, Hawaii, on the 117-acres of agricultural land where I went on my vision quest in 2022, and wrote about, in my memoir. And while I will be here for two months, the next two weeks will be my self-care retreat. What does that mean?
I sleep on the earth up by the ironwood tree. I sleep on the earth with just my sleeping bag and pillow. If it rains, I scurry into my little tent. When someone asked me what I was looking to the most in Hawaii, I said sleeping on the earth. For some reason, in Hawaii, I value the night time even more and see it as valuable healing time. This is true everywhere, of course.
Morning sadhana - spiritual practice.
Seva - I volunteer on Wednesdays at the Kohala Food Hub and help out here where I can. I’m cleaning the cabin.
Journaling
Healthy Diet - I am interested in the connection between healthy gut and healthy brain and spirituality. Read about the Grow a New Body program through my Follow Your Gut blog, based on the book by Alberto Villoldo, PhD. But I’m keeping it simple right now. I take a daily multi vitamin and am enjoying a healthy breakfast and lunch and water. The food hub gave me some swiss chard, cilantro, oranges, lettuce and star fruit. I bought beans, miso, tofu, oatmeal, vegetables, bananas and papaya.
Intermittant fasting - no food after lunch.
Reading, podcast - other inspiration.
Movement - So far my movement is cleaning and going to and from the ironwood tree - about a 10-15 minute walk and navigating the landscape. But I will start adding a longer walk into the schedule.
Join me for brief journal updates over the next 12 days. On Wednesday, February 28, I'll head up to the ironwood tree and to the earth - but I won't come back down in the morning. I'll stay up there for 4 nights - 5 days - no food, no phone - and take away all the distractions. The last time, I experienced great fear and used the power of mantra to work through it.
At the end, I was love. I was peace. Join me to see and feel how it goes this time. Sat nam, truth is my identity, Janet
Kriya: Surya Kriya - Kriya of the sun for energy (The link is for a yoga studio that I do not know - I could not find it through 3HO. Thanks!)
Mantra: Morning Call, Muhl (Mul) Mantra, Ganpati Mantra
Chant mantra by ironwood tree. Chanted Gobinday Mukunday - for peace in chaos
Meal time: oatmeal with banana and papaya, miso soup with tofu, tons of rice noodles, broccoli, carrots, spinach etc.
Inspiration: I love this article that mantra artist Snatam Kaur wrote about the Mul Mantra - Read it here. She is as passionate about the planet as I am and her thoughts are timely and important - and she wrote them several years ago. I am chanting the Mul Mantra every day and her writing really connects it to planetary health and the shift that is needed.
