It's been 6 days since I started my one meal per day experiment. I had planned on trying it for 30 days, as an attempt to heal my colitis, but I'm done with it today. I can feel it is over.
I'm writing this well after dark, on the night of an extremely powerful full moon. The full moon has pulled at me for most of my life. I can always feel it approaching and it is usually an extremely uncomfortable time for me. The first month I was in Hawaii I had a very strong reaction to the full moon. I experienced tremendous emotional pain late into the night, so much confusion, fear, sadness, loneliness, anxiety. I felt like I was literally going insane. At one point, after many hours of laying in bed awake, I found myself getting up and beginning to sway and move. It was out of my control, as if the moon were speaking through me, teaching me to be like the trees which do not push against the wind. They dance in the beauty of what is. Self control, willpower, I sit here right now, thinking about them, laughing at such ridiculous concepts.
To be honest, today was one of the hardest days of my life. I didn't think I was going to make it through it. By the time I got home this evening I felt like I was going to die, my emotional body was bleeding and raw all over. I felt like screaming, every second becoming more unbearable. My mind was so completely erratic that I could not make sense of a single thought in my head. I couldn't breathe. I had anxiety attack after anxiety attack, feeling like my heart would give out.
I began to write in my journal, words coming out of me from nowhere. I said that I needed to die right now, to die without dying. I wasn't sure what that would entail, but I knew that something deep inside of me knew exactly what to do. Without thinking or using my mind to guide myself in any way I found myself lying down. My breathing became very pronounced. I watched myself as I left my body behind and watched it from above myself. I remember thinking it was strange that it, she, not me, not the one who was watching, was still hurting, even without me there. She writhed in pain, and I observed the intense pressure behind her forehead, in her chest and throat.It was strangling her. I witnessed the thoughts, "Can't do this anymore, more pain than I can take." Suddenly I was back in my body, but not my body, and I was brushing the darkness away from myself. I began at the throat, pulling, wiping, pushing at these blockages which were causing intense suffering. I didn't know what I was doing, it was just happening. I began to cry uncontrollably, tears running into my hair and soaking my pillow, loud sobs coming from deep within my chest. I didn't try to control my experience in any way. When I became exhausted I found myself rolling into a ball and just lying there listening to my breathing for a very long time. The intense pain was gone, but I didn't feel good. Sort of like I was in limbo. I watched as the sun set and the moonlight filled my room.
Thoughts began to run through me about the restricted ways in which I've lived, and have never really questioned because everyone lives that way. It takes so much courage to release the beliefs of how to live. I thought about the books I had read on instinctive living and how completely vulnerable the thought of living like that made me feel. While reading these books I found my mind attacking the simple possibility of relying on our instincts, clinging tightly to my labels. What would it be like to live without rules, without labels? This fasting experiment I've been doing has been a great teacher for me. My body had a chance to detoxify, and I've had so much time to think about how it feels to live within the confines of my experiment. It felt very unnatural to eat for only one hour of the day, and I found myself eating more than felt comfortable just so I would get in enough food, which I never did anyway. All these rules about eating made me realize how my whole life has been nothing but a set of rules, shoulds and shouldn'ts, rights and wrongs.
The moon is telling me to let it all go, to try a new experiment, one without rules. I don't even know what it means to live an instinctive life. I, just like most humans, have spent my whole life ignoring my instincts, and have lost touch with the divine, primal goddess which is deep inside of me. It feels like uncharted territory, eating, doing, being what feels right without judgement or labelling of any kind. It means eating what smells and tastes good, as much of it as I want, whenever my body wants without counting calories, without thinking about any of the science of nutrition, disregarding everything I've learned, and eating foods in their natural, raw state. labelling ourselves as vegans, fruitarians, raw foodists, whatever, gives us a sense of identity, of "I'm better than people who eat animals or junk food." For quite a few years now, fruitarianism has been a major part of my identity, and I can feel myself becoming ready to release it. I'm open to eating what my body asks for, even if it is things I would never have considered before. If I wake up one morning and decide to kill and eat a chicken, I am open to that. I honestly don't feel like my body wants animals, and inside, deeper than my mind I don't feel like killing an animal is something I would ever do or feel drawn to do, but I want to remain open to all possibilites, without judgement.
What about the rest of my lifestyle? That's where things get more complicated. I've seen myself in so many situations, doing the opposite of what feels natural to me. Through this experiment I am going to be finding out so much about myself and my needs: The physical needs of my body; when to exercise, when to stop, movement that is uncontrolled and free to become anything. My emotional needs; what I need to give to myself, what I want to recieve from others. Socially I have always felt very rigid, with so many rules in my mind about how I should act, and I don't know what letting that go will be like. This is an exploration of feeling good, in every possible way, and I know it will take extreme courage and vulnerability, especially for me. I have spent my whole life denying myself of anything that feels good, running from it. I remember growing up and wanting hugs, to be so close to people almost all the time, and I forced myself to be alone. I spent years starving myself, trying to deny every need of my body, telling myself I didn't deserve to have needs, cutting myself, doing everything I could to cause myself pain. This isn't going to be easy to do. It may be the biggest challenge I ever face, but I feel ready for it.
I'm not sure how long I'll try this experiment for. I might aim for 30 days but I'll just go day by day and see how this feels for me. I imagine I will find it very scary to just be however I feel good being, and a lot of this experiment will just be about noticing how different situations make me feel out of balance, without judging myself for being unable to be more true to myself. Eventually, through observation I think these concepts I've been living will begin to crumble, but I know it may take time. I will blog about how my diet changes from one of strictly fruit, eaten at certain hours in certain quantities, to a diet of freedom from any rules, except that the food be in it's raw natural state. I won't be eating any cooked or mixed foods because that completely changes our body's reaction to it. I've noticed in the past that my body doesn't experience a natural stop point with mixed food, even something as simple as a fruit salad, or lettuce mixed with tomatoes, and I end up eating quantities that I wouldn't have eaten if the foods were on their own. In nature animals don't mix their foods so I won't be doing that either. It is exciting to start finding out if the diet I've been eating is truly what my body desires. I'll also write about the rest of my life and my attempts to do what feels good, and how that changes me. I honestly have pretty much no idea how my first day is going to go. All I know is that I am going to allow it to unfold without effort, even if it feels uncomfortable at first. Tomorrow is going to be an exciting day!
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