It was mid-afternoon on Day 3 and we were losing steam fast. I was daydreaming of slivers of coconut meat and so was my friend. We called the front desk and asked for the “golf cart” to come and deliver us a cold glass of coconut water and fresh coconut meat. We sneaked a peak at each other feeling a naughty sense of guilt and then let the water and coconut meat just melt in our mouths. It was dee-vine.
This was my first ever experience doing a detox. I had decided to fly to Fiji where I spent 5 days learning about health and nutrition while on a 5 day liquid detox!
It was July of 2011 and I had no idea what to expect. Despite having flown to 4 continents in my lifetime and racked hundreds of thousands of frequent flyer miles, I was totally out of my comfort zone this time. The 20+ hour trip took me from NY – LA and then on an 11 hour trip from LA to Nandi (Fiji) + a 1 hour small plane ride (20 people) to the small island where we’d be staying in – Savu Savu. It felt crazy…. good!
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DAY 1: Facing my biggest fear
Day 1 was actually my biggest terror. Before we started our detox, we had to confront our fears big time. We were driven to a remote spot with three telephone poles. There, while attached to some powerful harnesses and with helmets, we had to climb a 55 foot tall telephone poll, stand on top and then jump off (Gulp!). Did I mention I am terrified of heights? I was among the last people to go, sweating bullets in the humid mid-day Fijian sun. My program mates were cheering me on and all I kept telling myself was not to look down and to take it 1 step at a time.
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All sorts of things were crossing my mind:
“What the HELL are you doing here?”
“Did you have to spend a fortune and fly across the globe to climb a telephone poll?”
“Did you lose your mind?”
NO!
I had found myself.
I climbed to the top. My shaking legs and sheer terror didn’t allow me to jump but I had given it my best effort. I had had nightmares about this for several weeks so I was glad to have this part over and done with.
After my mid-afternoon break with Jackie in her room facing the ocean, I returned to class for another 5 hours of teaching. We jumped on our trampolines to detox our lymph node system and got present to our bodies.
Doing a 5 day liquid detox was a humbling experience and one of the most profound ones I’ve ever had in my life.
Here’s what I learned about detoxing:
- You create a more enriching and connected relationship with yourself: A detox is as much of a spiritual cleansing experience as it is a physical one. When you aren’t distracted by food or other experiences to comfort or numb you, you get very present to yourself, your feelings, your thoughts and your patterns.
You start to create a more profound and symbiotic relationship to your body. You become more connected and in tune than ever before. Profound growth and magic can happen.
- Food changes everything: The power of live foods is amazing. Live, fresh, whole foods have an energy to them that makes us feel more alive. All those vitamins, minerals and fresh ingredients from the earth become our blood, our cells, our thoughts and feelings and our energy. The more high quality, fresh foods we eat, the more ALIVE we feel. The more heightened our intuition and connection with ourselves becomes. You get back INTO your body and you can harness the partner of that mind/body/spirit partnership in a powerful way in your day-to-day life.
- Slow down: The key to a deeper connection to yourself and to your body is by turning down the speed on your life. Even if you aren’t immersed in a 5 day program somewhere, you can still turn down the dial on how fast you move day-to-day. It’s that deeper connection with yourself, which is available to us wherever we are, that makes it possible for us to access our Divine intuition. That voice. That “inner knowing”. You become more open to the world and the possibilities.
- You do the best you can: It was easy to compare myself to others who seemed to have more energy than me, who’d detoxed before etc… I had a really hard time drinking the wheatgrass shots in the morning (they are ridiculously good for you though). Regardless, this was MY experience, MY body, MY unique path to travel on this journey. The coconut meat “cheat” aside, I followed the program fully and felt incredibly grateful for the opportunity to heal and learn more about myself.
- You release the toxins holding you back: The physical toxins that are stored in our fat cells, the heavy emotions and stories that we are carrying around with us that no longer serve us are released when we go through a detox. You may encounter emotions that you didn’t even know were there asking to be addressed and healed. In Fiji, I became very present to my disconnect with my body and how I hated it for having “betrayed” me all those years of dieting. The entire 5 days were hard. I had to “sit” with the discomfort of the emotions. I didn’t have anywhere to turn and no access to food so I just had to “be” with it.
My mouth tasted funny, the food we got was different, I smelled funny and I was secluded. I basically had nowhere to escape from myself.
This is the power of a detox. Even when you do it at home, you are challenged to look at things you may not have wanted to… and when you do, you get a very enriching life experience. You just have to hold on until you get through to the other side and it IS worth the effort.
- You feel amazing: Renewed. Refreshed. Recharged: A detox will clean out your system of the junk and you will come out of it renewed, recharged and refreshed for sure. While some are attracted to detoxes because they see them as a quick weight loss opportunity, the are ultimately a tool that can help you BREAK FREE from what no longer serves you – and yes that can mean excess weight. Ultimately, you gain a renewed and empowering relationship to yourself and your body. During a detox, you essentially give your body and your digestive tract a VACATION. Your body then pays you back and you feel energized and amazingly good.
- Support is key: Doing a detox in a community environment made all the difference. As a first-timer, I didn’t know what to do, what to expect or what it would all be like. Being guided and surrounded by people going through the same experience made it so much easier and a richer experience. In addition to our juice cleanse, we had the option of doing colonics which allowed us to clean our digestive tract from built-up gunk that accumulated over time. I highly recommend it and you can find places worldwide to get yours done. I never felt so clean from the inside out in my life.
- You reboot your system: A detox can really support you in breaking free from old food and emotional patterns holding you back in your life. The physical weight is often just a visual manifestation of deeper issues below the surface. I left my experience in Fiji more centered and lighter in more ways than one. It helped me to set the course for a more connected relationship to my body and to understanding the connection between my body and food that continues to support me today. Moreover, a detox really helps you to quickly break your dependency on processed foods and on other addictive substances – especially sugar.
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To your sweet success!
