End of Week One: Self-Sabotage and Defiance

I have a rebellious spirit by nature. Anyone who knows me will agree with that. Lately I’ve had a generally pessimistic outlook on all aspects of my life and have been trying to undo that with these methods that I previously thought were very “LA” and extremely hokey, like meditation, the power of positive thinking, and breathing. What I’ve discovered so far is that these things generally work when you do them, and generally don’t work when you don’t do them. What a concept.

While watching television earlier this week, a comedian was joking about the world’s propensity towards spilling their guts on the internet. She determined in her routine that blogging was for individuals without social skills. To that I immediately thought “boy is that true, and boy is that funny!” Then I remembered that I’d just started my own blog. I hope those of you who are gracious enough to read this blog because you care about what’s going on with me, are confident in my ability to hold a conversation in person. ;-)

This week has been a very trying one—much harder than I thought. Just like keeping a positive state of mind, meditating and breathing—these practices only work when you actually DO them. I’m realizing what a hard road I’ve got ahead of me. But I’m determined not to quit.

Let’s start with Practice One: Eating in a Calm Quiet Environment. This has been the most difficult practice of all for me. It takes a lot of thought to get up and plan my day around my eating, especially when almost each day of my life is different than the next. I have two jobs, and am working on a third project that I hope will turn into a full time job, so my days are filled with scheduling and rescheduling meetings, conference calls that are supposed to take ten minutes happening an hour late and lasting for 45 minutes, so I find it an impossible task to eat at the same TIME every day, let alone without the presence of a computer, loud conversation or work of some sort. What I’m discovering is that the people around me are either going to conform to my new way of living, or I’m going to go back to the old way of living—and right now it feels like it could go either way. For week two I think I’m going to attempt one meal a day “Ayurvedic style,” instead of putting a bunch of pressure on myself to eat every meal that way from now on. In fact, I JUST realized in this moment that I’m typing this blog and eating my morning oatmeal at the same time. My bad—excuse me for a moment while I finish.

Practice Two: Sipping hot water throughout the day. This one has been pretty easy to do, but I find that slowing down my life is the only way to make this one work. I went to Target and bought a cheap kettle. I’m lucky that all the environments I work in have a kitchen that I have easy access to, so I don’t have to rely on a microwave as much as I thought I did. Mary-Alice told me in passing about her own experience starting Ayurveda. She didn’t always eat that way nor did she have understanding of its benefits to her body until her early 20s. Her parents raised her to eat the way most of our parents do—peanut butter and jelly on white bread is a great lunch. ;-) Anyway, she said “Victoria, it takes as much effort to heat water in a kettle on a stove as it does to heat it in a microwave—and it’s safer.” I couldn’t argue with that. It takes about two minutes for one cup of water to get hot enough for my purposes in the microwave, and I can only heat one cup at a time. I can heat several cups in my kettle in a few more minutes and it stays hot much longer.

I must admit that I’m waiting for the sale at Starbucks so I can get a really sweet tumbler to keep my water warm during the day. My roommate works there, so I’m waiting for the employee discount—is that horrible? (I refuse to add things like “LOL” and “IMHO” and other internet-speak in this blog. I did major in English, after all.)

Practice Three: Reducing Leftovers. This has been the easiest practice to maintain and I thought it would surely be the most difficult. It’s only been a week, but I realized that changing this practice was easy—and maybe that’s because I’ve traded leftovers for pre-made and packaged foods which is definitely a no-no in Ayurveda. Eventually I’m supposed to get to a place where I prepare cooked whole organic foods for each meal, every time I eat. The meals will always be hot and will always be enough for just one portion. To that I say (in my best Judge Judy voice) ‘BALONEY!’ Right now I have the attitude that my lifestyle will never allow for this kind of behavior. I hope I’m wrong, but unless I hook up with some rich person who will bankroll my life, I won’t have enough ‘leisure’ time to sleep 8 hours a night, get up and meditate, walk, do a yoga sequence and eat a lovely breakfast, then go to work and have enough time to come home and do it all over again.

It’s this negative attitude that keeps me and other people from succeeding in Ayurveda. But I don’t like to end on a negative note—let’s end with Practice Four: Drinking Agni Churna! Next time Mary-Alice offers to put these into capsules for me instead of a tea, I just might take her up on it. Drinking this mixture isn’t fun. Don’t get me wrong, there are worse things to drink, and it goes down a lot easier than a shot of Vodka, with many more benefits. My body is starting to wake up to the process of digestion. I feel energized when I eat, and here’s a tip for you guys—apparently the easiest and best way to GAIN weight is to eat a meal and then go to sleep within 30 minutes of eating. Welcome to my world!

Since I began drinking these herbs I find that my stomach never feels upset after I eat, which used to happen often. It became a feeling I was so used to that I began to think it was supposed to happen. But now I know that paying attention to levels of hunger, eating at the appropriate times and in the appropriate amounts make me feel so much better—or just not sick!

The most beneficial aspect of the Agni Churna or fire formula is that it forces me out of mindless eating. Ideally a person is supposed to drink this mixture of herbs no more than 30 minutes before any substantive meal. That means if you’re eating an apple go ahead and eat it, but if you’re going to eat a slice of pizza (gasp!) drink your herbs first. Well, if you’re just picking up that pizza slice because someone offered it to you and you left your herbs at home, you have to either wrap up that pizza slice to take it with you, or you have to say “no thank you.” The best solution would be to have remembered your herbs in the first place, have a snack on hand to tide you over until you get somewhere to warm up your meal, or bring your own with you in the first place. Ayurveda removes all pointless eating and snacking—and I just didn’t realize how much of that I did until I learned how to say no.

Let’s wrap today’s entry with the actual subject of the blog—self-sabotage and eating in defiance. I’m going to be really honest here. I realized earlier this year as I began this journey of putting myself first, that I have a lot of associations with food besides just liking how it tastes and eating it in great quantities. I associated a full refrigerator and cabinets with a full life. If I could open my cabinet and refrigerator and see food spilling out of it, then that meant that I was doing well financially and that must mean that I was doing well in my job. That meant that I had the food and time to share with others, so people would come over, I’d make a meal for them and feel affirmed that they liked me and that I was a good person.

This is not a good practice or association, and lately because I’m supposed to be cutting out leftovers and preparing hot foods, there isn’t a lot that needs to hang out in my refrigerator getting cold and losing its prana. The same goes for the prepackaged foods that I’m supposed to be avoiding. Other than the endless cans of soup that I’ve taken up with to avoid microwaving frozen dinners, there are no chips and crackers, no snack cakes or juice boxes. There is only oatmeal, cooking spices, pasta and rice—as it should be according to Ayurveda.

Having cabinets and a refrigerator in this state doesn’t mean that I’m void of success and friendships and that’s an important lesson to learn.

But most of the time I buy food and eat it in defiance of what I know to be true and that is what I mean by self-sabotage. I feel the pull to leave those Little Debbie Snack Cakes right where they are on the shelf. If I just think about it for 10 more seconds I know I’ll find the will to leave them in the store. But I ignore that feeling, put it in my cart and keep walking. Remember that line from Field of Dreams? ‘If you build it, they will come.’ Well ‘if you buy it, Victoria will eat it.’ And buy it, I do.

One evening this week I ate well past my hunger and satisfaction level, I began to feel the familiar pain and heaviness and though I knew what I was doing I couldn’t seem to stop myself—or rather I chose not to. Afterwards I went to sleep and later I got very sick. And after that—I ate again. What’s the lesson in that? I’m still trying to learn it, but what I HAVE learned is that I’m not one of those people who can have something in my house and leave it alone or eat it in moderation—I have to leave it outside of my house so that the opportunity doesn’t even present itself. There is something I can do about it, it is something I can control, and I do have a choice.

Ok, I don’t want to be Debbie Downer at the end of all this, so let me say that I am doing well, I do feel better and after one week I’ve failed and made a lot of progress too. Didn’t we say at the beginning of this that it was a journey? So thanks to everyone who’s been reading this blog and calling me or emailing me their support. See ya next week!