Cleansing Practices for the Joy of it
This year, after I signed up for an immersion with a spiritual teacher, I was asked to embark on a Spring Cleanse as part of the course. The idea was that cleansing the body clears toxins and blockages from the channels, which can aid in supporting the energetic body and a more clear mind for meditation. So a clear body supports a clear mind. The ancient yogis chose a vegetarian diet and engaged in numerous daily cleansing practices with this same understanding. They discovered that the more pure their diet, the better their energy and the clearer their minds became in meditation and they could reach higher states of awareness. So although I was surprised by the request to cleanse with the onset of our course, I was quite pleased with what happened. Along with a cleansing diet, we were given daily practices to do, called dinacharya. Some of these I’ve already been doing for a long time, like yoga postures, tongue scraping and drinking hot water or tea first thing in the morning. Others, like abhyanga, nasal neti and uddiyana bandha, I’ve done irregularly over the years, though much more regularly this Winter. And still others, like nasya (oiling the ears and nose), were fairly new. So although I already had quite a solid practice of daily self care rituals, adding the cleansing diet and new rituals proved to be a powerful experience. As I’ve noticed with all the cleanses I’ve done over the years, while the actual change in diet can be a strong influence on my well-being, it’s the commitment to increasing my self-care that adds a considerable bonus. For the most part, I really enjoy giving myself extra self-care! Paying exquisite attention to what I put into my body, to how I eat, along with self massage and other practices, gives me a special feeling of joy that I don’t get other ways, and I know I wouldn’t have done them without the support of my teacher and the group.
Now that the cleanse is over, I’m still enjoying being lighter in my body and I’m choosing to continue with much of the dinacharya and keeping my diet cleaner too. I’ve decided that most of it is easy to continue with and adds a tone of special nurturing to my day that supports my inner aliveness and vitality. As I prepare to lead a group of yogis through a cleanse here in Arcata, I’m looking forward to sharing some of these practices in hopes that cleansing becomes for them not just an intense period of diet change, but a sweet experience of self-nurturing that they can carry forward into daily living.
More info about our upcoming cleanse.
