Your Mom - Day 67

This isn't an actual picture of my mom, but it easily could be. My mother was a lot like Augusten Burroughs' mother in Running With Scissors. Well, that's the best comparison I can think of. Mother was an amazing woman, a member of MENSA, an artist, a master gardener, a business owner (along side my father), hysterically funny (when she was "well") and commitably crazy. I grew up riding the waves of mother's magical mania, depression, psychotic episodes of schizophrenia, and multiple lengthy hospitalizations. These tumultuous times set the pace for my emotional foundation and the likely root cause of my life long battle with irritable bowel syndrome, compulsive overeating and other control related idiosyncrasies.

It's not really like me to dig up the past. But I feel like I need to lay a bit of ground work so you, my dear reader, will have a better understanding about from where I came. The good news is that I have spent the last couple of decades sorting through the first 20 odd years of my life. Mom died of a malignant melanoma when it metastasized into her lungs and brain when I was just 22. As difficult as her death was, it was also the beginning of a new life for me, one of freedom of thought and actions. It took me about ten years to get an idea about who I really was and how to start to live a normal healthy life. Fortunately, all the time spent on self help and with clergy, counselor and shrink, has been an investment that has paid good long term dividends.

So, as I've been taught by my juice feasting mentors, David & Katrina Rainoshek, (and as I have mentioned here before), one goes back in time about 120 days for each day of juice feasting. When I did the math just now, I find that this equation puts me right at the time of my mother's death. I can already feel that things are starting to get jiggy, if you know what I mean. The first two months of my juice feast have been a beautiful time of cleansing, losing unwanted pounds and of feeling high on life, as I haven't suffered from any real emotional detox like I hear so many others discussing. It's really been smooth sailing.....until the last couple of days.

For the past two nights I've had disturbing dreams and feelings of mild panic. I am not an anxious person at this point in my life, but I have suddenly felt residual anxiety smoldering around my heart and in my mind. It helps to just allow these feelings and to dissect them a bit when they come...asking myself questions like, "What are you tense about right now?" "What is the source of your anxiety?" "Where is this this fear coming from?" These kinds of questions allow me get focused on the current moment and help me to realize that these uncomfortable emotions just have to flow through me and then back out again....for what I believe to be the final time. I awoke at 4:30 am this morning, unable to sleep. I used that as an opportunity to pray and meditate. I felt a lot more balanced afterwards.

The next 33 days of this juice feast will be an interesting ride and I am looking forward to releasing and letting go of any old emotion that no longer serves my higher good.

Tuesday's Daily Juice:
1 qt. Tomatillo Salsa Verde (left over from Cinco De Mayo)
1 qt. "Cool As A Cucumber," 3 large cucumbers, juice of 3 limes, 1 cup fresh mint, 1 tbsp raw honey.
1 qt. strawberry, apple, orange and spirulina
1 qt. cucumber, celery, spinach, basil, jalapeno, onion, lime, tomatoes, Celtic sea salt