I am so happy with my decision to give up my plane ticket for Goa and spend two more weeks here doing the panchakarma cleanse. I found a super nice and very cheap guest house where my neighbor was an adorable baby cow and where at night I wasn't kept awake by the honking of horns and people talking. I am staying about 20 minutes straight up the hill from Mcleod in the little village of Dharmkot and there are still a good number of people from my Tushita group to spend time with. Its been a really nice way to ease into traveling on my own and figuring out what I want to do with my remaining months. I am doing all I can to resist my urge to plan everything in advance and haven't let myself make any concrete plans or book any tickets anywhere until I am completely done with my cleanse. So you are all probably dying to know the details of my 14 days of cleansing which will be completed tomorrow and will be celebrated with lots of delicious food.
So generally, Panchakarma is an ancient Ayurvadic treatment that is meant to cleanse the mind as well as the body. It is not a cleanse where you just sit around and drink lemon juice and syrup all day and lose a ton of weight. My routine consists of breakfast with whomever is at the restaurant in town, usually Emma or Shay the two girls from Tushita that were also doing the cleanse. For breakfast we could have porridge with honey which was my favorite meal of the day. Then if I had time before treatment I would go to Tushita for their drop in meditations every morning. Treatment was about 15 minutes down the hill (not fun walking back up) and lasted for three hours everyday. It would always start with an amazing full body ayurvadic oil message which was then followed by about 20 minutes in either the sauna or steam room. Once we were nice and relaxed the less pleasant part began. For five of the days the doctor targeted our marma points to unblock emotional and physical blockage. Most of the points were on our feet or legs and correspond to different organs where different emotions are stored. While he was doing this sometimes excruciating therapy we were told to meditate on release all the negative emotions and breathing in all the positive ones to whichever organ he was targeting. Some of these points would make you cry from a combination of pain and who knows what. Other treatments include vomiting in which I had to chug cups of licorice tea until I threw up and repeat four times. It reminded me of college. We also had purgation days which was a nice way of saying diarrhea days and last but not least no less then four herb enemas. While all of this may be quite unpleasant to read we became so comfortable discussing our progress that a chat over dinner about the diarrhea day and how many times each of us went (we had to keep track) was quite common- and quite strange for those not in the program. I have been super lucky in my treatment as everything seemed to go quite well- I attribute this not to my eating healthy and working out because I don't, but to the fabulous genes that I have inherited.
By far the best part about the cleanse, and the only thing that made the diet of super boring, easy to digest food bearable was this wonderful restaurant/guesthouse where we, and all the other panchakarma people would have dinner. The house was owned by a German woman and her Indian husband and there three beautiful trilingual daughters, two amazing dogs (one of which is pregnant) and cute kitty. Every night everyone would arrive for dinner of panchakarma soup, rice and chapatti which I would smother in ghee (our butter substitute). It was great to meet new, usually very interesting people, and not have to watch our other friends down pizza.
So far the concrete results that I have seen from the cleanse include super soft skin and hair and feeling about a million times healthier than I have since I last lived with the mother. It is so hard to be healthy when you are traveling and even though I am really excited to have more food options starting tomorrow it was amazing to not feel sickeningly full after meals or just plain sick. In terms of other developments I don't really know what to attribute them to- Tushita, panchakarma or just staying in one place for so long and giving myself time to just be. Whatever the cause, I am feeling so much more grounded and I have so much less anxiety about everything from traveling alone to getting home and finding a job. I just feel so much more secure and comfortable letting whatever happens happen and not trying to control everything. Wherever this is coming from it feels wonderful. I feel truly relaxed for the first time traveling and want to continue to spend longer amounts of time in the next places I go.
So since I finish my cleanse tomorrow I am going to move back down to Mcleod because I can't face walking up and down the mountain everyday and I am ready to eat some delicious food and be near a little more action. I will probably spend a few days in town getting myself together and then I am going to set out for Rishikesh for some yoga!
So generally, Panchakarma is an ancient Ayurvadic treatment that is meant to cleanse the mind as well as the body. It is not a cleanse where you just sit around and drink lemon juice and syrup all day and lose a ton of weight. My routine consists of breakfast with whomever is at the restaurant in town, usually Emma or Shay the two girls from Tushita that were also doing the cleanse. For breakfast we could have porridge with honey which was my favorite meal of the day. Then if I had time before treatment I would go to Tushita for their drop in meditations every morning. Treatment was about 15 minutes down the hill (not fun walking back up) and lasted for three hours everyday. It would always start with an amazing full body ayurvadic oil message which was then followed by about 20 minutes in either the sauna or steam room. Once we were nice and relaxed the less pleasant part began. For five of the days the doctor targeted our marma points to unblock emotional and physical blockage. Most of the points were on our feet or legs and correspond to different organs where different emotions are stored. While he was doing this sometimes excruciating therapy we were told to meditate on release all the negative emotions and breathing in all the positive ones to whichever organ he was targeting. Some of these points would make you cry from a combination of pain and who knows what. Other treatments include vomiting in which I had to chug cups of licorice tea until I threw up and repeat four times. It reminded me of college. We also had purgation days which was a nice way of saying diarrhea days and last but not least no less then four herb enemas. While all of this may be quite unpleasant to read we became so comfortable discussing our progress that a chat over dinner about the diarrhea day and how many times each of us went (we had to keep track) was quite common- and quite strange for those not in the program. I have been super lucky in my treatment as everything seemed to go quite well- I attribute this not to my eating healthy and working out because I don't, but to the fabulous genes that I have inherited.
By far the best part about the cleanse, and the only thing that made the diet of super boring, easy to digest food bearable was this wonderful restaurant/guesthouse where we, and all the other panchakarma people would have dinner. The house was owned by a German woman and her Indian husband and there three beautiful trilingual daughters, two amazing dogs (one of which is pregnant) and cute kitty. Every night everyone would arrive for dinner of panchakarma soup, rice and chapatti which I would smother in ghee (our butter substitute). It was great to meet new, usually very interesting people, and not have to watch our other friends down pizza.
So far the concrete results that I have seen from the cleanse include super soft skin and hair and feeling about a million times healthier than I have since I last lived with the mother. It is so hard to be healthy when you are traveling and even though I am really excited to have more food options starting tomorrow it was amazing to not feel sickeningly full after meals or just plain sick. In terms of other developments I don't really know what to attribute them to- Tushita, panchakarma or just staying in one place for so long and giving myself time to just be. Whatever the cause, I am feeling so much more grounded and I have so much less anxiety about everything from traveling alone to getting home and finding a job. I just feel so much more secure and comfortable letting whatever happens happen and not trying to control everything. Wherever this is coming from it feels wonderful. I feel truly relaxed for the first time traveling and want to continue to spend longer amounts of time in the next places I go.
So since I finish my cleanse tomorrow I am going to move back down to Mcleod because I can't face walking up and down the mountain everyday and I am ready to eat some delicious food and be near a little more action. I will probably spend a few days in town getting myself together and then I am going to set out for Rishikesh for some yoga!
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