FullaBella's Journal, 18 July 2013

I felt the universe had been urging me to do a cleanse lately. From the huge red letters of GNC glowing at me in the mall Friday, my friend lingering on the cleanse aisle at Whole Foods on Saturday and reading several journals yesterday discussing the same. I reflected on this as I did my Sudoku puzzle on the deck this morning.

I've done cleanses in the past especially when I was trying to eat healthy and of course lose weight. It seemed to help give me a 'clean slate' to begin again. And I'll confess, I felt like I was reconnecting with my spiritual roots with the Gandhi like fast when I was basically subsisting on little more than supplements and fruit juice.

As I've been a little off the charts with eating the past couple of days it seemed to be 'just the ticket' I could use to atone and refresh. And boy oh boy are there a zillion new types of cleanses out on the market now; specialty cleanses for the liver, toxic metals, sugar... you name it. I made a note on the corner of the newspaper to stop by the health food store and pick one up.

But then I remembered feeling weak and 'washed out' from those in the past. Most likely because I didn't follow the instructions but regardless 'weak' is not a physical state I want to bring upon myself these days. I need all the strength I can muster.

Since I couldn't cleanse my liver I'd just cleanse my thoughts. I stood up, stretched, and began breathing in long deep inhales and then trying to push every single breath out of my lungs on the exhale. As I repeated the cycle I began saying positive words on the inhale and negative words on the exhale.

I don't meditate well; I'm too easily distracted to just relax and zone out. I stopped, opened my eyes, and drew a line on my newspaper and began listing positive and negative words. Then I closed my eyes again and made a game of it by beginning with the words with only one syllable, then two and so on. But the gal that always reads a chapter ahead of the class leaped up and pulled out the longest word she knew: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

It wasn't until just now composing my journal I googled the word (for spelling) and read at Wiki: The roots of the word have been defined as follows: super- "above", cali- "beauty", fragilistic- "delicate", expiali- "to atone", and docious- "educable", with the sum of these parts signifying roughly "Atoning for educability through delicate beauty."

I like that.

Eventually, my thoughts scattered as usual and I begin to reflect on my surroundings. I thought about the carbon imprint of all that exhaled negativity lingering in my yard and decided I needed to wrap up my exercise with a little outdoor air freshener.

So I began using positive words on both the inhale and exhale to cleanse my little corner of the universe. What happened next totally amazed me but served as an answer that I was on the right path.

A mourning dove flew into the yard and began eating birdseed off the ground. Sure, they've done that plenty but only when I'm in the house watching from behind a window. Obviously my exercise cleared enough of my negative energy to make a bird feel safe enough to come closer to me.

I like that.

Bella