Colonic

Last week I went for colonic hydrotherapy, otherwise known as irrigation or cleansing of the colon. The colon works as a sieve to separate out the nutrients from the, ahem, crap. My colon, sadly, is quite blocked up, resulting in me needing to book another session with Jenny, the nice and very pretty hydrotherapist from Manchester whose job is sticking tubes up people's bottoms. (Nige, your writing style is rubbing off on me!)

Going for my first ever colonic was quite enlightening, and it got me thinking about my mind. Whilst there is very little medical evidence supporting colonic hydrotherapy's benefits, it seems obvious to me that cleansing this vital part of the digestive system is super-necessary once in a while. I have been suffering from symptoms such as dark circles under my eyes and extreme tiredness to the point of being able to sleep 2 hours in the afternoon and 10 hours at night, for years. I drink lots of water, eat well, exercise regularly, sleep loads, and am mostly in love with my life. Jenny said something to me which I found quite unnerving; if the colon is blocked, I might as well be eating Maccy D's instead of brown rice, fish and greens, because the body can't absorb the nutrients anyway. Apparently, all the water I'm drinking isn't actually hydrating me; it's just passing straight through, hence the dark circles.

Now, I'm not about to start eating McChicken Sandwiches every day, nor am I going to stop drinking water, or exercising, or any of that. If anything, having just entered a half-marathon (woo hoo! Go me!) is making me more determined to clean up my life, my food, and my body. I am not going to be frightened into running along to the beauty salon every week for a cleanse. But I am going to do what I can to sort out the blockage in my body, just as I have taken lots and lots of steps over the years to sort out the blockages in my mind.

For me, the lesson I learned about how the body works is totally applicable to the mind. A lot of people focus purely on changing the input, moving away from the 'junk food' of the mind towards a more nourishing way of feeding themselves. They might turn to angels, or to a holistic therapy, or to meditation. However, seconds and minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and years of thoughts, judgments, fears, anxieties, guilt, shame, irritation, rage, annoyances, impatience, jealousies, comparisons, expectations, misperceptions, taking things personally, and all the other tools of the ego's trade have taken their toll on the mind.

In 12-step fellowships such as Alcoholics Anonymous, the "middle steps" - four through to nine - are the place where the recovering addict/alcoholic/gambler/whatever takes stock of their life and particularly of their thinking and actions. They do a life audit. They spend hours and hours working on a personal inventory of past mistakes, not for the purpose of self-flagellation (having had plenty of that in years gone by), but for the purpose of clearing out the crap to make way for a new way of living. The old, toxic roots have to be pulled out of the ground in order to create fertile soil that is able to support the new way of thinking and of living and of being in the world to take root. You can't just dump a load of fertilizer on top of the old, dead roots and plant something lovely and pretty on top of it. Spiritual leapfrogging just doesn't work.

My life's path continues to unfold beautifully and miraculously before me. As Nige was once told by a good friend of his: "You don't have to go looking for the sh*t. It will find you!" Indeed, the dregs of what Christian's call the "old man" (meaning the past self, the fear-based person I used to be) keep coming up to the surface for healing and purification. Jealousy, insecurity, fear of the future, self-centredness, bitchiness, judgmentalism, and more: I have it all inside of me.

But day by day, as I wake and meditate and listen to the birds and thank God for the chance to begin again, the sifting process in my mind occurs naturally, as it was intended to. Nowadays, I'm much better at sorting out the wheat from the chaff, and somehow, the chaff keeps transforming into nuggets of gold, while the wheat sustains me and helps me grow.

I know I have a long way to go until I see only the truth in every situation, but here, on the path of my life, with mighty companions by my side (albeit not always physically), the ground I walk is rich, fertile and life-giving. And that's something I am inarticulately grateful for.

I'm off to France now for a few days, to meet my paternal grandfather on my biological dad's side. This is a pretty massive opportunity for healing for me, as this man outright encouraged my pregnant mum to abort me. She didn't, I'm here, and I have a funny feeling that there's going to be great need for the Holy Spirit over the next few days. Really looking forward to reading and catching up on my return. In the meantime, I'm going on a three day technology fast. Hurrah!

Bon Voyage!