Cleansing and fasting brings mental clarity and body healing.

I’m continuing my Friday series on healing the body – now, I know that we live in the world of illusion – the body is a projection of the mind and I’m not making it real. And I was AMAZED that there is such a strong body mind connection that I didn’t even understand until I started cleansing. When I started doing this detox cleanse – The Master Cleanser – I let go of so much MENTAL toxicity as I fasted. I discovered a whole new understanding of my mental and emotional relationship to food. I had PROFOUND healing.

So, as promised here’s SOME of my helpful tips about fasting and cleansing. I started doing cleansing fasting back in 1997. There’s a little yellow booklet called The Master Cleanser by Stanley Burroughs that I studied and began to use. It’s a ten day fast program. For years I would start a fast ten days before the end of one season and the start of the new. It was a great way to give myself a fresh start on the solstices and equinoxes. It felt like a beautiful clearing and preparation. I once even did it for 30 days.

The first time I did it, I was amazed. How could I release so much poo for ten straight days? I did some research and I realized that the average person has between five and forty (yes, FORTY) pounds of old poo in their body. Yikes!

At the time, I said, “my little brother was right! I’m full of sh*t!”

Be prepared, first-timers! If you haven’t done it before, it’s not at all easy. I do encourage you to read and study the booklet and follow those instructions precisely. They work.

As I understand it, (I’m a minister, not a medical professional) what’s happened is that all the food that your body couldn’t digest for various reasons, (maybe you drank too much liquid with the meal and your own digestive juices got too watered down, maybe what you ate is too glutenous or undigestible, not enough healthy fiber in your diet – I can’t really say) well, it literally sticks to the insides of your intestines. Over time, it begins to harden there and then your intestines aren’t able to function properly.

We receive nourishment from our digestive system through the walls of the intestines into blood vessels for further further processing and storage

Your intestines are meant to have what’s called peristaltic action which is a series of wave-like muscle contractions that move the food along your intestines through your digestive system.

Think of it kind of like a tube with a slinky in it that can expand and contract. It’s pretty easy to comprehend that if you let the old undigested food in the intestines, and old fecal matter in the colon, collect there and it hardens along the walls, the only thing that causes food to move through your digestive system will be more food pushing it through. The peristaltic action gets really stagnant and, essentially your colon and intestines get out of shape. Not healthy.

Then the toxicity then builds up inside, severely decreasing peristaltic action AND what many people find is that they’re not getting a lot of the nutrients from their food because it’s moving right through and not being properly digested so they actually start eating more in order to get nutrition. In a sense, unhealthy people eat more because they’re getting less nutrition from what they do eat which keeps the cycle going.

A healthy animal, think of a dog, has a bowel movement pretty much after every meal. Food goes in, moves along the system and starts that peristaltic action and something’s got to come out. If you have a dog, would you ever feed it and then NOT let it out to use the bathroom right away? Not unless you like having dog poop in your house!

Think of a newborn baby, whose digestive system is brand new. Babies poop frequently because they eat frequently. Their system is working well because it’s healthy and new.

Many people are not healthy animals. I know people that have gone almost a month without a bowel movement. (Sorry to be so graphic.) It seems like self-abuse to let things come to that, doesn’t it? Well, people abuse their bodies all kinds of ways. Nothing new about that.

If you pay attention, you’ll notice that a lot of the time you might be clenching your buttocks. Start to think about relaxing your body more often, breathe deeply and fill your lungs and relax the muscles in the whole body. Relax your belly and buttocks. It feels good. Bless your body and give thanks for the amazing job it does that allows you to be on this journey of awakening on earth!

In doing this Master Cleanser cleansing fast, generally, the first four days is an intense detox. The Master Cleanser consists mostly of a lemonade made with grade B maple syrup and cayenne pepper. The lemon and pepper help to soften and break up the hardened old food inside your intestines and the cayenne also helps wake up the peristaltic action. You may find that you have a fair amount of cramping the first few times you do this. It’s worth it to get healthy again! It’s important to drink the suggested amount of lemonade so that it works properly.

(If you have a Trader Joe’s near you they have great Grade B maple syrup and usually a good buy on lemons and limes too – you can even get the cayenne there – I prefer organic, which they don’t have.)

One thing that helped me was to have a good colon hydro therapist – My favorite in Los Angeles is my longtime friend and fellow Agape Practitioner, LaDonna Bennet, and you can find her at http://www.universalflowinc.com.

I have personally found that having a series of three (or more) colonics during the process is very helpful. It’s also a practice in humility. I’ve been to a few different hydro colon therapists and they’ve all been lovely women who had a very gentle, loving touch. The colonics help to exercise your colon and get it working better. Colonics also help flush out a lot of the toxic waste in the system.

One of the detox factors to consider is this: as the lemon and cayenne in your intestines begin loosening all that old gunk inside, it starts getting moved into your bloodstream and it can feel uncomfortable for a few days causing headaches and sluggishness. That’s detox.

I’ve found it very helpful to take fiber during the cleanse and I like some very particular herbal fiber formulas that I could tell you about if you write to me personally. You can also just try Psyllium Husk and/or Bentonite Clay to help aid in the release of the toxic build up in colon and intestines. I have found other doctors also recommend this. I’ll be offering a detox cleanse program in March 2016, so stay tuned for those details.

Additionally, taking some magnesium is a really good idea because it helps the muscle contractions to move things through as you’re cleansing. Most people have a lot of atrophy in their colon and intestines and the combination of magnesium and hydrocolonics helps to get things back in shape.

If you keep going with the fast, usually, I’ve found, by day five I’m starting to feel more mentally clear and alert than usual. The more often I did the Master Cleanser, the earlier I got to this phase because I had less and less toxicity. My body was working so much better.

If you’d like to watch another short and helpful video to understand some of this better

People are often concerned that they’ll get hungry or feel weak from hunger during the Master Cleanser. When I first started I felt weak from toxicity those first few days. If I ever got hungry, I just drank some lemonade. No big deal. I usually worked out the same as always during a cleanse after the first day or so. Towards the end, your muscles will feel weaker until you start eating more carbs when you go off the cleanse.

If you are a coffee drinker, you might wish to switch to green tea or some other black tea and wean yourself off caffeine so you don’t get a pounding caffeine headache from going cold turkey.

When you come off the cleanse, do it very gently.

• Lots and lots of water all through the whole process from Day 1 onward.
• Drink fresh juices, moderate amounts, when you start adding in food – don’t rush it.
• When you start moving from OJ to solid food, start with raw or cooked vegetable soup for a couple of days.
• Smooth Move tea tastes foul to me, but it works – they make a chocolate and a peppermint version – I prefer the mint, but I’m not a chocolate lover.

TWO of the MAIN ways we release toxins is through our breath and through our skin. In fact, our skin is actually part of our digestive system. ANYTHING you put on your skin goes in your bloodstream in seconds. Think about that.

Take baths with sea salts in them to help draw out the toxins through the skin – this really helps. A pound of sea salt is often two dollars. Pour the whole thing in and soak for at least fifteen minutes.

Brush your teeth and tongue frequently during the cleanse. When you detox, your tongue will be coated with toxins, rinse and brush often to get it out.

I like to mix in some fresh lime juice with my lemonade and also some fresh ginger – my favorite way to do that is to take a piece of fresh ginger and put it in a garlic press and squeeze some into the lemonade. Ginger is SO good for your digestive system and I love the taste.

I never had problems attending social events and restaurants while fasting, but most people do. And if you’re out and about, there are times when you might prefer to be close to the potty, if you get what I mean. BE MINDFUL, sometimes when it feels like you need to let out some gas, it’s not gas, and you might get an unpleasant surprise in your pants at an inconvenient time – hey, I’m your friend, you need to know. This once happened to a friend of mine and it was a bit awkward.

I have found that once you get the hang of it fasting is a great time saver – your meals are already planned, there’s no shopping once you have your supplies, very little clean up, short preparation and consumption time. Just carry a jug of lemonade with you and a bottle of water and you’re good to go. Saves a lot of time!

In that first cleanse, if you’re not already a regular cleanser, you might REALLY stink up the bathroom. Seriously, I’m talking about a stench like something died and you ate it, and now it’s like a dead animal poo bomb went off in your bathroom. You might like to get some of that INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH orange bathroom fragrance foul odor eater stuff. Lightweight fragrances won’t even begin to touch this stank. (What can I say? It is what it is.)

The first time I did the Master Cleanser, I craved pesto, all the way through. I just LOVE pesto! My body LOVES the basil, it’s got the perfect blend of nutrients for my body! Everybody craves different things – see what you crave. Maybe your body is telling you something about what it really loves and needs to function.

One last video to make you smile and also to help you understand how your body works. This one is a big laugher – don’t miss it! :

If I think of anything more I’ll update the post, or you have questions, please place them in the comments section below on the the blog post at the website. Happy fasting!

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