This past weekend I went with my kids on a retreat in the woods of Pennsylvania as part of their final journey to earn their black belts in Taekwondo. While it was mandatory for them, it was optional for parents. I opted to go because I was not about to leave my kids with people I didn’t really know other than to say hi to them in passing at the dojang. My husband, on the other hand, stayed home to “make sure the house was safe.” Personally I wished he had stayed home to “catch up on the laundry and go grocery shopping,” but I digress…
The theme of the retreat was inspired by the Grand Master Yoda (yes, of the Jedi Order)…Do or Do Not, There is No Try. As we were often reminded throughout the weekend, the philosophy behind Yoda’s profound and wise words was that we should commit ourselves to something completely, win or lose. If you have the mindset that you are going to just ‘try’ something, that means that you are not fully committed mentally and you are setting yourself up for failure because failing is an option. This theme really resonated with me, as I had been ‘trying’ to get back to more healthy habits, and more recently had made more of a commitment to myself.
To give you some background, lately I have started to find myself slipping back into my old habits – chips, crackers, cheese, wine, beer, and not getting my butt out of bed in the morning to get to the gym. In an effort to reboot my good (or just less bad) habits, I have been frequenting a local take-out organic market near my office for lunch. Last week, after a conversation I had with a ‘Juice-ista’ at the market, I decided that I was going to do an organic detox juice cleanse. I felt that this was exactly what I needed to jump start my newly committed plan. I picked Friday as my cleanse day – the same day that I would be driving with the kids to Pennsylvania for the retreat. I thought the timing was perfect because the weekend was expected to be physical, so the detox was going to help me rid myself of the sluggishness that I had been feeling from eating so poorly. When I picked up my cooler of juices later that afternoon from the health food eatery, as they like to call themselves, I was completely committed to drinking these juices for a day. I was also hopeful that by the end of the day my body would be fully detoxed and no longer craving excess amounts of salt and added sugar. And in my defense, how could I not be hopeful? I was going to drink concoctions with names like “Happy Gut” and “Digest +” and following those up with probiotic “shooters”, which I was encouraged to take at home. I would be consuming ingredients such as slippery elm bark, sacha inchi, and wild harvested blue green algae, which all sound promising to get all the bad up and out.
Based my (mis)perceptions, I thought the result of the juices would be more immediate. But halfway through the day, nothing. Nothing except the fear that the next juice was going to be worse than the one before (I still get the spits thinking about the chia chunks in the Digest +). I figured a watched pot never boils, so I stopped obsessing about when the juice was going to take effect, just assumed it would be soon. Well, four days later after my cleanse I am far from detoxed. On the contrary, I am more constipated than ever. On the day of the cleanse, all I had was a lot of tear-inducing “What is THAT?”, “Roll down the windows!”, “Again??? Oh my god, what did you drink?” kind of gas in the car ride to Pennsylvania (sorry kids!). And since that day, still not much more movement. I suppose if I wanted to be constipated and gassy, I could have spent less than $3 on a banana, a cup of white rice and a jalapeño.
In hindsight, I realize that it was ridiculous to think that all it takes is $65 and some liquified kale and nettles infusion to undo the impacts of the junk food and the wine and cheese that I had consumed over the last couple of months. It’s like I pulled a Jedi Mind Trick on myself, because I know deep down that there is no quick fix. While the outcome (or lack of) was not what I was hoping for, I do believe that my commitment to ‘do’ vs. ‘try’ made the difference between making it all the way to the sixth and final juice (Almond Chill) and continuing to make better choices since last Friday, versus quitting after my third sip of Happy Gut and finding the closest sleeve of Ritz crackers and a block of Cracker Barrel. Maybe we all could learn something from that little green guy. With you may the force be. Hmmmmmm.