Juice Feasting - Day 14 (Blog)

[Savage]

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Steve Pavlina's blog:

Juice Feasting - Day 14

[Trezker]

I never understood the concept of getting to know people, or have meetings, over food.
In my life I've only had meals with friends I already knew because we were already together talking and then got hungry.

Some of the most interesting conversations take place when me and a gang were about to leave school after lockdown and we have to go separate ways. We could stand in freezing cold winter talking for an hour. Just the fact that we'd tolerate that cold to keep talking says something about how much fun we had.

As for getting to know new people, usually that happens when I play computer games and a new guy joins or if I'm in a group talking about stuff and a new guy joins. I've never met someone at a food place, and when I meet someone new it never crossed my mind to suggest dining together, to me that's rather creepy...

[cinnabar]

Your feeling of emptiness sounds very Zen...
Stillness. Within and without.

Thumbs up for making it two weeks. I want more and more to try this myself.

[rjani]

I've asked this question the previous day too, but I'm really curious about it.

You always talk about these "yo-yo" feelings, but heck, you've been studying personal development for years, and you mentioned a lot of times that you can control your emotional states as you want.

And I'd like to know why you don't apply those "techniqes" when you feel down for example. Are these emotions so strong that you can't control them or you simply don't want to?

[amites]

Some time ago I came to a realization; everything is a reflection of the void, and the void is full.

Good luck with the fast.

[klokkasju]

In fact all my transitions from an online acquaintance to an offline one have been without food. And the most amazing gathering of people from an online forum happened years ago at a railway station. We couldn't decide where to go, because no one wanted to go to a restaurant/cafe, so we ended up standing/sitting at the station for 4 hours ... then we were so frozen, that we went into the next McDonalds just to sit in the warmth. So there I sat amidst a dozen people I had met for the first time this day around a table, no one was eating/drinking anything, and in a break of conversations there was total silence. And none of us had this awful feeling of "omg I have to talk, it's unpolite to be silent". Needless to say a lot of them are still very good friends of mine, although I don't see them very often.

On the other side I am literally unable to eat and have a conversation at the same time, when I don't know the people I am dining with. During dinners with strangers (e.g. on a conference) I get so nervous that I need most of my power to keep eating in an "appropriate" way or eat at all because I am never hungry in such situations. Gladly these occasions are rare and I am able to arrange most appointments with new people in parks (sitting on a bench) or at home. And if you get past this "I have to keep talking no matter what"-nonsense, it's always relaxing. If you don't know what to say, don't say anything! Connection is possible without words.

Each day is a new learning experience, taking me beyond the known and into a new unknown. And that’s the kind of life I signed up for.

That's the quote of the month for me! And Steve, thanks for blogging so detailed about your experience. It is such a boon to read it every day.

[munish]

Day 5 was good.Atleast better than day 4.

Thanks to some herbs that i took took today for the liver regulation.

Now i am thinking of giving a speech at Toastmasters about Juice feasting.Project 9.(Persuade with power).:-)

[Gwydion]

If you're used to rushing around, and used to having your body working full time - going to the gym, processing lots of fibrous raw food, working and so on - the feeling of emptiness would be really, really weird, I imagine.

Its been a fascinating read, so far. I'm slowly being tempted towards raw foods and juices more and more

[freddy]

Do you know of any way to get a quick experience, like your getting in the JF diet in the intuiting areas? Something that would only take a few days to see or feel the results. I just want to get my feet wet before I go in the deep.

[dandylion]

i am curious...what do you do with all that fruit/vegetable pulp? can they be used in the garden or something like that?

[povman]

Originally Posted by freddy

Do you know of any way to get a quick experience, like your getting in the JF diet in the intuiting areas? Something that would only take a few days to see or feel the results. I just want to get my feet wet before I go in the deep.

Try a water fast.

[Andrew Brunelle]

Two weeks down. Great. About 11 more to go. Or whenever you feel like stopping. That's going to be a lot of pulp.

[honeyluv]

How interesting that the basic feeling you get when you strip away the emotions is a void. I have felt that way once when I went through a mini-depression several years ago. After some years of thought on the subject, I take it to be a self-imposed disconnection from The Source (aka God). I like to think that we're either plugged in to the Source, or not. Most of us are used to being unplugged, and only sometimes catch glimpses of being plugged in every now and then... Simply put, those small moments feel like whole-body-mind-and-spiritual bliss. Because we're socially conditioned that we are alone in this world (since every man is an island), we subconsciously deplug ourselves from Source. Maybe your discovery of seeing that emotions are only masking that ultimate sense of the void will lead to a discovery of how to stay connected to Source on a regular basis. Imagine that! Seems like you're well on your way to a really great spiritual breakthrough, and it's all thanks to your adventures in switching up your diet! It's really quite inspirational. Makes me think twice with every bite of cooked, solid food I consume... Thanks Steve for paving the conscious-dietary path!

[Kaspian]

Originally Posted by rjani

You always talk about these "yo-yo" feelings, but heck, you've been studying personal development for years, and you mentioned a lot of times that you can control your emotional states as you want.

And I'd like to know why you don't apply those "techniqes" when you feel down for example. Are these emotions so strong that you can't control them or you simply don't want to?

My personal experience is that "negative" emotions come up to be healed and released.

I believe that your body needs to process emotions much like it processes food. The things you experience need to be assimilated and digested, and then the "waste" needs to be eliminated. Choosing to control negative emotions so that you don't experience them is like holding it when you need to go to the bathroom. You can do it for a while, but eventually, things need to come out!

[rjani]

Thank you Kaspian! So I guess then we talk about some other kind of, deeper emotions here than the ones we refer to as "emotions" normally.

I understand now, but if that's the case, this detox is thougher than I thought

[stormyrose]

Hey Steve,

Wow, I've been following your juice feast and I just want to say, what an inspiration you are!
Regarding your most recent entry...Have you gone out into nature lately at all? For all I know you could go camping every weekend or something... but when I was juice feasting I just wanted to be outside, bare feet in the grass or river and marvelling at the beauty of nature and connecting with life.
I may be just odd that way though as I always feel most at home when in a natural environment though, having grown up in the woods. :P I think each and every person on this earth needs their connection with from what all life is sustained by...Maybe get out into the wild lands whenever you're able?

About the watermelon...Well, I have a very strong digestive fire and I can count the number of times I've experienced indigestion on one hand. A couple of those times were when I ate a lot of watermelon, ouch the BURN. However...I've remedied that situation and now I can eat however much watermelon I want, I just have to be sure to eat a substantial amount of the rind(green and all) with it. Much easier with smoothies and juice, mmmm. Again, I don't know, you may have used the whole rind as well, but that's my experience with watermelon and I wanted to share it just in case.
Thanks so much for all your hard work, I aspire to be like you in many ways!

dandylion - Hi, I know your question wasn't for me, but I discovered while juice feasting that there are a LOT of ways to use the pulp, it's crazy, nothin going to waste here!
hear me out...
First off, my dog came up to me licking her lips when I was making juice, so I took some of the pulp and gave it to her. well she totally dug it, so instead of giving it all to the horse I now give some to her whenever I juice.
Next I got into kind of an interesting state an evening when I was feeling a bit spacey, so it seemed a great idea to...
Take a nice relaxing bath.
I also decided to take the concord grape pulp and mix it into my bath. IT WAS SO SWEET, try taking a BRIGHT purple grape bath and see if you don't laugh half the time you're in there.
;]
I also used some of the pulp as like a...soap...um, It was fun, it just felt so...RIGHT to bathe with the pulp! Ahaha...



-Amber

[Rapid]

Hi, everyone. Steve's recent post on socializing without food is very timely for me. Tonight I'm going to a friend's birthday dinner. She invited everyone to join her at a Thai restaurant. Since it's her birthday, I didn't think that it would be appropriate for me to suggest going somewhere else. I used to order curry dishes during my pre-raw days so I have no idea whether that Thai restaurant serves salad (tried to find the menu online to no avail). Also, now I think that it's silly to pay $10+ for a salad that I can make at home! Anyway, whenever I think about tonight I feel this worry, so much so that I'm even thinking about popping in for a short while and then make some excuse to leave!

I worry about dining with relatives and friends, although less so with friends since so far everyone has been supportive. I actually look forward to potlucks more now because I can bring my own food!

[dandylion]

Originally Posted by stormyrose

dandylion - Hi, I know your question wasn't for me, but I discovered while juice feasting that there are a LOT of ways to use the pulp, it's crazy, nothin going to waste here!
hear me out...
First off, my dog came up to me licking her lips when I was making juice, so I took some of the pulp and gave it to her. well she totally dug it, so instead of giving it all to the horse I now give some to her whenever I juice.
Next I got into kind of an interesting state an evening when I was feeling a bit spacey, so it seemed a great idea to...
Take a nice relaxing bath.
I also decided to take the concord grape pulp and mix it into my bath. IT WAS SO SWEET, try taking a BRIGHT purple grape bath and see if you don't laugh half the time you're in there.
;]
I also used some of the pulp as like a...soap...um, It was fun, it just felt so...RIGHT to bathe with the pulp! Ahaha...



-Amber

the pulp as soap...that's a good one..

i was actually wondering about the solids from the remains of almond(or other nuts) milk being dried and used as an exfoliating body scrub. i am sure fruit pulp will have a little fruit acid left in them for a masque or some such...

meanwhile, i asked in another raw forum and they said that the pulp from the juicing can be used to make worms for the garden..

also, when the pulp is dried, they can be made into crackers and with the nut solids, pie crusts etc. nothing goes to waste, huh?..

thanks, amber...

[doriette]

Steve -

I'm in a show that just opened, so over the last two weeks, I got very behind in my RSS feeds. Yesterday, however, I was able to catch up on your entire juice fast, thus far.

I wanted to comment on this particular entry, with which I connected in a very personal way. Like Gwydion, I, too, am being slowly tempted to walk along this path.

But there were two things about your article, about which I needed to respond.

First of all, your comment:

This is something different, perhaps something that was there all along but which I’ve not been ready to face yet.

I look up to you as an expert. On so very many things. And a big part of why is that I am constantly amazed and comforted by your ability to admit when you don't know something, or that perhaps you can't handle something yet. The reminder that this is, indeed, a journey, and that we're all in it together. Also, I am in awe of your ability to discuss your emotional rollercoastering during the feast with a analytical eye. That is something that I hope to be able to do, eventually. Let emotionality happen when it does, but then be able to step away from it.

But what I think struck me the most was your final thought.

When I start having doubts, I pull my attention back to the present moment and remind myself that I’m juice feasting “just for today.” I can always quit tomorrow. Eventually I’ll get around to quitting, but for now I’ll keep on procrastinating.

That's brilliant. What a way to look at it! I hope to be able to apply that to my life immediately. To take one of my main weaknesses, and apply it in the opposite direction, so that it is a help, not a hindrance. I've used the "I can always quit tomorrow" argument on myself before. When I was dieting, I would tell myself that I could have pasta for any meal I wanted, but did I NEED it for this one? It was very helpful.

But to take it that extra step? To make my procrastination work FOR me, not against me? Inspired!

Thank you, Steve.