Eat, shop, practice

For a long time now I've had issues with headaches and this strange cranial neuralgia, similar to trigeminal neuralgia, but it's not in the right place, so the doctors won't call it that. Whatever. They've tried every medicine under the sun, taken me off of them (sometimes painfully) and now my latest venture has been to an alternative medicine doctor, and, not that I don't believe that diet can and does influence your health, however, this MD put me on a diet of steamed white rice, broccoli and tomatoes. If I wasn't a vegetarian, the tomatoes would be replaced by lamb - gross. Plus about 10 or so supplements 4 times a day. When I was in the office, I thought, "this is o.k., I can do this for a week and then I'll add some fruit." I went to the yoga studio and was talking to a couple of the teachers and told them about this doctor and they seemed a little skeptical.

Now, you have to understand, I am a one woman supporter of the pharmaceutical companies. If I could do anything to change that I am willing to try. Well, the yoga studio wasn't having classes because there was a broken water main, so I came home to practice primary series. I got through sun salutations and bent down to grab my toes for padangustasana and just sat down and started to cry. I just felt completely overwhelmed. What more could I do? It seemed the next doctor would propose a lobotomy, or blood letting or something like drilling a hole in my head to release the pressure. Finally I composed myself and meditated for a long time and Tim made me some steamed rice, broccoli and tomatoes which I gagged on and almost choked on the broccoli.

The next day I took rice to work. And after work I went to led primary and felt weak, but not horrible. That night I think I quit the diet, deciding it was insane. The MD had given me another list of foods if this was "too much." The next day I ate canteloupe and went shopping and spent gobs of money, more than I've ever spent at once and practice pranayama, yin and primary series and taught a private lesson. Maybe I could live on shopping and yoga :) and a little fruit and water. I guess I just didn't realize how truly attached I am to food. I never thought I was until it was taken away just like that. Perhaps we can never know how attached we truly are to things until they're taken away. We can always talk about non-attachment and say "oh I have these things, but I don't need them, I'm not attached to them, I know they're not ME." But how do we really and truly know these things? I ate the rice and broccoli tonight and it wasn't as bad - especially when I cooked it.