Backwards Walking

Today I fasted and I had mixed results. Fasting seems to create more inflammation as my stomach felt irritated and painful and my body felt hot. The left side of my body felt blocked right where my spleen is. It sort of feels like I have an enlarged spleen. The only thing that sort of helps with this is doing meditation. I’ve been having sweats. My lips are cracking from the dryness.

But I decided not to give up. I am going to address the problems at their root, which is certainly the stomach and the spleen. Digestion issues are not new to me. I started using dance therapy techniques and feeling the discomfort in the spleen as sensual and my body started to move. I started to feel pain inside the spleen area. It feels cold. The pressure relieves a little and I feel a trickle.

I wonder if the stress of the drawing challenge and traveling soon are making my stomach clench. It is certainly possible.

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. Dance therapy is like magic. I don’t know why I stopped using it. There is this interplay between feeling the feelings and finding comfort. I guess that might be why I left this technique behind. I left it behind to feel pain. To feel without judgement or plan.

So I’m most of the way through my second part of my challenge – Week 2: Big appetite (increase hunger throughout day) and I’m having a huge amount of issues.

I try to eat a lot but I don’t seem to be able to find a way to digest the food.

Several things seem to be standing in my way:

• Extreme chronic stress
• Lack of exercises and energy
• Poor sleep

I’m going to do what I always did in these situations of great stress. I’m going to simplify and try to find something very small to focus on. And that thing will be breathing.

Whether or not I feel full, hungry stressed, tired or anxious, I am going to strive to do only one thing. To breathe. I find that breathing has tremendous effects for all the of things I listed above as obstacles standing in my way.