I am the oldest child of two doctors, a surgeon and a pediatrician. I am the grand-daugher of an anesthesiologist. I am the sister of a soon-to-be pediatrician, but I decided to divert Med school and go the “alternative medicine” way, using Yoga and self-healing techniques. Yet, this was my first time curing a shore throat, cough and a whole lot of mucus with the only aid of ginger lemon shots, green juices, ginger carrot soups, a lot more sleep than usual and the occasional homeopathic Oscillococcinum and Bella Donna pellets. It may have took a week, but I feel as good as  new now. Go old remedies!

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The Hatha Yoga Pradipika says that “the mind should not be forced to accept something which feels unnatural. When it come spontaneously there will be no suppression. If you force yourself to do something, which is going against your nature, you will develop all sort of psychological problems.”

I have been on a strict vegan diet for now one and half months, and yes, at the beginning I felt as if this was forcing it a bit too much from a day to another since I was never really even a vegetarian after all. But, little did I know that eating properly would change my entire perspective on life and would make me taste everything *(not just food) differently. So, yes, I am vegan and yes I have not eaten meat, cheese or fish in two months time as of today, and this is why I can do Scorpion Pose with not problem now while before it was a bigger struggle.

Hurray!

Now though, the vegan diet and all the other restriction Dharma put us on for these 2 months between teacher training did not come without their ups and downs. I have had my fair share of cheats and break-downs and “Oh man I can’t take sprouted bread with avocado no more” moments, but I did not feel guilty because I just listen to my body and what it was trying to convey. And I was right to loose control a bit here and there. It just made the whole process of dieting that much more purifying.

Now, temptations are the precursors to danger, but the cheats I am taking about here were not catastrophic at all. I might have had some un-sprouted bread and some onions and maybe some little soy sauce here and there, but no meat, cheese, fish or animal products…and, most of all, no milk. Yes, I did go to party and sometimes I did drink the occasional wine glass, yet, the rest of the times instead I just looked like a complete “weirdo” for bringing my own green juice and end-up drinking it instead than wine and get eyed by all the party animals as the “stand-out case” of whole night, but I am ok with all that because I choose it to be different.

Then again, in this past week I realized that also having too much self-control can make me crazy.
Moderation is key in everything we do, from vegan diets to letting yourself go sometimes and smell the roses to just be ok with slipping off the edge from time to time as far as this is not a forever state-of-mind.

The only real difficulty is when do we know how much self-control is actually good for us? And when do we cross the line one way or the other?

Dharma says that without self-control one is lost forever, but he is also the one who takes out small pieces of chocolate once a month to keep himself sane. He says it is human to make mistakes and one should be a human being and do make mistakes, but try to avoid making too many and insignificant ones and always continuously practice self-control.

This is why we meditate, practice yoga, eat healthy and prey to the Supreme Self to guide us toward the right direction in the mist of the deep dark corners of our minds.
Living a Yogi life is no joke, it’s a full-time job. Peeling raw, spouted almonds daily for the breakfast smoothie, sipping the lemon water instead than the coffee in the am is torturous, or eathing only thaini on sprouted bread because it is the most pure and digestible form of protein possible, it’s is sometimes boring and unnatural. But, the body eventually gets used to it, enjoys it and learns from it to become more efficient with what it is given and not what it is craving for.

It is incredible how much more energy I can store inside myself with so little food and no animal protein as I am having now.
And, I am not the usual Yogi who only does Yoga during her day; I am training for the Brooklyn Half Marathon, I am an active rock climbers as well as a Brooklyn bicyclist who gets around on two wheels everywhere. And I can tell you this much: I don’t miss meat or fish *(I may miss cheese a bit) and I feel amazing and bendy and light and highly energized by this whole change in food habits. So much that I can now do the Scorpion pose anywhere anytime I want to *(even in random houses when people are watching)

As Dharma says: “Wouldn’t you rather have a body made of guacamole than one made of flesh?”

More to come on diet details and benefits on the next post.
Thanks for reading… 🙂