Apologies to Panchakarma

Expectation.  Sometimes it can really screw you up.  I'm realizing now that my disappointment with my Panchakarma was all based on my expectations.

I recently read an article by someone that had experienced a Panchakarma with the same practitioner that was doing mine.  The reason I didn't think I was getting any results has just occurred to me.  It's because I kept comparing my experience to his.  Each body is different, so each will respond to this process in a different way.  Just because he was expelling a lot of toxin through his GI tract and I wasn't, doesn't mean it didn't work for me.

The fact that the steam tent was my favorite part of every day (and I normally hate to sweat), should tell me that I was probably removing toxins that way.  The last day the therapist put her hand on my stomach and made a comment that surprised me.  There is an artery that runs through the stomach, and she said she had never felt one pulsate the way that mine was.  Thanks to my son's Christmas present (the They Might Be Giants science cd), I realized that this was another way my body was expelling toxins.  (  The Bloodmobile, my son's favorite song on the album)

When I started the Panchakarma, I was advised that the first 2 days might be exhausting.  I was also told that this process could bring up some emotional "toxins", and that by the third day I would start to feel better.  I thought I was feeling just fine the first two days, just a little tired, but now I realize I was definitely in a negative place.

I also realized that even though I didn't have any "Hallelujah - come to Jesus - I am healed" moments, there were definitely some subtle shifts happening in my body.  For instance, the fact that I was sleeping like the dead.  I normally get up at least once a night to go to the bathroom.  The last few nights I have slept straight thru the night, and I didn't even hear my son get out of bed.  A highly unusual occurrence for me.  I also haven't had the usual "can't think of the word I want/ where are my keys/ clumsies" that have been a part of every day life for a while.  I was also hungry all the time, which was explained as a change in my "digestive fire."  AGNI - (Digestive Fire) description

Here's another great example of a subtle change in memory.  When I couldn't get the above link to work with copy and paste, I remembered how to do it another way.  My husband has shown me half a dozen times how to do it this other way, but I can never remember.  I'm also suddenly motivated to do certain projects I have been procrastinating about for a month.  And I'm getting them done in record time.  Could this all be a coincidence?  Would I have been motivated with the New Year to do this stuff anyway?  Maybe.  I guess time will tell. All I can say is that I am noticing subtle differences, and I am much happier with the results today than I was on Thursday.

Is this something I will do again?  I think so.  Spring and fall are the best times to do a panchakarma.  Since a five day regimen was recommended to me and I only did three, I think I might go back and do the extra two days in the spring.  Why not spring clean my body along with the house?  Two days of warm oil massage sounds like a great way to say goodbye to winter.  Now how could that be a bad thing?