BLANK SLATE
Awareness of our own personal ecology is where the design of our own life must begin:  Zone 0.  Allowing me to look at my life not simply through the lens that many people take as common sense (i.e. how much money can you make) but rather my fulfillment on the level of spiritual, emotional, physical, and mental  .  By placing relationship at the forefront, including relationship to family and friends, to community, to the animals, to nature, to my daily practices, and my views regarding nutrition and health, my views toward childbirth, breastfeeding and childrearing, I became more holistic.  The terms and the tools for creating a satisfying life are rooted in self awareness.  Change is the only constant; formulas won't hold true.  To know ourself is our greatest asset.  I hope to cultivate tools for enhancing self-awareness of daily practices that nourish my body, heart, spirit and soul.   
The very act of having a practice creates a baseline through which awareness can come.  

ELIMINATION DIET – 
My primary mentor in the world of food is Charlie Cascio.  Charlie trained me when I arrived at the Esalen kitchen to cook for 250 people.  Charlie trained me to prepare Living Foods.  He taught me about sprouting, dehydrating, fermenting and the benefits of wheatgrass and the enzymes in living food.  I learned of the benefits of an alkaline diet which is more living fruits and vegetables.   The greatest gift Charlie gave me and the lesson I try to impress on others in my teaching is the value of listening to our own body.  A tool that Charlie shared with me was the story of doing a fast for a week and then very consciously eating different foods over the next week in isolation and with consciousness.  In the arena of food fads that hail margarine or tofu and then vilify the same, or red meat or fat or whatever is the fashion of the day.  The true test of a food is to listen to my body and feel how it affects me.   Many of us want to be told the right answer.  We want the doctor or scientist to give us the formula for what will give us health.  We want the magic pill of allopathic medicine that is the easiest route to health but in the end, these fad diet books, quick fixes and fashions fall short.  The path to health is one of effort, experimentation and awareness.  The fundamental reason that none of these fad diets are the magic bullet is that each of us is different    A technique such as the elimination diet is a great tool to return to a blank slate and then to notice how certain foods affect my energy, my digestion and my spirit.  

When I was living in Thailand,  I fasted for 2 weeks on coconuts.  Then, for the next 5 days I ate only one food per day.  The first day this was fruit: papayas, banana.  The next day was vegetables: cabbage, carrots, long beans.  The next day, I bought a 1 # loaf of bread.  My cultural mythology ascribed gluten as a negative so I was expecting to be feel sluggish and uncomfortable; however, I felt great.  I have always believed since that my body does pretty well digesting bread and that . I have done 'scientific tests' of gluten and gliadin sensitivity, it confirmed that I have a very low sensitivity to gluten.  The next day, I ate a whole fish and enjoyed the eating but did see that I immediately fell asleep.  This was the first major protein that I had eaten in a couple of weeks.  This also pointed me toward moderation in protein if I need to be productive or to eat plenty when I am looking for a nap and some food storage.   

VIPASSANA  
On a meditation level, an immersion experience like a ten day silent vipassana is the equivalent of the elimination diet. The only words coming into my body is that of dharma.  I remember a vipassana teacher emphasizing that as we have come into clearer space, some of the habits, some of the choices, some of the friends in our  life may need to be reconsidered.  Friends, cities, everywhere holds strong patterns for me.  Even after letting go of habits, returning to a certain group of friends, or a certain place in my life -- old patterns and habits will arise.  The elimination diet can give us a new lens on our relationship to food, words, thoughts, movies, TV, smoking, drugs; it a good way to look at our lives and what we invite into our bodies with fresh eyes.  In the weeks following my vipassana, I watched one of the myriad action packed movies on screens all around Thailand.  That night, I had nightmares for the first time in years.  During my 10 days in silence, I noticed that after my mind quieted for several days and only had the dharma to chew on, I was digging deeper and deeper into my past.  I noticed that violent images from my past (including TV) wanted to be given some time in my thoughts.  Rather than pushing them away or suppressing them, I simply allowed them and sat with it.  I have since come to believe that now my body doesn't have a lot of stored violent images and now if i ever see violence on TV (which is very rare for me), I have nightmares that same night.  I love that my body immediately processes and wants to release violence that it is exposed to.  During a vipassana, I notice the body, hear the dharma and approach life free from patterns with balanced calm and focus.

Discovering our blank slate, balanced even breathing and calm undisturbed presence is the thrust of yoga.  The physical asana practice that many people think of as yoga is really a series of techniques to help calm the body, breath and mind to achieve union with the oneness.