Namaste

Originally I planned to chronicle each day of my stay at the Ashram, but, in the end, it simply wasn’t possible.  In the evenings, I was either too tired or still enjoying time with my fellow campers to spend time recording my thoughts of the day’s events.  As I write this entry, I am on a plane bound for home and decided I would instead reflect on my experience as a whole.

Statistics:

• 56 miles of hiking through rugged and sometimes steep terrain through the beautiful mountains in and around Malibu
• 11 60-minute yoga sessions
•  6 hours of water volleyball
• 1 handwriting analysis (fascinating!)
• 1 session about preparing raw foods and the reasons for eating them
• 3 hours of fitness classes
•  6 massages
•  No blisters
• Little sleep
• 4 pounds lost
• 23 inches shed (that is not a typo – 23 inches.  I left almost 2 feet of me in California!)

The People

As it turns out, I was one of only four people who were experiencing their first visit to the Ashram.  The rest of our group had been there multiple times.  In fact, many of them schedule it annually like you would a physical.  To me, that was a huge endorsement.

The individuals with whom I had the honor of spending my week, including my camp counselors, were fascinating, strong, funny, smart, talented, successful, intelligent, driven, sweet, caring, nurturing, and simply amazing.  We ranged in age from 17 to 50-something and came from incredibly varied backgrounds.  Some know presidents and other world leaders.  Others sit on boards of colleges and universities.  Some spend their days working to help others in many different ways.   There was so much life experience in that house, that I could not possibly contain it all here.     

Although the Ashram is not promoted as an emotional wellness center, people’s motivations for coming there were very interesting.  There is no doubt in my mind that the majority of us had aspirations of emerging at the end of the week lighter and fitter than when we started, but almost everyone had bigger agendas than just fitting into their skinny jeans.  Each person’s motivation was different, but there seemed to be a common thread.  Everyone was looking for both physical and emotional strength. 

One gentleman lost his wife after a very long and cruel illness and decided that it was time to work on his own health and emotional well-being.  One woman was recovering from a painful divorce and wanted to do something for herself and one was working to pull herself from the depression of a betrayal and subsequent broken engagement.  Another had breast cancer and wanted to increase her physical and emotional strength to sustain her through surgery and treatments.    Personally, I was hoping to find a way to de-stress and improve my health and well-being to be prepared to forge through whatever life presents.

The Food

After a week of eating at the Ashram, I feel electric.  There is no other way to describe it.  My body feels as if every single cell from the top of my head to the tip of my toe is supercharged.  The food was certainly sparse this past week, but it was delicious.  The chef lovingly prepared our meals with vegetables, fruits, and edible flowers most of which were grown right there in their own organic garden. 

The first thing I remarked about the vegetables was the flavor.  While much of our produce at home is picked before it’s ripe and trucked in from who knows where, the food from the garden is picked at the optimum time.  The flavors were intense.  Eating salad was no longer a dull experience leaving me wishing for something else.  Actually, what I loved the most were the fresh strawberries.  If you closed your eyes and ate one, you would have thought it was coated in powdered sugar.  Truth be told, a little bunny named Luna may have snuck down to the garden to pick and eat a few more when nobody was looking.  They were simply irresistible!

The great news is that I did not have any cravings.  I didn’t miss coffee in the morning.  I didn’t miss dairy.  And I definitely didn’t miss meat.  I ordered a chicken fajita salad at the airport today and I couldn’t even stomach the chicken.  I scraped it all off and just ate the veggies.  Only time will tell how long this trend lasts.

Other campers were not quite as fortunate as I was with the cravings, but, eventually, everyone got past their own vices.  Tuesday at the Ashram is affectionately referred to as “Toxic Tuesday.”  It’s the day when most people’s bodies ask what the hell you’re feeding them and start to fight back.  Several people did have headaches and stomach issues, but, overall, the group weathered Tuesday fairly well.  Some of the alumni had horror stories from prior visits.

Hiking

As I hiked, I would occasionally record my thoughts on the notepad in my ipod.  On day 3 of hiking, I wrote, “I’m a lover not a hiker.”  It was by far my worst day on the trails.  Maybe it was my version of Toxic Tuesday.  Unlike other mornings, the sun was shining.  Originally, this was a very welcome surprise.  The prior day we hiked through steady drizzle and fog that the locals refer to as "June Gloom", so I thought some sunshine would put a spring in my step after being soaked to the bone the first day.  It was quite the opposite.

The temperature that day would have been ideal for sipping cool cocktails with friends on a patio, but I thought I had been transported to Hell.  I was so hot that, every time I saw a sliver of shade, I would press myself close to the mountain to bask in its “coolness” until I was once again tossed cruelly into the beating sun.  My heart rate soared to the point that I could hear my pulse in my ears and feel it in my eyes.  Thankfully, I had the opportunity to cut my hike a few miles shorter that day or else I fear the rest of my week would not have been as enjoyable.

Each hike presented different challenges and covered different distances.  These were not nature walks.  We were starting in the parking lot and climbing to the tops of mountains and making our way down steep inclines, but each trail was overrun with gorgeous wildflowers and afforded us breathtaking views of the other mountains and sometimes the ocean. 

My second biggest challenge after my Toxic Tuesday hike was a trail lovingly known as “Heartbreak Hill.”  It is a 20-30 minute steady climb from top to bottom without any give.  I hiked it with Claire, one of the camp counselors.  Claire deserves major kudos for being wise beyond her years.  At some point on the hill she said she needed to go ahead to the top to meet some of the others.  As she started to speed away (and I do mean speed – she was like a gazelle), I asked her how much further it was to the top.  Claire reluctantly responded, “Well, when you get to the big tree on your right, you’ve got about 6 more minutes.”  Damn, she was good.  This obviously wasn’t her first rodeo.  She didn’t want to leave me dismayed to discover that I had only clawed my way up about half of that damn hill.  Trust me, I had some unkind words for that big tree when I finally reached it.  After giving the tree a good cursing and climbing for what I am certain was more than 6 minutes, I arrived at the top to find Claire and this…

Everyone did fabulously well on the hikes.  Some were raised hiking from childhood, one had climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, and others lived in flat areas like I do, but we all made it in our own special ways.  I was incredibly slow yet steady while others ran and waited at the car for the rest of us to catch up.  It reminded me of this joke: What do you call the guy who graduates last in medical school?  Doctor.  I was a hiker even if I didn’t finish first.  It took me awhile to set aside my Type-A personality to stop making it a competition.  There was no race to be won.  This was a mission of my doing and it did not matter how fast anyone else was going or how far ahead of me on the trail they were.  That is something that I would do well to remember in a lot of aspects of my life.

Yoga

Om.  What else can I say?  I love yoga.  I love the stretching, the ceremony, and the relaxation.  If it had not been for yoga in the mornings and in the evenings, I do not think any of us would have been able to cross the terrain we did this past week.  Each instructor brought a unique perspective and each class was rewarding in its own special way. 

Final Thoughts

The first question that pops to my mind is would I do it again?  Yes.  In a heartbeat.

While life at the Ashram was really wonderful and the campers were interesting and nice, I don’t want to pretend that things at the Ashram were always a rose garden.  After all, we did have 12 strangers living in a house with only 8 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms.  We were being denied foods we were convinced we needed for survival, TV, and other little luxuries we have at home.  One of the friends I made this week said she felt like we were in a reality show. Her comment was not far off the mark.  Personalities did not always mesh and we were not always singing Kumbaya by the fireplace, but we generally got along extremely well and learned a lot from each other.

Leaving the Ashram today, I had mixed emotions.  On the one hand, I missed Guido and our furry boys terribly, but, honestly, a small part of me wanted to keep going to see how far I could push myself.  Ultimately I realized that this bubble in which I had lived for a week had to burst.  It was time for me to see if I could bring everything I learned home with me to continue improving my health and fitness without constant supervision.

So, as if Karma was reminding me that all good things must come to an end, I was abruptly burst from the bubble that was my reality for the past week by a child puking all the way down the aisle of the plane during our descent into Dallas.  Welcome home.