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Panchakarma Treatment 4, 5 & Beyond: The Emotional Rollercoaster

        I’ve received messages and comments from you wanting to know what happened after the fourth and fifth Panchakarma treatments, and what’s been taking place since then. I’ve not been able to post, because, quite frankly, it’s been a wild ride. Not unlike Space Mountain at Disneyworld, where you hop in a car, strap in, and then venture out into complete darkness, unsure of what the next turn or dip will be. It’s wild, amazing, stomach-turning, and a twisted sort of way, fun.
        I’d like to think I’m achieving some sort of balance, although after speaking with a friend yesterday, he pointed out I still had a long way to go. And when I told him that I’m realizing this summer has been a lot more challenging that I originally thought, his response, “Thank you for finally saying that.”
        The 24 hours after the third treatment were filled with great sadness. Great in both senses of the word: gargantuan in size, but also good. It wasn’t a painful sort of sadness, but floods of weepy sadness were seeping from my body, tipped off by almost anything: a picture of the dead cat; a Hallmark commercial; a thought. I couldn’t go anywhere near Lifetime Television.
        But by the morning after the third treatment, the weeping had begun to slow. And in between the fits of explosive weepiness--incredible joy. A joy I had never felt before. It was as if the sadness was leaving, and all that was left was joy, and a joy that had been overshadowed by such deep, cellular sadness, I’d never been able to experience it before.
        When I showed up for my fourth treatment, Dr. Shambu asked how I had been feeling. I explained the sadness. He asked about anger. Had I experienced any anger? I hadn’t. Just sadness and joy. He nodded.
        “If you feel yourself wanting to react emotionally,” he said, “try to just observe. Feel the sensation, and observe. Don’t react, just drink a glass of water.”
        Following the treatment, he asked how things where. Nothing, really. Not necessarily relaxed. Not sad. Not agitated. In fact, I began to wonder if it even worked. With one treatment left, was I completely stuck?
        He explained that when my emotional damage left my body, it created a space. And now, that space will be filled with something.
        Panic.
        “What will it fill with?” Could it fill with something worse than my emotional damage?
        “I can’t say. It could be a person. It could be new people, or a person who you have not heard from in a while. You have changed, and the vibrations you are sending out to the universe have changed, and the universe will respond. You’ll begin attracting new people. You’ll just have to wait and see.”
        His words were not completely comforting, but his statement, you’ll just have to wait and see, shifted something. It was as if fear of the unknown had melted into a curiosity of what might happen next.
        When I got home, everything about my evening was irritating. My roommate. The dogs. The lack of food. The fact friends were not calling. Everything seemed to irritate the heck out of me. And that’s when I realized this was not irritation, but all these little things were setting off anger. This was the anger Dr. Shambu had been asking about.
        I had a glass of water and went to bed.
        I woke up on Friday and went about my day. The irritation continued. In fact, I found myself exploding at the office of silliness.
        I ran to have a glass of water, and came back to apologize.
        On the fifth treatment, I explained the sensation of anger, Dr. Shambu nodded. We did the final treatment, and he explained that we have now completed a cycle. I felt as I had at end of the first treatment: complete relaxation and a sense of calm. He said that if I felt stuck, I could come back for another treatment, but he sensed the way I had responded, and the progress I had made during the week that I was well on my way and wouldn’t need a follow-up. I asked him if I should come back in a year, or how frequently I should do this.
        He explained the total process is 21 days, and I asked what the difference was between five days and 21. He said it just speeds up the process, but I’ve completed one cycle and it works automatically from here.
        He encouraged me not to make any major life decisions regarding relationships, finances, or career for the next six months. I now see how that is connected to the cycle, and that in moments of great sadness, or even irritation and anger, the urge is to act, but drinking a glass of water slows that down.
        “In life,” he said, his final words to me, “those with compatible energy can stay. All others must go.”

* * *

        What has happened since then has been a continuation of the cycle: groundedness, sadness, anger, calm. It continues now, over a month after my last treatment. The cycle seems to have shortened, where immediate weeks following the treatment, I’d experience those segments for sometimes days at a time, even feeling stuck in sadness and anger at times. But through exercise and meditation, I’ve been able to push through to a point of grounded emotional clarity.
        Of course, the cycle suggest it’s not all up, and I have to say the low points have sometimes been very low. At one point, I found myself declaring enlightenment is for the birds! Medicate me! I was listening to Terry Gross on NPR and she was interviewing a zen meditation master, and he said, “Now that I’m enlightened, I realize I’m just as unhappy as I was before.”
        It’s getting to the clarity that is the most exciting. Today, knowing and being able to express the difference between sadness and melancholy is incredibly powerful. To feel those emotions, let them flow, and reach a point of understanding as to why those emotions are there is something that I’ve never been able to experience before.
        My coworkers and those in my daily life have noticed, too: “You’re more confident. Not that you weren’t confident, but you’ve got this confident confidence, like you can do anything.”
        Confident confidence. It’s like walking into a room, and rather than clinging to the wall and watching events unfold, it’s like standing in the center of the room, having it revolve around you, and observing from that perspective as things unfold. It feels good.