Posted: February 17, 2023

This is part 2 of 2. Read Part 1 - HERE

I am now on the other side of my input fast by 4 weeks, which is the perfect time to reflect a bit more.

Podcasts. I didn’t add my podcast app back onto my phone until three weeks after the input fast ended, which means that my podcast part of this experiment ended up lasting just over 5 weeks. When I added the app back in, my whole podcast library had been deleted. I was delighted! It meant that I could start from scratch and add in only what I really want to listen to now. I had planned to delete and start over manually, but the universe helped me along!(As of today, I have only re-subscribed to one podcast.)

I noticed when listening to a podcast for the first time after this fast, I kept starting and stopping it so that I could focus on other things. I was also only able to consume one episode of one pod in a day. I really like this. It seems like my tolerance has gone down. It makes me think of other things where tolerance ebbs and flows with use. It’s a frame I wouldn’t have thought of before, but makes complete sense to me when it comes to information.

Reading. This was the most challenging one for me. It was the one I thought would be the hardest and so it was. My mental frame set me up for that. A small oversight on my part. I only made it one week before I read a book. Yep, seven days was all I could do without reading a book. Interestingly, though, once I gave in and told myself I could read a book, I didn’t overconsume. I read like a regular reader, not a librarian in hiding. Once I gave myself permission to read and stop resisting, this one really balanced itself out. I’m not usually a moderator, so this was very good information for me.

The rest of the things I fasted from, I did not find to be an issue. I didn’t miss them that much. Some I have used, though at a much lower rate, some I have not. I did notice that each time I go to use one of them, I ask myself if I really want to or need to use them and what my intention is before engaging with them.

The biggest shifts came in the overall feel as opposed to the individual things I was or wasn’t engaging in. After a week, I felt an incredible spaciousness. I had all this energy for small tasks, specifically life admin tasks. Granted it was the beginning of the year, so there were more of these types of tasks in general, but it was a noticeable difference. I slept better. I had more energy. I had more access to my creativity. I felt buoyant. I started creating new classes for the spring. I worked with a few projects I had put aside long ago. I finished crocheting a blanket. I crocheted a scarf. I wrote. But most of all, ideas and connections started happening spontaneously in my mind. I was actually processing and integrating much of the information that I had been taking in over the previous months and even year. I also had the great joy to simply spend time with myself, just as I am. It was an incredible feeling.

One of the other intentions of this experiment was the idea of integrating something like this into daily life. Even though I am a yoga teacher and love a retreat as much as the next person, that is not something that is accessible to everyone all the time (or at all). We are humans doing the human thing, we have lives. And for me, one of the questions I am always asking is, how can we integrate the practices into daily life? This is no different. I wanted to see if I could bring some of the elements of what we might find on a retreat, in this particular aspect, into my daily life. I think it worked in the sense of the spaciousness I felt. That is pretty similar to how I have felt on retreat before, buoyant and spacious.

This is absolutely something I would do again, maybe even once a quarter. I imagine each time would be different and call for a slightly different method. I look forward to trying it again.

Anyone want to join me next time? Have you tried something like this before? Let me know HERE