An introduction to the reunification recovery program
Have you ever wondered why your recovery program never answered your problems in long run? No, there is nothing wrong in what you did. Almost all the programs which you underwent are as good as the one which you are about to go through, in this book. However, the programs that you learned in retrospect were not complete. All those programs left one important part of the recovery process. The only problem is that you did not take all the three elements into consideration. Your recovery program should focus on your body, mind and your spirit. Any activity you perform and the diet plans should be focused on all three, to get definite results.
When it comes to reunification program, there are a lot of steps and complicated formats involved in it starting from simple meditation to dealing with strong mental issues. This seven day program focuses on providing you a basic plan on what you should follow for a week which would help you to connect all the three elements for the most rewarding and healing experience.
This program is open to all age groups and ethnic groups. Anyone who wants to have a self recovery which would help them to understand themselves and the people around them better would be able to get what they bargain for with this program.
What do you need for this program? First of all, you need an open mind. Most of the techniques used here are simple and if you start anything with a pre-set mind of negativity, it would not work as you expect it to. You need to understand that each and every step of this program is very essential.
This book explains you step by step about what should be done on each day. By ‘step by step’, I mean that you would be able to get a gist of how you should do, what should be done and how to experience it. It is a combination of both physical and mental practice.
This program may be hard to follow for a few and a few people may feel that it as a piece of cake. The point is that no two people are the same and just because someone with whom you are following this program is realizing a lot of things and progressing better than you, it does not mean that the program is not working for you or you are not doing it right. We are talking about tangible and intangible elements in you and everything or everyone is unique.
Day 1 – Meet your body, mind and spirit
Opening meditation
Find a quiet place and sit in a position in which you feel relaxed. You need to keep your mind free from any thoughts. Allow the mind to banish the thoughts which are flowing in it, at the moment, and which you are concerned about. Do not stop just because you are getting a negative feeling. After 10 minutes, come out of the meditation phase. This exercise is done just to know how your mind, spirit and body are, in the beginning of the program.
Reflection
So, what did you feel? Is it normal to feel what you have felt? Obviously, it would have been easier to sit, relax and think about the things that are on the top of your mind. However, within a small amount of time, you would see that your mind would be enacting all the actions which it ought to think about. The fight you had with your wife, the way your child behaved and how you responded would have flashed in your mind. You may also have a few chores, which you may be reminded of. These are things you saw. What did you hear? Did you hear you yelling at people or someone yelling at you? It is perfectly normal. It is also normal to have a few scenes or faces in the mind, faces which do not any sound. How did you feel? You should have felt heavy with all those feelings and once the meditation is over, you should be happy that you let all those, out of you.
What should be on your plate?
Walnut would help to list your spirit, by reducing the chances of depression. Add a lot of walnuts to your diet. Add chopped walnuts to your salad or have them as snacks. The pomegranate juice would help you to add more antioxidants, to your diet.
Endive walnut salad
Mix chopped three endive heads, 2 tablespoons of walnuts, 2 tablespoons of blue cheese, one chopped pear, 2 teaspoons of cider vinegar and a sprinkle of salt and pepper.
Pomegranate juice
Remove the beads and blend it with a little water. Milk can be added to increase the flavor.
Reflection
Walnut and pomegranate are not very tasty. You would feel the taste lingering in your mouth for long. The texture of walnut may have made your meal crunchy. However, both are provided by nature to fight anxiety and depression. You would feel a zest of enthusiasm and energy, throughout the day. Though the effect might be less, you would be able to feel it, by the end of the day.
What’s the relationship?
There is always a connection between the food you consume, your mind and spirit. For instance, by the end of day one, with the food you consumed, the amount of energy and mental refreshment would be high. The antioxidants of the juice and the omega 3 of the nut would have made your brain feel active and free. This would have lightened your spirit, making your mind think positively.
Task of the day
It is not easy to analyze the connection I just explained before, in you, immediately. However, you can experience it, from the people around you. Try to talk to people around you, casually. Interpret how they about their lives and how they deal with the emotions and compare them to their diet preference.
Reflection
You may be able to see that there
are a lot of people around you who are trying to get their emotions out of
their way, without dealing with them. Those who eat fresh and right would be
able to tackle the emotions with a positive mind and have a light spirit than
those who are trying to mask their depression with junk food. Sometimes, you
may not be able to analyze what the person is like. Don’t fret; it is normal.
You cannot master the task within a few hours.
DAY 2 – Feeling alive again – Reunification with nature
Opening meditation
Sit in a comfortable position and relax as your mind takes the steering wheel. Since you have started your recovery and have started to eat right, you may be able to filter the emotions away from the scenes. Try to remove them away from your consciousness.
Reflection
You may be thinking of the same scenes and memories which you had on the first day. Let the spirit take over your mind. Isolate the emotions and try to understand why you acted so. Your spirit would be strong enough to take up the challenge and build a better perspective of your behavior. What did you hear? You would have heard all the voice which you have heard in the past. Voices may overlap with each other. However, your focus would be on emotions.
What should be on your plate?
Chocolate is a mind booster. Moreover, it is a good source of Zinc too. Eating chocolate would make you feel better and also reduce stress.
Chocolate recipe
Chocolate milk shake can be made with chocolate, milk, sugar and vanilla flavoring. You can also add chocolate to make other recipes or consume it as a snack.
Green juice
Add kale, spinach, pineapple and apple to the blender and blend till it becomes a green smoothie. The kale is a rich source of calcium, beta carotene and other minerals. Most of the ingredients in this juice are good for your eyes. Eyes are considered to be the window for your soul. Taking care of your eyes would make you have a better perception of what your soul is.
Reflection
The recipe with chocolate would obviously be a treat. You would be able to sense that your stress would melt away, the moment you consume chocolate. It can be felt by eating a bar of dark chocolate. The dark chocolate is obviously bitter in taste. However, after a few bites, your brain would start producing hormones that would make you feel better and you would not feel the bitter taste in the chocolate.
The juice is a cleanser diet. It might give you a tingling feeling while drinking, but it is good for your overall system. You would have annoyed by the ghostly green color drink. However, by the end of the day, you would have understood that with refreshed mind and relaxed brain, your body would have felt anew.
Into the nature
The whole point of second day is to discharge your bad emotions and energy. With the diet and the meditation, you would have the right potential to discharge it into nature. Take a small walk into the nature. A park would be fine. Breathe the air and see how you forget your problems and blend into the nature.
Humans are animals feel happiness when they are in contact with nature. Walking would take out your stress, help in weight loss, increases bone building. It also helps to improve your mood. The mind can be healed with the exposure to nature. Walking is also good to treat anxiety and depression. It makes your spirit strong enough to make other actions and tackle big issues later. It makes us feel that we are connected to the whole world. It helps to create a coherent and fulfilling feeling.
Task of the day
Take a small walk alone in nature. Hear to the sounds and heed to the movements of trees and animals. Observe its gradient of colors and sit in a quiet place and have a healthy snack. Do not listen to music or talk on your cell phone. You need to list to the nature. Focus on the movements of nature starting from the birds to the waving grass. Try to focus on nature and its majesty. Try to hug a tree, while you are out. It would lift your spirit and make it stronger to deal with your inner problems.
Reflection
Walking in nature would help you
get rid of negative feelings. It would remove the emotional stress from your
mind. When you listen to nature and enjoy its beauty, you would feel that you
are not alone in this world. Nature hardwired into every human being. You would
realize that your connection to the nature would be more than you think and you
would soon forget your small problem, giving time to refresh your mind, body
and spirit. You would also realize that you feel energetic and more focused,
after you get back to your life. It would feel like the nature has pulled a lot
of energy away from you and had given you some kind of satisfaction to deal
with your life.
Day 3 – Mindfulness and awareness of one’s own choices
Opening meditation
Relax and think about your day. While thinking, make sure that you analyze your choices and understand that you made your own actions. With this meditation time, your spirit would see the actions of your mind and the body, as a third person. When relaxed, the spirit is a third person which is open and balanced. It would make you see what you are and how you make your choices.
Reflections
So, your mind rewinds a fight with your co-worker. You had a lot of options about dealing with the problem. However, you took one option and handled the situation. There are a lot of chances that you are angry or sad that you took that option. That is why this scene has been lingering in your mind, during the meditation session. Trying to condone yourself for what you have done.
What’s on your plate?
Blend together grapefruit, ginger, carrot and pear. This should be a morning drink. You need to feel the zest of ginger alone. So, do not add a lot of it. Other ingredients can be added in equal amounts.
Grapefruit makes your mind perspicacious. It relaxes your mind and makes your brain alert. When your brain is alert, your body becomes active. Ginger helps your brain to connect to your body. In simple terms, it increases the functioning of the brain, helping it to take over your body. When your body and mind are connected, your spirit would be lightened. Carrots are good for your eyes. Pear increases the functioning of the liver. When the liver starts to work better, it would help to increase the detoxing process, making you to remove all the bad elements from your body, more efficiently.
Fennel is an important ingredient in many cuisines. It suits various foods and gives a separate flavor to the dish. It would stimulate your senses and increases the brain’s response to changes in the environment. The aroma of the fennel would help to refresh your body and mind.
Orange and fennel salad
Add chopped fennel greens, bulb and oranges in a bowl. Top it with olives and olive oil. Add a dash of salt and pepper. You can add oregano for extra flavor. Mix well and enjoy.
Reflections
Do you know why it is necessary to eat different kinds of foods? Before I go into it, let’s review the sensation to this change. You would be startled by the sudden burst of flavors that you have most probably not encountered before. The orange is a soothing color and seeing orange in the salad would have made the dish look more delicious that it tastes. When it comes to the flavor and the aroma, you would feel that the sense act in a different way, when it comes to certain food items and with the grapefruit and ginger flavor, you would understand that your body gives importance to the sense which is not soothing.
Your choices in the food
This food choice is to make you aware that your body, mind and the spirit are connected and you cannot control their functionalities. When you smell certain dishes, you would have felt them to be very tasty. However, when you taste it, you may not feel good about it. Your body would remove the soothing aroma and gives importance to the disturbing taste. On the other hand, your body may also go in accordance to the pleasing sense and make your mind think and believe that the dish is tasty. The same is veracious about color. Some colors in the food are focused on making it look very delicious and some flavor and textures make us look down at it. When it comes to a simple flavor and taste, there are a lot of choices on how you perceive it. All the senses are connected to the brain and somehow, your mind and spirit controls what your body acts upon. The spirit helps you to have a long lasting energy, when your mind is balanced because of the nourished body.
Task of the day – Mind what you eat
Before you consume your food, say a small prayer in your mind. Be thankful for the choices on the plate and pray that your body, mind and soul would act in harmony to enjoy the meal without distractions, by combining the flavors together. Keep in mind, what you are eating. ‘This orange color is from the fruit and the black fruits are the olives. Enjoy the flavors as you think of how the flavors react to your body. When you are able to stop and understand your choices and actions while you eat, you would be able to realize that you can control your mind to make the body like, what it is consuming. This would make your soul happy about what you are eating. A happy soul is all that this whole program is about.
Reflection
Eating is usually spontaneous;
you would not usually sit back and enjoy the elements in it. It would be hard
to do it in the beginning. But as you continue it, you would be able to feel
that though an ingredient is mixed with other flavors, you would be able to
recognize its flavor and taste separately. While you eat, you would feel like
you are satisfied with less food, than usual. This is also normal. When you
listen and heed to things around you as you eat, you would feel that your body
is communicating to you. A hormone is secreted by the brain, based on the
response from the other part of the body which would make you feel satisfied,
with the amount of food. When you gobble food as fast as you can, you would not
be connected to your mind and would not hear the signal immediately.
Day 4 – Clearing distractions and overwhelm
Opening meditation
Now that your mind is able to isolate the different options that you had, while displaying your emotions, let’s go deep into the other options. Remember that ‘you are the choices that you make’. With that in mind, slowly, let life pass before you, without any struggle. Do not make any decisions, right now. Just go through every action and option, as if you are reading a pre-written novel of your life.
Reflection
You would have analyzed that there were a lot of options and you took the control and took one option out of it and acted accordingly. At that moment, your body, mind and spirit would have been united in that action. While you think about the actions, you would have a long list of things which encouraged you to take the bad decision; they are your distractions.
Apart from seeing things from a third person, you would start hearing your inner voice. You can feel and hear yourself, guiding or reviewing your own actions.
What’s on your plate?
Blend blueberries, strawberries and spinach together for a healthy drink. Apart from the antioxidants, the age reversal element, heightened concentration and brain functioning boosting advantages, the strawberries are beautiful to look at. It helps your brain to be concentrated on what you do and also what makes your spirit feel strengthened, as you are concentrating only on what is needed. Blueberries share all the advantages that the strawberries give. Spinach helps to add a lot of minerals to your body. It is a brain food. It keeps your body fit by blocking all the bad elements, with the help of the antioxidants in it.
Saffron is a costly condiment, but it is a very good anti-depressant. It also helps to keep your body and mind focused. It increases the concentration power and also the healing power of the body.
In a pan, add cinnamon, cloves and anise. Fry for a few minutes and add one chopped apple and cook, till it becomes soft. Remove the apple from the spices and add a bowl of pistachios to it. Cook for a few minutes and let it cook. Blend it together, till it becomes a puree. Add pepper and lemon juice to it. Add vinegar, honey and saffron to a pan and let it warm in low heat. Add apple pieces tossed in lemon juice into it. Add the tossed apple with saffron into the puree and enjoy.
Reflection
Saffron does not add much to taste and flavor, as it is overwhelmed with other flavors. The texture of the dish may add attraction to the taste. You would feel that you are able to identify the taste of spinach, even when it is mixed with strawberries and blueberries. All these factors are a part of your brain which is boosting the value of the food and rejuvenating elements which would help to keep your body fit. When your body is fit, your mind can concentrate on what you want and in short, your body, mind and spirit would be in sync with each other.
Deal with distractions
Other condiments and spices, even when removed from the dish, there are a few distractions, which make you oversee the flavor of saffron. Even when the drink is boosted with berries, the taste of spinach seems to confuse your taste. Today’s agenda is to deal with that distraction. The distractions can be dealt with, by planning. When you plan what to do and what to do by allocating enough time to all, you are actually making your mind to focus on what’s needed at that hour.
When something is distracting you, you need to get away from it. Even if it requires you to take a break from your work, it is worth it! Performing an action when you are distracted would reduce your productivity. What is distraction? It is something that your mind thinks to be important, but your brain knows that it is not. This confuses the whole system. Checking your FaceBook page or waiting for your crush to enter the hall can be tagged as distractions. You knew that it is not important to the work you are currently handling, yet you could not control the impulse.
The only solution is to move away from the distraction. When you mind knows that there is no possible way to heeding to the distraction, it would adjust to the brain. Try to show the mind that you can live without that distraction and that is the task for you, today.
Task of the day
Switch off your phone, turn down the options of all the items that you consider as distractions. Starting from meeting your crush, to dealing with an emotional grudge which you hold against someone, its time to let it go. Move away from everything and try to learn something new or try to do something creative. Go to a park and paint a picture. It does not matter whether the picture is good or not. The whole point of the task is to make you feel and understand that you can live without the distraction, if you put your mind into it.
Reflection
When the distraction is off the
limits, you would feel that ideas are easily emerging in your mind. Your brain
is actively trying to reproduce those ideas into action. Whenever your brain
fails, your spirit, would boost it to try it again. When you start to feel
this, you would understand what 100% commitment means.
Day 5 – Mind over body; Spirit over mind
Opening meditation
Relax and keep your mind fresh. Do not force it to have any thoughts. Let the flow be spontaneous. Think through every action and see it from a third person’s perspective. Remember that you can control all the three elements with one another. Analyze every action with the factor that your mind and heart are different. What your mind or spirit thinks is not the same, as what your heart thinks. Isolate those two feelings and analyze it. Try to come to a conclusion as to which was better with all the information you know about the incident.
Reflection
When you analyze your actions and the options you had, you would know that each option had its own importance. There is no one option better than the other, when it comes to dealing with an urgent situation. You would analyze that there is no possible way to deal with both mind and the spirit. Is this a hurdle to the program? No, it is completely normal as you consciously think that one option is better than the other, you would have taken that action during that incident, most of the time.
What’s on your plate?
Blend coconut water, mango and a little amount of whey protein, to get a sweet drink. Mango is a mind sharpener. It has the nutrition and taste which makes it, the king of fruits. It fights against cancer and keeps the cholesterol in check. In short, it does not allow anything bad to clog your body. Keeping your body and spirit light is important.
Not just coconut water, the coconut is also an important ingredient in your diet. Add 3 cups of coconut flakes and half cup of all purpose flour and mix with a pinch of salt. Add a can of condensed milk and half a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Make dough out of it and drop it from a spoon on a cookie sheet. Bake at 325 degree for 13 minutes.
Reflection
Coconut is not a new taste to many. However adding coconut with mango would create a new flavor. The flavor might be too sweet and the color would be overwhelming. By the end of the day, you would have noticed that the energy by the ingredients would have made you take up all the challenges, necessary.
Mind and heart task
Starting from career to every part of your life, you would have a lot of goals. Most of the goals would be in your higher consciousness and some would be underlying. It is time to know how to tune your body to deal with the tasks or goals of mind and heart. You cannot go with the direction that fate takes you. You need to push yourself in the path which would suit the goals of your mind and the heart. Remember even if you are successful, unachieved goals of heart or mind would make you feel like a failure from inside.
Task for the day
We are complicated living beings. We would obviously have more than a few desires. Walk amidst nature and talk to yourself. Take a sheet of paper and make two columns. Write down the goals of your mind that are practical in one column and do the same with the heart’s goals in another.
Reflection
You would feel that the goals in your mind are something which you need on a daily basis, because they are beneficial to you. These may be very small like dieting or growing a small garden. When it comes to heart, you would feel that those are your desires to answer some questions like, what should I do for living, how to make more money etc.
On the other hand, are you stuck
without any goals under any column? It means that you have not started to live
on your consciousness. There are a lot of chances that you would feel the same
way. You would feel that by the end of the task, you would have created a few
which would be the start of your conscious filled life goals.
Day 6 – Movements that nourishes your body and soul
Opening meditation
By today, you would have noted that your mind can talk to you. Do not force any thoughts. Do not allow any negative thoughts to enter into your mind. Have happy and imaginative thoughts. Those incidents may not have happened in your past. You can create your own. It can be imaginative. It can be something which you dream about and so on. Try to create each and every element around you.
Reflection
You would be able to see you in a situation where the things around you are moving in the pace and direction which you like. No matter whether you are in a pasture or in a chocolate pool, all the things around you are in the state of your desire. However, you would feel a bit complicated, when you need to create all the elements around you. You would have ended up with a scene where only the elements that you needed where present in it and not the entire one. Say, you imagined your boss, you would have pictured his face and any mannerism that you remember only.
You would be able to hear all the small sounds that you were not paying any heed to. Start from the blue jay near the window to all the elements in your thoughts. This is the sense of presence. You are acknowledging the presence of every element in the scene.
What’s on your plate?
Avocado, honey, milk and a tablespoon of vanilla ice cream would make a light green healthy drink.
This drink has honey and other elements which would satisfy your cravings. It helps you to boost your brain and is also good for your skin. With healthy physical appearance, your confidence and energy would be boosted.
Beans are a rich source of protein. With protein, satisfaction of hunger is guaranteed and moreover, it would be easy for you to concentrate on what you are doing.
In a large pan, sauté garlic and shallot in olive oil! Add vegetable broth, cooked beans, pepper and salt. Bring the broth to boil. Add pasta to it and cook for another 12 minutes. Add chopped spinach to it and cook for a few more minutes.
Reflection
Ice cream in the drink would make you feel happy about the day. The avocado and beans are differentiating flavors that would make you like everything that’s on the plate. With this satisfaction, you would be able to see things in a contented way than before. Moreover, you will feel a burst of energy.
Yoga
Movements and physical actions can connect you to your spiritual and mental wellness. There are seven energy centers in the body named chakras. These chakras have their own specific qualities and also help to create a balance. These centers collect the life force in you and boost your physical actions and mental awareness. When these centers are triggered, they would help to create a balance or a harmony between your mental and spiritual level purifying all the low level energy in your body. Every movement of yoga is connected to your heart. It gives an awareness of what you do and how you spend your life force. This gives emotional stability and health to the physical being.
Task of the day
Jump into some comfortable clothing and start a few yoga asanas, to keep your spiritual level up. Start the day with these three asana.
• Stand straight and relaxed. Put your weight evenly on your soles and raise your hands over your head. The palms should be facing each other and push your arms up along with your body, without moving your leg.
• Stand on all fours. Walk a few inches forward with your hands, without moving your leg. Push your toes and hands on the mat and push your hip towards the ceiling. Hold for three breaths.
• Lie on the floor with your knees bent. Place the arms on your side, straight. Push your arms on the mat and lift your hip up. Try to lift your whole upper body below the neck up. Stay for 5 breaths.
Reflection
You would be freshened after the
asana and throughout the day, you would feel that your body is flexible and so
is your mind. Your mind would be focused on everything you do with
co-ordination from your mind and the soul.
DAY 7 – Refreshing words
Opening meditation
Today, when you meditate, think of a positive and imaginary role model. May it be an imaginary character like the Easter bunny or someone, you know. Think of all the positive things about him/her and imagine that the person is praising you.
Reflection
What you see and what you hear are very much influenced by what you want to become and what you see about you. When your imaginary person stops talking, it means you have run out of things to talk about you. This may create stress. However, once you carry on with your goals and you achieve them, this feeling will vanish.
What’s on your plate?
Orange juice with pineapple bits on it would be your seventh day drink. Orange is a fruit to start your day with. It refreshes, rejuvenate and most importantly, it would help you to increase the speed of metabolism.
Fresh cut fruits and berries mixed together is your dish. Cut all the fruits that you think would make your salad look good. Add a little cinnamon if you want the flavor to linger. Fruits are nourishing element from nature. They would keep you fresh and light and also would aid in weight loss.
Reflection
You would feel different flavors acting on your tongue today. It would give an interesting feeling and the fruit power would keep your day going, without any hurdles. The last flavor to disappear is always the tangy one.
Self talking
Words have a pleasing effect. The words can be more pleasing than you can think. Try getting angry with yourself and do this in front of a mirror; it can reduce burden. When you do self talking, it is always your mind talking to your body. Your spiritual energy should be high, when you do so. You should believe that there are many forces acting upon you and you are one among them. The voice in you is also a force which directs you. Talk to yourself, till you feel better. Remember to keep the conversation realistic, so that you would feel better.
Task for today
Shut yourself in a room and name all the four walls around you. Stop being yourself and give yourself a new identity, background and be creative. Do the same to the four walls around you. Talk to yourself as the walls are talking to you. Talk about what you feel. Remember that you are not ‘you’, so you cannot talk about your problems. You can talk about them as someone else’s problem. Try to be your own physiatrist. Talk with zeal and moreover, talk with positive energy.
Reflection
Talking would start with a lot of
inhibition. As you go on, you would feel your inhibition lowering and your mind
taking control of your voice. You would feel like gushing out every ounce of
feelings you have, on those walls. You would feel that as you continue talking,
you would start to visualize the walls as someone you know or their character.
Ending the program
The program does not end after the seventh day. It is a continuation process. Though you need not do it as a seven day session again and again, make a mental note of all the thoughts you have learnt every day in this program. You may need them in your day to day life. You should always think of your actions as a mixture of body, mind and soul. Eat healthy, fresh and natural. But, do not overeat. Be inspired by an element in your life. Life is all about progress. Your mind and spirit may be light enough to leave the past behind and take the lessons from it alone, to the future. You need to accept that you have to experience your life with more ease.
I know that this is too much to learn in a week and you may be feeling overburdened. The most important point is that you have started to learn. This would give you a complete insight about how to deal with your life. If you have got that insight, then the program is a success. How to keep it in the same way? Practice the knowledge and expand it. Try to teach other people to connect the mind, body and spirit. Think from a third person’s point of view and live with as less restrictions as possible.
It may take years to realize the deep points in this program. Do not stagnate at one point. There are a plenty of sources which would help you to connect all the three elements and harness faith in you. Do things in a simple manner and make sure that you are doing the right things.
Last but not least, be grateful to everything. From the thorn which pricks you to the jalapeno in your dish, recognize every element in the universe that you come across and be grateful that you noticed it.
