Commusings: The Juice Is Worth the Squeeze by Lisa Neylan

Dear Commune Community,

Today’s musings landed sweetly in my inbox last month with the subject line, “The juice is worth the squeeze.” Indeed, reading it both heartened and inspired me, and I hope it has a similar effect on your day.

When I was CEO of Wanderlust Festival the staff worked all winter, deep in the digital world of spreadsheets and contracts and layouts. But come summer we savored the fruit of our labor as we watched thousands of sunkissed yogis smile and hug and cry. Many enduring partnerships and lifelong transformations began on those mountainsides. 

Here at Commune, those transformations are mostly hidden by the digital divide. I’m grateful today’s author, Lisa, leapt that gap to remind us how life-changing the courses in Commune Membership can be.

And if the wisdom and practices in Commune Membership have had a similarly profound impact on your life, please email me at [email protected]. I’d love to read your story, too. 

In love, include me,
Jeff

P.S. And speaking of lifelong impact, there are only two days left in our Lifetime Membership sale, during which you can secure lifetime access to our entire course catalog, including all new courses we produce, for 50% off. 

P.P.S. A wonderful complement to our course catalog is my new book, GOOD STRESS, in which I share how many of the practices I learned from Commune teachers shaped my life. Order it here and we’ll throw in lots of amazing digital bonuses.

 • • •

 Dear Jeff,

I came to Commune via Yoga with Adriene, way long ago. I've been enjoying your missives, even as I resist the part of me that wants to keep dancing further toward the land of woo woo. 

I was too late to pre-order your book, but I've been listening to it on Audible, and it is balm for this suburbanite-scientist-woo-woo-curious 47-year-old. It comes at a perfect time, as I recently crashed straight into my own metabolic dysfunction in the form of a debilitating hip injury. It wasn't healing for months, wreaking havoc on my plans to live in Spain with a friend and her two small children. My body kept saying NO as I pushed strollers and lunged after an unusually heavy two-year-old multiple times per day to save him from imminent death. 

I painfully rode buses and subways to doctor's appointments where they offered me cortisone shots (and after much deliberation I took them). After three cortisone shots, an ear issue from taking my cardio to the swimming pool, and finding out how much my friends love me by how they endured my cranky moods, I finally came home to Asheville, NC. 

I knew that there was something going on systemically, I could feel it. All of my tissues were just irritated. Everything I did to try to get stronger just created new injuries. I sank into my house, grieved a divorce and the loss of two immediate family members in the past year, and grasped for a way forward.

I couldn't bring myself to leave my house, so I turned to Commune. Bought the one year membership. Started with Terry Wahls. Ordered a smattering of things from her Wahls protocol grocery list to be delivered to my door. Had to ask ChatGPT how to steam vegetables. Spent a month detoxing. Started squatting 5 pounds, then 10. Moved on to Kimberly Snyder, because I realized that my negative self-talk about my wrinkles was literally toxic to my body.  Got off my blood pressure meds (carefully). I dabbled in intermittent fasting, but felt so terrible that I decided to focus on truly nourishing myself and try again later. My first act of full agency. 

I put on a Scott Schwenk video and started breathing heavily, only to be interrupted by a friend knocking at my door. The act of getting up and walking to the door 15 minutes into this intense breathing made me realize I was high as a kite. I opened the door, red faced and grinning, and immediately fell to the floor in a fit of giggles. “I'm...so....high!” I gasped as I rolled around and experienced some of the first true unbridled joy I hadfelt  in a long time. Unfazed, she asked me what I was on. “Breath!” I chortled. She's an Asheville hippie so this made total sense to her. 

I realized how powerful breathwork was and also that I should probably have an in-person guide, so I hired one and it has been transformational. Better than any meditation or therapy I've tried. Each session is like going to visit a wizard. Her hair is amazing, her confidence is unshakable, her presence makes me feel instantly safe. She never fails to dispense a nugget, a mantra for me to chew on and carry around with me. 

I squatted my way to 15 and then 20 pounds, rolling around on my foam roller while I listened to Gabor Maté and recognized, recognized, recognized the truth of what we know and he names. I delighted in his wordsmithing as much as you do, having also built a flexi-brain through trilingualism.

I finally went to an ENT for my persistent ear issue. She bristled when I told her I wasn't interested in medication or surgery, I just wanted to rule out something really bad. I asked a lot of questions and got terse answers. I walked out of there like a rebellious teenager. I'll heal myself then, watch me! I channelled Anita Moorjani. Ear...balance...duh. 

I embarked on a three-day fast. I trusted myself to take excellent care of this swirling collection of wisely grouped and constantly interacting atoms. I meticulously measured my blood sugar, blood pressure, and ketones, feeding my scientist’s mind instead of my belly. I was so high by the fourth day, I was tempted to keep going, but I chose balance and made myself a magical soup to break the fast. As I cooked (total expert in steaming vegetables by now, thank you) and hummed along to salsa music (humming for the ear, which was about 80% better) I danced around my living room and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My golden curls were on point, my smile was glowing, my posture had more integrity. 

Instantly I knew. “There she is.” We welled up together with tears of love and beauty and commitment.

It was then that I started listening to your book and wanting to send it to everyone I know. Had I read it a few years ago, had I come to Commune just because, would it have saved me the lying-on-the-floor sobbing portion of the past year? Probably not, because the only thing that would convince me to halt my rushing around from one convenient life activity to the next is sheer, what-the-hell bodily pain. But it would have been a seed, something in the back of my mind to draw on in that moment. A place to start.

From myself and all of us running our bodies smack into the wall of modern culture and finding ourselves dazed and battered, thank you. Thank you for your persistence, your dedication to bringing us along with you. We're accustomed to convenience, so we need to be handed the tools and shown how to build ourselves back, to find ourselves inside there, and then everywhere.

This morning, instead of reaching for the jar of (organic) lemon juice for my ginger-salt-lemon water to start the day, I reached for a real lemon. I squeezed it into my cup and was delighted to feel the muscles in my forearm waking up. Holy light bulb moment. The juice is worth the squeeze!

In gratitude,
Lisa Neylan