I've just come home from one of the kindest things I've done for my body in 52 years. Colors look much brighter and sharper than they have before, I can smell flowers and food distinctly, there's a gentle hunger in my belly that's no longer a sense of craving, but a health instinct for nourishment. When I look over at Chameli, my wife, she looks 10 years younger: her skin is glowing like she's lit up inside and she's probably lost 7-10 pounds in the last few days. For the first time in a long time my body seems to really know what it wants to eat, its natural intelligence has been restored. Don't ask me what I've been smoking, or what pills I've been popping. I've just come home from four days at John Gray's ranch on the Mendocino coast. You probably know John Gray's name as the author of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, the best selling relationship book of all time. That book has been praised by some as the savior of their marriage and ridiculed by others as overly simplistic, but everyone has heard of it. That breakthrough book has spawned multiple others. Just as Gray's fame as a relationship expert is unparalleled, so his expertise as a health and anti-aging educator is little known.
The four-day retreat, which is scheduled once a month at the ranch, combines several exquisitely crafted elements together into a blend that, in my experience, is unparalleled. First of all, there is the "Super-Cleanse." With a couple of days of pre-cleanse preparation, during your stay at the retreat you eat no solid food. Instead you take several "Super-Cleanse" drinks per day as well as a host of supplements that helps the body to eliminate toxins without the cravings, headaches and light-headedness that I have experienced before with cleansing.
The second element at the ranch is John's personal state-of-the art-spa, overlooking a magnificent 180-degree view of the Pacific Ocean. Two outdoor tubs offer a full body iodine soak (which restore the much needed mineral often depleted from out body by excessive chlorine use) and another super oxygenated lithium soak which relaxes the brain while promoting cellular cleansing of the whole body. Several oxygenated infrared saunas allow a cleansing sweat without the excessive temperature and humidity that we often associate with saunas. The marble steam room with crystal benches completes the experience . We got two hours in the spa utilizing all of these modalities, every day we were there.
The third element of the retreat is by far the most valuable, and worth the investment, on its own. John Gray is onsite and sharing a sometimes overwhelming wealth of information from 8:30 in the morning till 10 at night. Since the retreat is limited to 40 participants, everybody there gets to interact with John personally. Fueled partly by his own successful battle with an infection that blinded him in one eye, John has become a walking encyclopedia of effective, alternative, cutting-edge therapies. From oxygen therapy to PGX, and from hormone balancing to correct ph levels, you get to discover the whole gamut of what works.
There is information offered here that you won't find anywhere else. Chameli and I have been faithful users of homeopathy, auyveda, acupuncture, as well as following a consistently conscientious organic diet, but there were things we learned in this retreat that turned a lot of our conventional understanding upside down. "Drinking too much water, if you are not eating enough sea salt, will dehydrate you," "intelligent use of fasting stimulates HGH and will help you to build stronger muscles". I found myself repeatedly asking myself, "Why didn't anyone ever tell me this before?"
The last ingredient to the retreat is that it is generously peppered with John's 30 years of insight about intimate relationship and sexuality: delivered with humor, and an extraordinary generosity of spirit and time. If you do this retreat with your spouse or partner, you'll get a deepening of connection you never expected.
I know I know, this is turning into an infomercial, and I rarely turn my writings into unqualified endorsements, but in these days of watching the budget and sometimes feeling anxious or stressed, here's something you can do for yourself and your relationship, relatively inexpensively, the benefits of which will last for months if not for a lifetime. I wholeheartedly recommend you to check out John Gray's wellness retreat.