This happens to many people. They get up one day feeling sick and tired of trying so hard and determine to change. Some of us are lucky to be really sick and are forced to listen to our body and detoxify. I have a group of clients who all know one another (they referred each other to me) and they imitate me saying “Sickness is health” (they say it in a funny way, I must sound very funny when I say it).
Sickness is our body’s way of talking to us. When we are sick, the level of poison in our body has reached a warning level. If we do not stop to detoxify, we can ruin our own life and the lives of the people we love.
Having been very sick during childhood, I was shocked to discover when I was just 16 that my thoughts were pure poison. I had bad thoughts about myself, my abilities and my talents. I had bad thoughts about others around me and, of course, I never took any responsibility over my life. Not that I didn’t want to, but I do not think I knew what it meant.
Well, what do you know? As soon as I realised this, I fought my way back to school (after failing too many subjects and being kicked), I started going out with a boy, I got an excellence scholarship and was sent with the first-ever Israeli youth delegation to Egypt, to help establish new relationships just after the peace agreement was signed between the two countries.
You can certainly say this was one of the best “sick and tired” points of my life.
Detoxify your thoughts first
Sometimes I tell my clients that being unhappy is a good thing because unhappiness means we are noticing the poison in our body. If you want to understand the effect of thoughts on your body, think of the best moment in your life and notice your physical reaction. The best example is thinking about sex… This is the best way to notice how thoughts effects our physical body.
All negative thoughts affect our physical existence. This is why we must change our thoughts if we want to make any changes in our world. If we have negative thoughts, we poison ourselves. If we have positive thoughts, we detoxify and nourish ourselves.
If someone has done something that hurt you and you keep thinking about it for a long time afterwards and remain upset about it, you are hurting yourself more than the actual thing that was done to you.
Saying or doing unpleasant things to others is poisoning, but who do you think is poisoning you more, the other person or you, thinking about it for days, weeks and sometimes years later? When you realise that some people may trigger bad thoughts in you, but you have the power to stop them from spreading in your mind, you gain responsibility and control over your life.
Here are seven simple steps to detoxify you life:
1. Treat every day as the first day of the rest of your life
If you tell yourself “I should have done this”, “If only I had done that” and think a lot about mistakes in the past, these thoughts will hold you back and prevent you from moving forward.
Tomorrow is a wonderful day. It holds so many hopes and is, after all, the first day of the rest of your life. Negative thoughts about the past create doubt, doubt is poison and beats hope and confidence. In the past, you did the best thing you could. You are always OK!
2. Stick to thoughts that make you feel good
We have many thoughts, some good for us and some very demanding, based on beliefs we have accumulated during our life.
Pick a list of good feelings and thoughts you want to have and find ways to experience them every day. Make a list of the things that make you happy and go over that list every day, to count your blessings.
Every happy moment you have will detoxify you a little bit. The more you practice, the less toxic you are and the easier it will be to find happiness.
3. Hang around positive people
There is a great proverb, which says “Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are” . Watch who you hang out with. We have a tendency to build rapport with the people around us. We do it automatically, without consciously thinking about it.
To detoxify, spend time with positive people. After a while, you will adopt their attitude. Positive people have a good feeling around them. They are more accepting and welcoming and less judgmental. They will make you think good things about yourself.
At the same time, stay away from negative people, even if they are your friends and family. Negative people criticize a lot, complain a lot and blame others for their problems. If you stay away from them or limit your time with them, you guarantee not to adopt their attitude.
4. Learn the art of NEXTing
Many things in the past stay with us for a long time. This way, we keep holding on to the things we are not happy about. Some people carry hard feelings about people from the past, parents, friends, siblings or partners.
Holding on to those bad feelings is not going to change the past or change the other person. In this sense, we become “carrier” of poison for years to come. Learn to put this behind you.
There is a beautiful prayer, which says:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference
So when someone or something upsets you, ask yourself if it is important enough to hold on to. If it is, do something about it until you feel better. If not, imagine yourself sitting at a reception counter and pressing a big button that says “NEXT!”, then put it behind you and move on.
5. Treat yourself with respect be true and honest to your uniqueness
Many people are preoccupied with what others think about them. It is hard to blame anyone who thinks like this, because as children we are so dependent on what our parents, teachers and others say about us that we accept it as “a fact of life”. Sometimes, a sentence they have said is programmed in our mind and determines what we think about ourselves for years.
Learn to separate who you are from what others think about you. What you think is your story, and what they think is their story. You cannot control theirs, they cannot control yours.
If you ever ask others to write on a piece of paper what they think about you, you will discover that you cannot possibly be all these different people at once, because each of them only recognizes certain things in you. Define who you are regardless of what others think about you.
It is a big enough challenge to be who YOU think you should be. Let the others deal with their own expectations by themselves.
6. Failures are opportunities in disguise
One of the most fatal poisons is fear. We have many fears. One of the “famous” fears is a fear of failure. People want so many things in life, but are afraid to go out and get them because they are afraid to fail. The more you think of failing, the more poison you have in your life.
Anxiety is a fear of something that has not happened and may never happen, yet it cripples many people. Fearing something does not guarantee it will not happen.
If I stay home and worry about my daughter driving back home late at night, there is no way for me to make sure a drunk driver will not hit her. But it is a certain guarantee I will not sleep until she comes home…
If things do not happen the way you want them to happen, treat them as opportunities to learn, change and grow. If any fear creeps into your mind, shake it off and detoxify by telling yourself
Everything is going to be OK in the end.
If it is not OK, it is not the End
7. Treat your body as a temple
Your body is the vehicle with which you experience the world. Treat it like a precious thing. Happy thoughts will help you detoxify, maintain your body and keep it for years to come.
Challenges are a good way to keep your mind sharp. Physical activity helps keep your mind, body and soul in good shape. Find an activity you enjoy. Make sure you enjoy it. If you do it without pleasure and every time you run or go to the gym you swear inside your head, you spread poison in your system.
Eat food that makes you feel good. Remember, there is no such a thing as “healthy” food, only “healthy” thoughts. Stay away from traps like “organic” or “natural”. I tell people that snake poison is organic and natural. Remember, what you think about your food is more important than what you eat. Food is a friend, not an enemy. Treat it with love.
Get a good night sleep. This is why it is called “Beauty sleep”. Sleep is a need, when we do not sleep enough our physical body deteriorate. Tired people can not focus and it negatively affects their thinking. If you doing other things instead of taking your time off to sleep, you are stealing this time from yourself.
Use your feelings to detoxify and remember, you can choose your thoughts and stop every negative things from poisoning your system, yes, you are right, sometimes it hits you hard and you haven’t notice till it was late, but… nothing is ever too late, if it did hit you , notice it and get it out of your system as soon as possible.
Good luck!
Ronit
