How to Detox Tips - Emotional Detoxing
It is not just environmental and food toxins that can poison us - we are all familiar with the horrible sensation of negative emotions eating away at our insides.
Feelings such as jealousy, resentment, frustration and unexpressed anger can become internal poisons that ultimately damage our wellbeing and quality of life if they're not resolved.
More and more scientific trials and studies are finding that a positive outlook and emotional contentment have a beneficial effect on our physical health, while those with a negative view of the world fare less well health-wise.
Why not use the time when you are cleansing your body during a detox to try a deep cleanse of your emotions as well? Deep-cleanse your emotional life Emotional detoxing means getting rid of all those feelings and behaviors that can poison your life and detract from your happiness.
Who is on your train? Get a piece of paper and a pen and draw the outline of a train with six carriages.
In the front carriage, write the names of the people who are most important in your life.
In the second carriage, write the names of those who are next most important.
Continue through the carriages, including all the people who play a regular part in your life, whether friends, family or work colleagues.
It does not matter how many you put in each carriage, whether it's 10 or just one.
When you have finished, have a look at your train.
You may be surprised at who you decided to include in the first carriage.
Perhaps you had not consciously considered how much certain people meant to you.
Conversely, you may have demoted someone who would expect to be right up there.
A question that takes some people by surprise when they took at their front carriage is: did you put yourself in? If not, why not? Aren't you the most important person in your life? If you're not, you should be.
Your relationships with other people are never going to run smoothly if you don't value yourself enough.
Put yourself in now, in the middle of the front carriage.
Creating a mind map For the next part of this exercise, you need a large sheet of paper and a set of colored pens or pencils.
You are going to create something known as a mind map.
Start by writing your own name right in the centre of the piece of paper, then write the names of the occupants of the first train carriage around you, like an inner circle of planets orbiting your Sun.
Now draw a line between you and each of these people, choosing a color for each that somehow represents the state of your relationship -just select the color that feels right to you.
When you've finished linking them to you, draw in the links that join them to each other, where these exist.
Your boss might not have a relationship with your mother, but your partner will.
Once again, choose the colors that feel right.
When you've finished linking up the occupants of the first carriage, write the names of those in the second carriage, slightly further away but still orbiting around you, and draw in the colored links, first between you and them, and then between them and all the others.
Do the same for the third, fourth, fifth and sixth carriages, drawing a colored link between each of them and you but omitting the links between each other, unless they are very significant, or your mind map will get too messy.
You probably know what's coming next.
Sit back and consider the colors you chose for each link and what you meant when you chose them.
Look at the ones that have negative connotations for you, in the inner circle to start off with.
Are you angry with that person? Do you fully understand why you are angry with them? Or are you jealous, or hurt, or resentful? This stage, in which you try to identify the source of your feelings is at least half the battle.
Go deeper than saying 'I'm angry because he didn't do the washing-up this morning.
' Are you the one who always does the housework? Does this make you feel taken for granted on a fundamental level? It can sometimes be very tricky to put a finger on why we feel the way we do about someone, because toxic emotions frequently come from situations in our past rather than deriving wholly from the present scenario.
Feelings such as jealousy, resentment, frustration and unexpressed anger can become internal poisons that ultimately damage our wellbeing and quality of life if they're not resolved.
More and more scientific trials and studies are finding that a positive outlook and emotional contentment have a beneficial effect on our physical health, while those with a negative view of the world fare less well health-wise.
Why not use the time when you are cleansing your body during a detox to try a deep cleanse of your emotions as well? Deep-cleanse your emotional life Emotional detoxing means getting rid of all those feelings and behaviors that can poison your life and detract from your happiness.
Who is on your train? Get a piece of paper and a pen and draw the outline of a train with six carriages.
In the front carriage, write the names of the people who are most important in your life.
In the second carriage, write the names of those who are next most important.
Continue through the carriages, including all the people who play a regular part in your life, whether friends, family or work colleagues.
It does not matter how many you put in each carriage, whether it's 10 or just one.
When you have finished, have a look at your train.
You may be surprised at who you decided to include in the first carriage.
Perhaps you had not consciously considered how much certain people meant to you.
Conversely, you may have demoted someone who would expect to be right up there.
A question that takes some people by surprise when they took at their front carriage is: did you put yourself in? If not, why not? Aren't you the most important person in your life? If you're not, you should be.
Your relationships with other people are never going to run smoothly if you don't value yourself enough.
Put yourself in now, in the middle of the front carriage.
Creating a mind map For the next part of this exercise, you need a large sheet of paper and a set of colored pens or pencils.
You are going to create something known as a mind map.
Start by writing your own name right in the centre of the piece of paper, then write the names of the occupants of the first train carriage around you, like an inner circle of planets orbiting your Sun.
Now draw a line between you and each of these people, choosing a color for each that somehow represents the state of your relationship -just select the color that feels right to you.
When you've finished linking them to you, draw in the links that join them to each other, where these exist.
Your boss might not have a relationship with your mother, but your partner will.
Once again, choose the colors that feel right.
When you've finished linking up the occupants of the first carriage, write the names of those in the second carriage, slightly further away but still orbiting around you, and draw in the colored links, first between you and them, and then between them and all the others.
Do the same for the third, fourth, fifth and sixth carriages, drawing a colored link between each of them and you but omitting the links between each other, unless they are very significant, or your mind map will get too messy.
You probably know what's coming next.
Sit back and consider the colors you chose for each link and what you meant when you chose them.
Look at the ones that have negative connotations for you, in the inner circle to start off with.
Are you angry with that person? Do you fully understand why you are angry with them? Or are you jealous, or hurt, or resentful? This stage, in which you try to identify the source of your feelings is at least half the battle.
Go deeper than saying 'I'm angry because he didn't do the washing-up this morning.
' Are you the one who always does the housework? Does this make you feel taken for granted on a fundamental level? It can sometimes be very tricky to put a finger on why we feel the way we do about someone, because toxic emotions frequently come from situations in our past rather than deriving wholly from the present scenario.
