“I’ve never dieted in my life, I don’t believe in detoxes!”
This was me up until 4 days ago. A whole new world has opened up since. New foods that
I’d never heard of (yummm almond butter! Great substitute for my Nutella addiction ;), salads I’d never made, an eating plan I’d never followed.
You mean people actually eat 3-6 meals a day? I was the brekkie at noon kinda girl (and I still may well be after the detox, but in a healthier, more aware of what I’m eating kinda way).
You know that moment in time when you realise something you’ve always known and heard about and believed at some level but it never really sank in until then? The one that makes you smack your forehead and go “I get it”?!
Yep. Yeah, that’s the one I had this morning as I bounced out of bed with an energy I haven’t felt in yonks i.e., a very long time. My 4th day of ridding my body of toxins. It’s a “wow, this feels so great I can’t believe I waited so many years to start being healthy” mindset.
Have you noticed how your mind and inner being feel so much lighter when you’re healthier? What you put into your body and mind is what you get out of it. Squeeze the proverbial orange and you won’t get apple juice … y’know how that story goes.
But luckily, there isn’t just one way to do it. You can start with detoxing your thoughts and beliefs and let the ripple effects cascade into your life. Consciously choosing better feeling thoughts will give you more positivity, focus and gusto and this in turn will lead to you feeling more energetic.
Change what goes into your body to change what goes into your mind or vice-versa. Either ways, you win!
Fact is, most of what you eat, do, say, think, feel is a result of habitual patterns. You are living an unconscious life when you don’t take a minute to stop and ask what and why you’re eating, doing, saying, thinking and feeling what you are. How many unhealthy habits do you persist with because you have gotten too lazy, too careless, too comfortable with them?
I know, let’s start with thoughts! Do you know how many thoughts you have in a day? Anywhere from 20,000 – 60,000 apparently. And about 80% of that self-talk is “negative” (source: some scientific research I lost the link to).
Sound like an exaggeration? Consider this: within the span of a few seconds your mental chattering monkey jumps from “Wish I had my coffee” to “I’m sick of this traffic” to “I should have done/said/ xyz” to “Why can’t I just stop thinking so much” to “I hope we’re not having soup for dinner again”. Exhausting, isn’t it?
Truth be told, much of what you believe and think every day comes from societal and parental conditioning. But wait, there’s hope! Just like you can learn to think about the food you eat and what it does for your body, you can also start learning how to think in positive, inspiring ways. That’s right, this is how you can change your self-limiting beliefs to those that serve you.
Here’s the deal. Detoxing the way you think can be hard at first. Just like when you train your body to get rid of toxins and cravings, and don’t build muscles overnight in a gym, it’s the same with your thoughts. Of course it takes a bit of effort and commitment to see results.
Want some tips to help you start rewriting your ‘story’ & detoxify your thoughts?
1) Practice Awareness daily – keep a little journal or notebook close at hand and as you think a thought, write it down. At the end of the day you’ll have a fair idea of just how much of your thinking is toxic and unproductive.
2) Start examining these thoughts – are they pointing to a deep rooted belief? What is that belief? Is it true? Or are you just used to thinking a certain way?
3) Open Your Mind – to new ways of thinking. Look at things and situations from more than one perspective. You don’t have to agree with another point of view but you’ll be training yourself to be curious and open to changing your beliefs.
I’m curious – does detoxing your body and then your mind work better for you or do you find you have to change the way you think to get healthier 1st? I’d love to know what works for YOU!
Tia,
Excellent! We are on the same page – I don’t believe in detox either. I believe in listening to our bodies, and that everything should be in moderation. Love your tips on how to detoxify our mind.
Oh, I didn’t know that we have so many thoughts, hmmmm.
Breathe, smile and be happy.
Lol Irina … I am on Day 4 of Day 10 of this detox and I have to say I DO feel like I have more energy – the biggest thing has been cutting out my more than 50% sugar diet (wild guess, could be more!). So this will bring me to moderation, where most people hopefully already are. Kinda like kickstarting a scooter to life. Thanks for weighing in with your opinion, I appreciate it!
Tia,
Congratulations on taking action to get healthy! You’re well on your way. It’s hard to know just how great it can feel, until you’ve actually experienced it. Luckily, once you know, you can’t un-know!
In my experience, timing is everything. Even though this is something you’ve been aware of for quite awhile, something clicked for you recently, called you to action, and now is the time!
I think that is true for most people. Our minds have to be in the proper perspective for us to start a new regieme. Whether it’s a cleanse, exercise, healthy eating… “Where the mind goes, the body will follow”. So my opinion – mind first!
Keep your momentum Tia, you’re doing great!
Margie
“Where the Mind goes, the body will follow” – that sounds familiar 🙂
Eating well, being fit and looking after ourselves is a result of how we think, a lifestyle choice. A case of the chicken and the egg right. What comes first.
Doing a detox without making a mental change would lead to the same habits being repeated over and over. Like a hamster on a treadmill (what IS with me and animals today, LOL).
That’s where Neuro-Linguistic Programming would really help, wldn’t it Margie? I know people reading this blog would love to hear some NLP tips on detoxification from a Super Fitness Coach like you and so would I. Thanks for sharing your thoughts girlfriend!
That is wonderful that you are making the transition to being healthier! You are what you eat holds true. When you eat healthy you have more sustained energy, your mood is better and you are able to be more productive. A healthy, balanced diet is a great way for even fighting mild depression. By the way, nice tips on detoxifying your mind! Good job!
Keep up the good work and if you have any questions you know where to find me!
Your twitter friend,
Talli
Thanks Talli!
It’s all part of living the healthy happy life that I want. For me, there definitely had to be a mental shift first. Else there’s no way I would’ve lasted on a detox of any kind. Keeping my goal in mind and having a reason why is the biggest factor in keeping me motivated. I suspect that’s how it works for most of us too. It’s all coming back to what we believe, we create.
Have a wonderful day!
Tia;
I usually find that I am more successful making any physical changes if I first start with my thinking. I just can’t bring myself to stick with any serious changes – even though I know they’re good for me unless I kinda “talk to myself” for a little while.
I usually begin thinking about how good I’m gonna feel in balance and, wow, how great I will look. Oh and then there’s the added benefit of being able to think more clearly when I’m not in a sugar fog :/
Good on you for doing this detox. I think detox is great because it’s just clean up. Who of us wouldn’t clean our homes or car – and still live there? Our bodies get cluttered with junk in a variety of ways – some junk we choose and some is processed into our foods.
Body cleansing sounds better than detox, don’t you think?
Love your Spirit, Tia! You do “Sparkel”
You know Melody, I agree fully. Our patterns and habits are so deeply rooted that it takes developing new habits and patterns to create lasting changes.
I love the cleaning your car / home analogy! BANG on 😀 for those who says it doesn’t work, well it’s like cleaning your house right? Just cos it got dirty again doesn’t mean it didn’t work, it just means you have to be regular with your eating / detoxing / cleaning/ etc. Ahh *light bulb* moment anyone?!
Body and mind cleanse, that makes me feel pure and clean 🙂 Thanks for your incredible insights and wisdom Melody, you rock!
It’s a good idea, but I wonder how practical it is. For instance, you say we have between 20K-60K thoughts in a day, then you invite us to jot down our thoughts in a notebook. I think I’d be spending my whole day writing, were I to actually do that.
And please, let’s NOT blame our parents for everything! While their general attitudes to life can obviously have a strong impact on our mindsets, I’d like to believe that other factors in my nearly 50 years (marriage, children, travel, professional and personal experiences) have had an equally strong impact on my thoughts. I’ve learned patience through mothering; I’ve learned to be open and trusting through being in love with a good man; I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut and listen more through working with and managing others. To point to one’s parents is a bit of a tired and easy go-to.
I do agree on getting and staying healthy, in mind, body and spirit. And part of that is being selective with what one chooses to allow into one’s space, whether that space is defined physically, emotionally or psychically. Setting limits is just as important as setting goals, IMO.
Hey Mady, thanks for bringing up this important point.
The point of the exercise is not to spend all day writing down our thoughts as most of them are so subconscious that we don’t even KNOW we are having them, so writing would certainly not be an all day affair. It’s about being more aware of them and starting to pay some attention to them as a part of our daily life.
Maybe a better idea would be to write them down at night? What do you think? Definitely open to suggestions and ideas and I would love to hear an alternate strategy that would work better!
Being aware of how we think is KEY to managing our thoughts. So for instance you’re at the grocery store waiting in line and it’s taking a while. You might start thinking I wish this line would hurry up, why didn’t I join the other line, why do people have to shop so much, next time I’m coming at a different time etc. Thinking these thoughts will automatically lower your energy and vibration to one of annoyance.
But what if you caught yourself thinking them?
Then you’d have the choice to change how you are feeling by focusing on something else like I love the veggies I bought or how awesome that I can afford to buy good food for me and my family etc and as you do, you’ll feel it in your body and mind. This is a completely different experience to the one you might have been having earlier and the best part is you chose it consciously by being aware of your mind’s workings.
Oh my, In no way am I blaming parents for everything. Heck no, no, no!
However I AM saying that our beliefs come from them, society, peers etc. How else did some of us decide that money is hard to come by or that working hard and getting a degree and making big bucks is a sign of success? Or that love and being happy is all that matters? No good or bad here, just what we believe to be true. Some beliefs are fabulous and add to our joy, others bring us down and can be changed.
I love my parents and so do not blame them for anything (at least not since I was a teen, haha) but I realise that SOME of what they taught me and thought was best for me isn’t necessarily true anymore and came out of their own conditioning. As I’ve changed over the years into a more aware and self assured adult, so have they questioned some of their beliefs and adjusted accordingly.
So yes, of COURSE we are conditioned by our life experiences but equally so by what we saw and heard growing up. As we experience life up we start making our own choices and they are all choices we make out of what we believe. Some old beliefs are so unconscious though that they can run our life if we are not aware of them. That’s what I was pointing to – find out what your beliefs are and change them if they don’t serve you.
Thanks for allowing me to clarify, Mady. I appreciate you taking the time to comment and raise these points and am privileged to have your input!
Well, here’s an interesting experience I have had. I am nearly 50, and have lived nearly my entire adult life in a sort of a fog. I have never gone outside my comfort and have had to struggle to focus on a task at hand, sure that I grew up with ADD of some form, as so many of my kids have also been diagnosed with it. I did discount it at first, but recently, like 2 years ago, I was introduced to Isagenix, a nutritional cleanse manufacturer, that produces a full body cleanse, rather than one that focuses on a particular organ.
I began taking the products religiously, including an ionic mineral drink called Ionix Supreme, and found that quite naturally, my lifelong addictions to many bad foods started to clear up, but the best part was that I started sleeping better at nights, and my need to visit the loo, like that word, every two hours also subsided. Lately however, I have noticed the best part of all. I am clearer of mind than I have ever been in my life, i remember small details of things that happened days and weeks ago, names of obscure people that were mentioned in a conversation, even lists of things that would have left me speechless just months ago.
No miracle cures or anything, I just believe my body has finally gotten rid of accumulated toxins over the years, and yes it has taken a couple of years to notice this effect, but it is a thrill to be getting older and yet have such clarity of mind that I don’t remember ever feeling before. Detoxification, and ceasing the intake of modern toxic foods is one of the best decisions I have ever made.
Sorry, i said all that and then went back and read the part that originally inspired me to comment, it was on the mind, though i have noticed many benefits of cleansing, including, as my energy has returned, I find myself not wanting to quit in the middle of exercise, I also find that my studies of the mind have taken on a whole new dimension and I am more able to retain and ponder, and even creatively develop thought processes to the next level.
I am, since having begun to cleanse on a regular basis, able to read longer, and retain more, and wander less, if at all during my reading, so I believe that while you must be ready before you can make the change to get healthy again, the process makes your mind more ready, and it does leapfrog its way for you to endless progress. That is what I am seeing. The better I get, the more i want to get better, and my study time has increased, and my movie time has naturally decreased, my need to be entertained by mindless media has tailed off, not sure if it’s just me getting smarter about what a distraction to good thought that all is, or if now, the movies are just not stimulating me enough intellectually. Anyway, thanks for this post, it really got me thinking, obviously.
Wow James, how did I miss this post!? Thanks for all the awesome experiences you shared. What really stood out for me that detoxing works well for you AND along with that, it jumpstarts everything else in your life and makes the wheels turn smoother.
It’s been 2 months since I did the detox and I have to say, I’ve only needed a daytime nap about 3 times since then. I used to be exhausted every afternoon! Even though I’m back to eating the way I used to (a little better maybe 😉 the results have stayed with me.
Gregg Braden makes an interesting point about how it’s not what we eat but what we THINK about what we eat that affects our weight / energy issues. And I’ve heard stories of people losing weight by eating cupcakes and maintaining the same level of exercise but changing how they thought about cupcakes.
I’m going to try the same with Nutella, lol.
I’m so happy to hear how focused, healthy and happy you sound 😀 Thanks for being such an inspiration!