What You Need to Know Before Your Body Cleanse

Winter is in full force but spring will be here before you know it, allowing you to engage in more outdoor activities, such as gardening and yard work—clearing your garden beds for new seeds, raking leaves and getting your backyard ready for barbecues. But just as you clean up your home environment, it is also important to cleanse your internal environment, and now is as good a time as any to begin preparing for an early spring cleanse.

A cleanse is aimed at lightening your body by shedding unnecessary pounds and toxins—and this is a task that encompasses not just your physical body, but your emotional and mental facets as well. When you exhale, you let go of air that includes “information” from your past, which is manifested as toxins and waste materials that have been released from your cells. They travel though your capillaries to your veins, then the right ventricle of the heart, and finally into the lungs where the final product—carbon dioxide—is exchanged with oxygen.

A more basic discharge takes place in the colon, but if the colon is not functioning optimally, it can lead to constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, and a host of other unpleasant digestive concerns. While problems such as constipation can be the result of a physical issue, emotional issues such as compulsive tendencies or other manifestations of emotional imbalance can also come into play.

One of the most important aspects of a successful cleanse involves the emotional process of “letting go.” If you examine your mind and your emotions, you will likely notice how often you are enslaved by them. Thoughts relentlessly proliferate in your mind, producing various emotions that you may not be able to control. So, what can you do about it?

One strategy is to develop your own antidotes to your emotions and thoughts. For example, if you have a lot of anger, you can work to cultivate patience. If you are feeling overwhelmed by grief, you can work to cultivate joy. And if you have a lot of attachments to material things, you can work to cultivate generosity.

Another path is to release your emotions by letting go and not holding onto these feelings when they arise. In order to do this completely, however, it is important to first come to terms with the impermanence of things and accept the inevitability of change. Your likes, dislikes, attachments, and aversions are all impermanent in nature — they did not always exist and they will not continue to exist forever.

Truly understanding and experiencing the impermanent quality of your thoughts and emotions should become the centerpiece of your cleanse. If done properly, the end result of this process can be true transformation, allowing you to cultivate a genuine, open heart in which you can transcend your reactive emotions. This is the spiritual peeling process that is a vital aspect of your health, happiness, and lasting well being. For more wellness information and practical health advice, visit www.dreliaz.org.