Do You Need a Toxic Purge?
Has negativity built up in your life to the point of needing to do a toxic purge? Every year when January rolls around, everyone is talking about creating the new you. Sure, most people could stand more exercise and a better diet but what about improving the mind? Mental health is too often only discussed when there is a problem and a stigma attached. Our minds need to be just as healthy as our bodies, and arguably, even healthier than our bodies.
The most obvious indication of a sick or unhealthy mind is someone who commits heinous crimes. Thankfully these people are a small minority. What the majority of people need help with is depression, anxiety, self-worth, etc. When people neglect their mental health, they often end up with physical health issues as well. Headaches, digestive issues, and unexplained pain are all trademark side effects of someone with depression, anxiety, and the like.
Psychosomatic symptoms from poor mental health are a serious concern and can be disabling. If having negative and toxic thoughts and issues can cause negative physical effects, the opposite is also true. Filling your mind and life with positive thoughts, people, and environments has a positive effect on your physical well-being. To fill your mind and life with positives means you need to purge the negative to make room.
Mind Over Body
As a hypnotherapist, I see the power of the mind over the body every day. This power can be either a powerful positive force or a destructive negative assault. The negative assault would include the physical health issues already mentioned as well as continued decline in mental well-being. Have you ever been around someone who only sees the negative in everything and is depressing to be around? It’s my job to help my clients replace that toxic negativity with positive thoughts and behavior for whole body enrichment.
Using hypnosis, I’ve had the privilege of seeing clients’ anxiety disappear right before my eyes. Clients have gone from sobbing frantic and hopeless messes to smiling calm and confident optimists. Clients have reported headaches, pain, and even addiction vanishing after hypnosis. I’ve witnessed stutters, involuntary throat clearing, and hair pulling greatly improve or cease all together. And my greatest mind over body witness was when a client paralyzed from a stroke began moving his foot.
The mind is incredibly powerful. Use that power to improve life instead of damaging it. If you constantly tell a child she is stupid, she will begin to believe it. She’ll feel no need to apply herself and she’ll settle for much less than she’s capable of achieving. Tell that same child she is smart and capable of anything, and the sky is the limit for what she accomplishes. The same goes for what you tell yourself. Build yourself up.
Hanging On
Some people hold on to dysfunctional and negative thoughts and ways of life for various reasons. Change is not embraced by everyone. Some people are surrounded by other negative people and it’s all they know. Pride has a habit of getting in the way of progress as well. Not everyone is eager to admit they could be doing things better. Some people have been hurt to the point they refuse to trust anyone and let them into their world. This is a very sad and lonely way to live. Looking past someone’s shortcomings and sins is not condoning it. We want others to do the same for us because none of us is perfect. “Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins” (Ecclesiastes 7:20, ESV).
Scripture does not tell us to be doormats. We’re told to stand up for ourselves and let someone know when they’ve wronged us, but also to forgive. “Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him” (Luke 17:3-4, ESV). Holding grudges and dwelling on offenses committed against us is exhausting. Letting the negativity go is freeing. It’s like dumping a backpack full of rocks.
Recognizing the Problem
“So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24, ESV). Notice that this Scripture states that if your brother has a problem with you instead of you having a problem with your brother. Just because something isn’t bothering you doesn’t mean something you did or said isn’t bothering someone else. Jesus instructs us to make things right with each other and be reconciled.
When you’ve been part of a longstanding feud or separation, you may think it isn’t bothering you. Constant fighting or a separation from someone you care about is a negativity that festers with time, it doesn’t improve. There was a rift in my family years ago and the separation and negativity became a normal part of life, but this isn’t normal.
Reconcile
Most parents, myself included, would happily endure a sickness or injury if it meant bringing their family back together. Two weeks ago, my younger brother texted me that our mom was having trouble breathing and asked if I could sit with her while he was at work. I got to the house and decided to take her to the hospital. She was quickly diagnosed with double pneumonia and admitted to the ICU. Her first two nights there, she was not expected to survive.
While sitting beside my mom in the ICU, all my brothers and all our children were made aware of her condition. Almost everyone showed up at the hospital for her. She is now recovering at home after her sickness brought her family back together and her family encouraged her to fight to heal. She was the catalyst for our family’s toxic purge.
Our mom’s sickness, that almost killed her, brought our family back together. My family celebrated Christmas together for the first time in nine years. Everyone needed to dump all the toxic negativity and focus on what’s important – our mother and our family. There are still conversations that need to occur and not everyone has made the toxic purge yet, but there is great progress. Seeing everyone at Christmas talking, laughing and getting along was absolutely wonderful. Even though I hadn’t participated in the family feud, seeing the reconciliation made me happy and made me feel physically lighter and healthier.
Don’t let toxic negativity take root in your life. Make a toxic purge.
Relax to Linda’s Serenity Christian Meditations podcast.
Find self-hypnosis and meditation mp3s to download in the Serenity Christian Hypnosis Store.
