Spiritual Detox - Redoux

I originally posted this in mid-March. But after a few days, maybe a week, I removed it. Maybe I thought it was too dark. Maybe I didn’t like what it said about my state of mind at that time. I’m not sure, but I decided that I wanted to present a more positive view on this blog, and this post didn’t fit.

But as I’ve been having some writer’s block lately, I decided to look at some old posts for inspiration, and I came across this. I thought about what had led me to write it, and I realized that some of the same motivations were still at play, but in a slightly little different way. And my reaction has been different. I’ll get to that after the original post, but in the meantime, here’s what I posted in March:

17 March 2016

Today I began a five-day juice detox program. Each morning, I receive a bag with eight specially-prepared bottles of mixed juices, and I drink them at hour-and-a-half intervals throughout the day. Overall, it’s about two liters of juice to keep me going each day. I can also drink water and green tea. That’s all.

The idea is to cleanse my system of accumulated toxins, feel better and, of course, lose some weight. I did a three-day program a little over a month ago, and it worked pretty well. So I am looking forward to the results of this one.

This program is intended to cleanse toxins from the physical body, which is a good thing and something I need. My eating habits are certainly not the worst in the world, but they haven’t been the best either. So I know I have a lot of crap that needs to be flushed out of my digestive system, my circulatory system, my muscles and bones, right down to the individual cells.

But as I was walking home from work in the late afternoon, it occurred to me that what I need even more is a detox program to cleanse the various toxins that have accumulated in my soul. I think there may be more poison there than in all the cells of my body combined.

To the best of my knowledge, there is not a juice combination that can do that.

For more than a week now, I’ve been especially upset, nervous, depressed and angry. Actually, it’s been happening for a lot longer than a week; it’s just that the past week has been especially bad. I find myself being super judgmental toward the people I see on the streets; I see stupid people everywhere, and under my breath I curse them as idiots and morons. And I obsess in my mind about certain problems to the point that it almost makes me crazy.

Perhaps more than almost.

I have always liked to think of myself as a basically positive person and as someone with a spiritual nature. But lately I wonder if that’s just a crock of bull, a lie I’ve been telling myself along with a whole lot of other lies that just seem nicer than reality.

Sometimes I think I can actually feel the light that should be warmly shining out from my spirit being slowly engulfed by the cold darkness of this toxic tide. And it scares me. When the light is finally snuffed out, there will be nothing left. It feels like a slow, painful death.

And I try to understand why it is happening, what factors are to blame. Is it the nature of my life in this city, this country? I’ve written before that I’m sort of a fish out of water – a country boy living in a crowded foreign city. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe living for so many years in a different culture, with a different language, has affected me worse than I have ever realized.

Or maybe there is some unseen environmental influence that has been eating my insides away all these years here. It could be something in the air, the water or the food.

It could be my reaction to the changes I see in the world and our civilization (if we even have the right to call it that). I watch too much news, and that’s enough to drive anyone mad. As I see people around me being turned into dumbed-down, uncivil automatons staring mindlessly into mobile devices everywhere, I wonder what the future holds, and I am sad.

Maybe it’s just the loneliness of my own life. I work, I come home to a small apartment where I live alone, and my contact with the outside world is often limited to what shows up on a damned computer screen. That can’t be good. I have fewer real friends to turn to than I used to have, and there hasn't been a true love in my life for a very, very long time. Those are the things that help shield you from spiritual toxins, and I don't have that shield.

More and more, I think that the growing darkness in my soul is simply the result of my fear of getting older and all the little horrors that come along with that, horrors like the changes I see in the mirror or in photos and the slow, gradual breakdown of the body that had served me pretty well until recently. I look at what I’ve become, and I wonder what the hell happened! When did I become like this and how can I make it go away? I can’t make it “go away,” and therein lies part of the problem, one of the sources of the darkness.

Maybe it’s realizing that rather than accept all these things and learn to live with them, I deceive myself with impossible dreams – dreams of regained youth, dreams of finally achieving things I let slide for too many years, dreams of making a difference, and dreams of being loved. And when the improbability of those dreams rises up and smacks me in the face, a little more darkness invades my soul.

Recently I've been feeling like I am losing a special treasure, and I can't seem to stop it from leaving me. But it's a treasure that I really never had, which only exaggerates the frustration. And the darkness grows.

I don’t know what the source is. Maybe it’s all of those things and more. But I know that I do need a spiritual detox before it’s too late. I need to find a way to purge the dark toxins and let some light shine forth again. I need to get to a happy place.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about going to someplace like the west coast of Ireland and just spending a bunch of days simply sitting and looking out at the ocean. That sounds rather nice.  Maybe it would be a good start.

Spring is coming, biking is coming, and more sunshine. That will help. But I know I need to find something else. And it won't come in little plastic bottles.

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Back to the Present

So that was the original post. I felt pretty down last March, and I didn’t like my reaction to it. In retrospect, I know exactly what the catalyst was. All the things I mentioned in the original post played some part, but it was a disappointing personal situation that pulled me into the darkness. This is often the case because such situations can hit you at such a deep and personal level. But we don’t have to let them have such an effect on us. The fact that I did is my own fault.

The post caught my attention when I read it again the other day because almost immediately after I returned from my trip to the USSA a few weeks ago, I found myself hit with a replay of the same situation. But my reaction has been a lot different this time, and much better. This time, I have been pretty much able to just let it go. It bothered me at first, of course, but that “bother” didn’t last long, and it didn’t go deep. 

During my first weekend back, I was able to enjoy the really great company of friends for at least a part of each day for four consecutive days. Good talk and a lot of smiles raised my spirit and took my attention away from any negatives. Friends are perhaps the most important ingredient in a great recipe for a spiritual detox.

And that came on top of a relaxing and enjoyable trip back to spend time with friends and loved ones in Colorado. Every day was a (Rocky Mountain) high. I didn’t think about work or problems; I just enjoyed the time I had and the people I was with. Those two weeks of positive feelings around friends and family strengthened my spirit and made me more able to resist any negative influences. That certainly added some healthy ingredients to the recipe.

Plus, it’s summer, the weather has been good, and that always makes life better. Being able to enjoy the sunshine of late June and early July is worlds better than the gloom of March when winter is still doing its best to hang on. And I’ve been able to exercise in one way or another every day, from gym workouts to biking to just walking to and from work. Nice weather and exercise are more great ingredients for a spiritual detox.

But perhaps most important, this time I was able to simply choose to not let the situation get to me. I had the strength to just put my head in the right place. I was able to get to the point where I could just turn away, say, “I don’t care,” and let any negative feelings slide off my back. Maybe I finally had had enough, or maybe it’s just recognizing that there is no point in continuing to deal with a negative situation when there are plenty of positive ones to pay your attention to.

And we can make positive situations for ourselves. In fact, we should be doing this for ourselves all the time. The photo at the beginning of this piece shows someone getting some kind of spiritual energy from a rising (or setting) sun by the ocean. While that kind of inspiration may certainly help, it's not essential. Still, it can help, and being in such a place is an example of creating a positive situation for yourself. It's something I plan to do for sure this summer (experience a sunrise or sunset by the ocean). Ireland or Portugal are in my sights.

The point of reposting my March effort with the extra commentary is that happiness really is a choice. Choosing to turn your back on the darkness and just stay in the warmth and light is the best thing you can do. It’s not always easy, but it’s always worth it. It’s freedom, and freedom is always a good thing.

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