What Is An Emotional Detox?

A detox is usually a physical experience—a way to remove all the impurities swallowed, inhaled, injected, absorbed, and in some cases abused through daily living. Substances such as alcohol, drugs, caffeine, sugar, smoke, pesticides, parasites, and harsh chemicals may come to mind. Although physical improvements often occur, emotional detoxes have little to do with the physical and everything to do with you as a spiritual being. Emotional detoxes are a systematic and mindful practice for purifying undigested and overprocessed emotions, freeing us from the illusion that we are separate from love. They return us to our natural state of joy.

 

Like overprocessed and undigested foods that deplete energy, our emotions are so overprocessed by thinking that they become unnatural. We know when this happens—when our feelings are weird, foreign, or unappealing. Just as consuming sugar substitutes can trick our bodies into being hungrier, living in emotional reactivity tricks our bodies. We get a temporary and illusory feeling of being okay, but it doesn’t last. This is because reactive emotions don’t nourish us.

 

One might think the point of an emotional detox is to get rid of it all—hurt, pain, guilt, sadness, and stress—because when left unresolved these emotions can make us sick, but this is not the case. We need to properly process our emotions. Since our bodies are connected to our spirits, they don’t benefit from all these toxins; what we thrive on is love. Learning how to process emotions through a detox will bring you closer to love.

 

If you find yourself trying to fix everyone else’s problems, feeling guilty for saying no, or becoming less engaged with the people around you, then you will receive help from a detox. If you take more time for others than you do for yourself or have experienced trauma, a detox is in order. If you are a thinker, dwell on life’s problems, or are finding it hard to be in the present moment, an emotional detox is something to consider.

 

Emotional detoxes teach the importance of digesting rather than reacting (thinking, fretting, fixing, remembering). As we digest our whole emotions, our ability to empathize with others without moving into reactivity improves. As a result, we can care and support others without clogging up our emotional flow, which can wreak havoc on our nervous system, creating things like anxiety and depression. This is an important skill to have in a world where each of us is so often exposed to trauma and tragedy in our daily lives and the world around us.

 

Most of all, emotional detoxes are about surrendering. They encourage us to release old ways of being—all the trying, waiting, pleasing, and avoiding—and instead wake up to what is real. We are spiritual beings having a transformational experience. You can choose to resort to old ways of harboring and overfocusing your emotions or experience them wholly as they are. Digesting whole emotions is a way to live more simply, ditch the drama, thrive in any situation, and reconnect to your organic self.