Detox the Mind

René Descartes once declared, “Cogito ergo sum,” or, “I think, therefore I am.” He gave more priority to left-brain dominance, to the analytical mind that is so skilled at taking our experience of the world apart.

 

But should we agree with him? In our age where we build explosive atomic weapons but flounder when trying to re-connect or heal raging chronic illness epidemics? Our minds actually function like landscapers shaping our raw consciousness. The word consciousness comes from the Latin conscius, “to know connectively.” This may sound insignificant but not in the light of this discus-sion. Looking at consciousness as more foundational than the mind, we might in Latin say,

“Conscious ergo sum,” or, “I am conscious, therefore I am.”

MIND AS THE LANDSCAPER

The mind uses separate concepts, symbols, and words to focus on or point to an element of awareness. It then, intentionally or not, helps take elements of consciousness selectively apart. For example, when walking along a city street with the idea of a “cement sidewalk,” we are likely mind-directed to look down. When thinking “blue sky,” we are directed to look up. The mind is like a diver who dives into a subtle ocean of sensory consciousness, but not randomly. Again, the mind uses thoughts, concepts and symbols as pointing tools to tell our senses where, how, when and what to separately experience—in the process splitting the waters of consciousness and creating waves. It may lose sight of the original or primordial connectedness of that ocean before it dived in.

ARE OUR ADVANCED MINDS GOOD FOR US?

Over the last 5,000 years, civilizations have advanced their more analytical mental skills. The phenomenal results led humans to build pyramids, create smartphones, develop antibiotics and launch space satellites. Most impacts appear life supportive, but not all. The creation of GMOs or chronic illness epidemics, for example, reveal that something is still amiss. As to individual inner states, 1 out of 5 Americans take psychiatric drugs, 1 out of 4 have a mental illness, and 1 out of 2 adult Americans will become mentally ill during their lifetime. As to children, 1 of 5 already suffer not minor and inconvenient but rather debilitating mental disorders.

HEALING AIMS

It is no doubt important to retrace our cultural steps, our collective right/left brain polarity or what built the modern psyche, but it seems more urgent to ad-dress the acceleration in mental health epidemics—including autism, Alzheimer’s disease, attention deficit disorder, anxiety, personality disorders, depression, schizophrenia, and much more. It’s time to focus on what might help those with such disorders for these purposes:

 

 

• Attain a clearer, cleaner mental view of life,

 

 

• Focus attention to positive, meaningful organization and undoing chaos,

 

 

• Maintain a healthy short-term memory, and

 

 

• Think with speed, agility and flexibility.

 

 

Wellness Approaches

PHYSICAL

Regular sweats: Either athletic sweats or saunas help remove toxins from the whole body, including brain cells.

Lifting brain fog: Turmeric seems the most anti inflammatory of spices, but is poorly absorbed. Use more absorbable liposomal turmeric with concentrated curcumin, along with liposomal B12, and nutritional yeast for the wider B-complex. Sometimes other herbs help synergistically such as Ayurvedic-sourced Bacopa and Chinese-sourced Huperzine A.

Regular exercise: Cardiovascular exercise improves brain circulation and yoga exercises help us meditatively relax.

Fasting: Ridding the body of toxins that make life numb or unbearable.

Adequate sleep: During sleep, the mind detoxes and reconnects its inner light.

Adequate dietary minerals: Certain minerals, like magnesium, help relax both body and mind. Sprouts and raw green vegetables are especially mineral-rich.

Brain wave technologies: High-tech means exist to stimulate brain waves that help with relaxation.

MENTAL

Consciousness-connective thinking: We concentrate on more positive constructive, and nurturing thoughts to replace hateful, disruptive or harmful negative thoughts.

Emptying the mind: We either quiet the mind by empty-ing it of negative thoughts or, since the conceptual mind has this innate talent to split elements of connected awareness apart, we empty this conceptual mind entirely for a more peaceful state.Meditation by itself is a powerful way to detox the mind. This can involve many useful visualizations:

 

 

• Deepest relaxing: We imagine supreme or penultimate relaxation.

 

 

• Completely letting go: All stresses and/or conflicts are let go.

 

Sense of melting: We release tense rigidity in favor of a relaxed flowing.

 

• Imagining sounds: We imagine sounds like “om” or the Hebrew word “shalom,” meaning peace.

 

 

• Imagining more sensory relaxation: We imagine relaxing smells, tastes, and touching.

 

 

• Life-loved and blessed: We imagine warmth enveloping us, like the love of parents.

 

 

Ultimately, the negative thinking creating mental toxicity is diluted by engaging more “connective-consciousness” modes of thinking or is eliminated by removing divisive and negative thoughts altogether. One way or another, we detox mentally.

|  Article by NATHAN BATALLION, PhD   |