My Journey with Parkinson’s … A Natural Approach: Post 52 … Detoxification, The Key to Healing!

I have come to the conclusion that healing a ‘disease’ is really a matter of detoxification. Having said that, I must admit that I’m no expert in detoxification.  At least not as it relates to dietary detoxification, so this is going to be more of a lay perspective on the subject.  While I’ve had no formal training in detoxification, I can tell you that it is an important part of healing and I’m in the middle of detoxifying right now. No matter what condition you are trying to heal, be it physical, mental or emotional, the first step involves detoxification.

One of the things you need to know going in, is that detoxification will cause physical and emotional upheaval.  You can expect to go through emotional highs and lows and physical unpleasantness.  You may experience physical illness, diarrhea, headaches and a worsening of your disease symptoms.  Certainly, this has been my experience particularly as an relates to my symptoms worsening.  But I have faith that this is part of the process.

In order to heal effectively you need to detoxify on four levels:

1. Your thoughts
2. Your emotions
3. Your body
4. Your Chi

Detoxify our thoughts:

Negative thought patterns are a major contributor to disease because they create chronic stress which suppresses our immune system, acidifies our body and destroys gut health. The good news is that negative thoughts are perhaps the easiest thing to detoxify. We just have to stop thinking negative thoughts and there are several things you can do accomplish this.  The most effective is to simply live in the present moment. Yes, it really is that simple!  It just takes practice!

Whenever you find yourself immersed in negative thoughts, simply take a deep breath and focus on this breath. Try it now. Take a deep breath and bring your attention completely to that breath. Practice this all the time, even when you’re not trying to stop a negative thought pattern.

Another technique involves looking around at things and smiling. Again, try it now. Just look around the room observing things without adding any mental commentary.

Detoxify our emotions:

At the root of all physical disease is unresolved emotional pain (like anger) and this must be healed and released in order to heal the physical body.

When we have a traumatic experience that affects us on an emotional level and we don’t let go of those emotions, for example, by talking about the experience and how it made us feel with someone with a compassionate ear, the memories of that experience and the associated emotions are stored in our limbic brain and cell memory. These ‘hidden’ emotions create chronic stress which eventually leads to illness. It is ideal that we express these emotions at the time of the incident, but, since this quite often doesn’t happen, we find ourselves having to do so at the time of illness.

Emotional healing can be accomplished a number of ways:

1. Through counseling with a qualified therapist
2. Using Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)
3. Prayer
4. Screaming into a pillow
5. Etc.

Forgiveness plays an important role in emotional healing. When we mistreat others or when others mistreat us, we may be left with unresolved emotional pain, such as guilt, shame, bitterness and hatred. Forgiveness is made possible when you remember that people are doing the best they can with what they’ve learned and that people, including you, mistreat others because they don’t feel good about themselves.

Detoxify our body:

Now that you have begun addressing the toxic thoughts and emotions that are affecting your health you can undertake physical detoxification.

Physical detoxification is accomplished through:

1. Diet/fasting
2. Sweating
3. Colonics

Diet is extremely important. The detoxification diet means eating foods that are as close to the way mother nature made them as possible, which means, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, grass fed meats and wild caught fish. It also means no processed foods, no fast foods, no junk foods, no alcohol, no sugar, no artificial sweeteners, no dairy, no grains, etc. Any foods you eat on the ‘no’ list will simply slow or stop the detoxification process because they will acidify your body and add more toxins.

Whether you choose the fruitarian diet, vegetarian diet, ketogenic diet, gaps diet, paleo diet or a diet that involves fasting, the key is to eat foods that will eliminate heavy metals and other toxins, heal the gut, alkaline the body, eliminate inflammation and unclog the lymphatic system.

Let me say a word or two about fasting. I believe fasting is an important part of the dietary detoxification process. You need to give the body rest time in order to more effectively remove toxins. Personally, I don’t believe you need to fast for an entire day, week or even longer. I have done 24 hour fasts and I didn’t enjoy it. In my experience, fasting for up to 18 hours a day is sufficient. This means, say, eating heavily from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM then drinking water, ideally, lemon water, for the balance of the day.

I believe fasting is important because it helps the body in its endeavour to reach homeostasis [its natural healthy state]. The human body was designed to do two things: eat natural foods and be in homeostasis. When it is full of toxins, it is out of homeostasis and the body’s natural response is to return to homeostasis. In order to do this, it needs time, but if you are constantly eating then the body has to devote its time to digesting food, rather than eliminating toxins. Fasting, particularly with lemon water, which alkalines the body, allows the body to focus on eliminating the toxins. Thus, fasting for up to 18 hours a day 3 to 7 days a week will certainly help speed up the detoxification process.

Sweating helps to eliminate heavy metals from the body through the skin. The best way to sweat is to exercise or sauna.

Colonics involves cleansing the colon. I have had two colonic treatments and it has made quite a difference in my bowel movements. I would highly recommend it!

Water and exercise are two other important elements of detoxing. Fluids help flush toxins out of the body, while exercise speeds up metabolism.

If you would a simple, yet effective, explanation of detoxification, check out this video.

Detoxify our Chi:

Chi is the life force energy that flows in and around our bodies.  A strong chi is essential to good health.  Poor diet, unresolved emotional pain, stress, negative thoughts and unhappiness can all weaken our Chi.  Detoxifying our thoughts, emotions and bodies will certainly help to strengthen our Chi as will exercises like yoga, Tai Chi and Qigong.  Having a positive outlook will also go a long way towards strengthening our Chi.

As I said at the outset, detoxification is an essential part of healing illness and restoring the body to good health [homeostasis]. Any one of us can do it, but if you’ve never done it before I would highly recommend seeing a qualified natural health practitioner first. Otherwise, the simplest way to get started is to simply eat healthy foods and think positive thoughts.

Have an awesomely detoxifying day!