Cleanse
It’s not what you think … when people hear cleanse, they automatically think diet, fasting, drinking strange drinks for days, not eating and cleansing their system, but there are many more things in our lives to cleanse than our body.
This cleanse was about my mind and spirit as I know what enters in the mind can have both a positive or a negative effect on my mind. I tie the connection of mind, body and spirit and work toward a goal of balance, to achieve this, a mental cleanse was mandatory.
We call learning feeding the mind, but we seem to have no proper word yet for the endless pollution forced in our faces on the internet or social media. In my case, a large part of my existence is social media based, so what I face on the day to day to just get through a workday can be overwhelming and mentally taxing.
When I set out to take this four-day break, I had a strong sense of clarity of what I needed to cleanse, what I wanted to remove from that block of time and what I wanted to add so I could properly cleanse.
I set aside one hour a day for social media for the four days. That time was to just check in, see if anything needed my attention and step away. Simple and clean, the plan was to set a timer each time, note the time I spent each visit on a post it and not allow it to exceed an hour through the course of the day.
By day 2 I knew I didn’t need the timer, I knew I didn’t need a full hour and I also knew the social media world I exist in was not crashing down around me over my limited involvement. I woke more refreshed every day reminding me this was a needed step to take.
Today is day 4. I feel brand new! The total time spent on social media the past 72 hours, a total of 89 minutes over 3 days! I woke up today feeling refreshed, recharged, and cleansed, totally ready to chime in again.
I spent the additional hours in my down time doing me things. I took on some home projects, I caught up with friends and existed in a space that was only governed by my thoughts, my actions, and my desires.
The power of social media is incredible, but it can also be the greatest distraction with endless ranges of opinions, energy, demands and emotions. To any degree those things can become toxic, so just like a cleanse of the body, a cleanse of the mind is a healthy way to get back to center, gain some personal momentum and feel the peace of one mind, one body and one spirit.