Detoxify - Part I
Heart-cleaning
Introduction
Welcome to my series of reflections about detoxification! This first issue will explore emotional toxins held inside the heart and how to do some heart-cleaning. I hope my words will help you detoxify your heart
A Minute of Motivation
Resentment
Resentment is like acid; there’s more risk of damage to the vessel in which it is stored than to the object on which it is intended to be poured.
Holding resentment against someone is a dangerous thing to do. This toxin can deteriorate your own physical and emotional well-being. In addition, resentment can slip out in the form of cruel words or actions onto innocent people and animals. When mad at someone, you may inadvertently damage yourself, or you might hurt someone you didn’t intend to hurt.
Learn to let go of resentments. Try to understand why someone else may have hurt you or why a situation didn’t go as you wanted. If your injury is someone else’s fault, release your resentment, even if they don’t “deserve” your forgiveness. The original injury persists, and the wound deepens, the longer the resentment is held. Letting go of an injury is like piercing a blister; healing can begin.
Realize that pain is often passed from one person to the next. Learn to be the place where it stops – learn to forgive.
Enjoy Life More
Release Darkness from your Heart
In a recent conversation with a colleague, I shared, again, some frustrations from the past year. These frustrations could all be traced to a couple of people in my professional world. As I revisited these dark experiences I could feel my peace and contentment eroding. The toxic memories were bubbling up and damaging me again.
My colleague calmly responded with some advice I had given him a few years ago. “Don’t hold that in your heart. Leave room for God to work.” It made me ponder why I am holding on so tightly to these injuries.
For me, I hang on to these damaging experiences because I think doing so will keep similar injuries from happening again. I dredge up the hurtful memories to steel my resolve to protect myself from history repeating itself. But, is such self-damaging dredging really helping?
With my background in psychotherapy I believe that dredging up past injuries can be a path to healing. Telling someone about a painful experience can release the darkness and allow light to shine within the heart again. Talking can be a cure.
But being emotionally constipated about an old injury is not helpful. Darkness held within the heart is better brought into the light and not pulled back inside by talking again and again about an injury. Something happened. It was painful. It is history. Let go of the hurt.
Release the darkness from your heart and allow the warmth and brightness of the light to shine into those places. Enjoy life more now by not getting stuck in the past.
Faith Corner
“Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and hatred… forgiving each other.” Ephesians 4:31, 32.
These words of Paul, written to a group of Christians in Ephesus, throws down a tough challenge. In the first half of this passage, he directs his readers to do some serious and thorough heart-cleaning. Time to clear out ALL of the dark emotions held in the heart towards others. Bitterness – out! Rage – out! Hatred – out!
In the second half of this passage, Paul describes the cleaning process. How is the heart to be cleaned of all of these toxic feelings? Answer: Forgiveness.
This is not just a “box it up and put it in the garage” kind of cleaning. This is a “put it in the burn pile” kind of purging. And not just a partial cleansing; all of the ugliness towards another person needs to go.
As a believer in Christ, I know this kind of heart-cleaning is impossible for me, not without outside help. Jesus offers expert cleaning service.
Lord, thank You for showing me the piles of ugly feelings I hold in my heart. More importantly, thank You for providing a way to clear out the bitterness, rage, and hatred within me. Help me to open my heart to Your heart-cleaning. Help me to forgive those who have hurt me. They don’t deserve forgiveness, but I didn’t deserve the forgiveness you gave me. Amen.
Poetry Pause
Frozen Pain
Frozen pain
Melting into tears;
Cold and hard to survive
Melted by a caring heart nearby.
Release.
Relief.
Pain set free
Flowing from my heart.
Now joy can flow again
And bring healing.
By Cindy MacGregor, June 19, 2020.
Old Mom to Young Mom
Puking can be good
I am confident everyone reading this has experienced the relief of vomiting after eating something that didn’t “agree with you.” The stomach wrestles with the objectionable contents for hours, then, finally: Relief. The toxic mush is expelled and flushed away.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying the experience of vomiting is a good time. I would suspect someone’s sanity is they asserted an enjoyment of vomiting itself.
But doesn’t it feel great to purge the contents of a sour stomach? Of course it does.
If you have been reading my posts, you probably suspect I am not going to advise you to become a better parent by vomiting. Or, worse yet, by causing your children to puke. I am not that kind of doctor. If your kid swallowed something poisonous please call poison control.
I am using a metaphor here. Is your heart and mind full of sour stuff? If so, it’s time to find a good friend and get some of that out. Don’t just keep struggle on your own to process your difficulties. Have a good, long talk with someone who will listen without judgment. Maybe that’s your mom. If you have a lot of old junk inside, find a professional listener, aka counselor or psychotherapist.
It really does help to get it out. Puking can be good.
Dear Dr. Mac
I recently received an email from a faithful reader. She wants to know my thoughts on journaling. She shared what she uses as her journal prompts (1. How did you sleep? 2. How do you feel today? 3. What do you hope for today?) Here’s my reply:
Thanks for writing! I love journaling! I have journals for different areas of my life, including my marriage, my hopes and dreams for the future, my grandsons (one journal per child), and reactions to verses when they speak to me. One journal is my ongoing conversation with myself and my Lord about my life. For that journal, after I write the date, I typically write about three things:
1. What’s going on in my heart and mind?
2. What am I thankful for? and
3. What do I need the Lord to help me with?
The last two prompts are prayers. If you were to see my journal, you would see many places where a list of phrases follows the prompt “Thanks for -” and another set of phrases following the prompt: “Please help with -” Periodically, I flip back through the previous entries and write answers to the “help with” prayers. It is reassuring to see how the Lord is answering my prayers over the many seasons of my life!
If you would like to hear what I think about something, please send an email to: drcjmacgregor@outlook.com; I will respond via email or in this section of a future newsletter, or both. I hope to hear from you!
I also welcome your comments about journaling! Let’s encourage one another!