Is It Time to Take a Spiritual Cleanse?

The process of emotional healing requires us to tend the field of our consciousness like we would a garden. We first have to clear out the weeds—the negative thinking and the turbulent emotions that we have allowed to take root. Prayer helps us do this. Prayer transforms our awareness—once clouded with judgments, self-criticism, and regret—into a quiet, tranquil place that perfectly reflects the mind of God. Once we fertilize the potent soil of our inner world with prayer, we are then ready to reseed our consciousness with holy and healthy thoughts, feelings, and impulses. When our heart is quiet and pure, it becomes a fertile field for God consciousness to blossom.

A Consciousness Cleanse is a way to purify and rejuvenate the soil of your inner world. It's vital that you take time out to weed and tend to the soil of your psyche, to clean it out, to stabilize it so it is fertile to grow new seeds—the seeds of your highest desires. A Consciousness Cleanse is a process of both letting go and taking in. You have probably allowed things into your awareness, into your consciousness, that are not of the highest vibration. These thoughts, feelings, and unhealed incidents grow like something toxic inside your awareness. A twenty-four-hour Consciousness Cleanse is your chance to clean these out!

To begin a Consciousness Cleanse, you must first acknowledge that you have allowed thoughts and feelings that are inconsistent with the vibration of love into the sacred environment of your mind, body, and heart. You must admit that you consciously and unconsciously, intentionally and unintentionally, opened up to these frequencies, and you chose to interpret some of your experiences in negative ways, which is what made them toxic to you. It's important to realize that your interpretations of your life's events are what make them nourishing or toxic. For example, if someone said you were stupid and you didn't believe them, their words wouldn't be toxic. The words would only become toxic if you took them personally and allowed them into your consciousness as truth. Aligning with the ranting of the internal dark force that resonates in the universe, listening to it inside your mind, letting in that lower frequency, builds up toxicity inside the field of your consciousness. Either you can beat yourself up about the toxicity of your darkest thoughts or you can decide today to cleanse it all out of your consciousness, body, and awareness. I highly recommend the latter.

During a twenty-four-hour Consciousness Cleanse, you make a commitment to refrain from putting anything into your system—your body, your mind, your heart—that is not of the highest spiritual vibration. To get started, declare a holy day: a day of prayer, reflection, refueling, nourishment; a day of Sabbath; a day to clear out the field of your consciousness. Set it up in advance with the people in your life so they know you are taking a holy day. Leave an outgoing message on your voice mail that you're unavailable to talk but people are welcome to leave you a message of love. Tell friends, family, and coworkers to deliver all their communications to you before midnight on the day before your cleanse.

Just so you are aware, your declaration to bring more spirit and godliness into your awareness may bring up within you everything that stands in the way of your highest connection. Werner Erhard, founder of Erhard Seminars Training (known as est), talked about how, when you call forth a particular state of being, everything unlike that state of being will come up. A Consciousness Cleanse will likely call up within you everything that is not holy, everything that is inconsistent with a pure and high vibration. This is just part of the process. You have to acknowledge that the toxicity is there before you can release it.

Imagine that for every negative thing that's ever been said or done to you, a little black toxic bead has entered your bloodstream. Allow yourself to reflect on all the years and all the people who have affected you in a negative way. All the people who said: "You didn't do that right." "You made a mistake." "You should be kinder." "You're so stupid." "No one will ever love you." "You can't do anything right." "You're just too needy." "You're a little overweight for my taste." "You're angry." "You're a selfish bitch." "All you ever do is think about yourself." Imagine all those words like little black beads in your awareness. How much toxicity do you think has built up inside your consciousness as a result of those words alone?

Now think about the things you have said to yourself, the thoughts about yourself that you've dwelled on, that you have believed to be true: "I'm not good enough, smart enough, educated enough, pretty enough, talented enough." "I'm not as good as..." Imagine all the damaging things you've said to yourself as more little black beads that entered your consciousness, blocking your connection to the fullness of your magnificence and your divinity. How many of these little black beads are there? How thick are they? What are they doing to your connection to spirit?

Think about all the behaviors, actions, and decisions you've beaten yourself up for—the things you believe you should or shouldn't have done, the things you've said, the choices you've made. Allow yourself to see the way you've punished yourself for these things over the years. Each of these incidents is again like a little black bead dropping into your consciousness, filling your body, your mind, and your sweet heart. How much toxicity has built up? What is the texture of it? Is it hard? Is it gooey? Is it light as a feather or is it heavy like sludge? Can you feel the burden of it?

Now that you are aware of this inner toxicity, imagine the mass of the black beads. In pounds, how much does it weigh? What is it like to be inside your body along with all the many toxic beads? Allow yourself to see how this toxicity has hurt you, how it has robbed you of your self-esteem, how it has eaten away at your confidence and your ability to love and be loved. How much energy has it drained from you? How has it blocked your creativity, your passion, your sensitivity, and your intuition? Mind-blowing, isn't it? Now take a slow, deep inhale and a long exhale, and let all of that go.

A prayer to help:

Dear Powers of Goodness,
Allow the sweet sound of a quiet mind to soothe my aching heart.
Allow any disease in my body or darkness in my thoughts
To spontaneously transform into nectar for my soul.
Allow my anger, sadness, discontent, vanity, envy, jealousy, and grief
To dissolve instantly and rebirth as spiritual nourishment.
Allow the force of my intention to permeate my experience
And reflect back to me the sweet nature of my deeper heart.
Let the voice of the divine return me to my holiness.
Today I choose to shower myself with your grace and your blessings.
Today I choose to reclaim my holiness
And be an inspiring expression of you.
You are my beloved, and my beloved is me.
And together with you, I say, "And so it is, and it is so."
Amen.


This excerpt was taken from Your Holiness: Discover the Light Within, by Debbie Ford. Debbie Ford (1955–2013) was the national best-selling author of The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, The Secret of the Shadow, Spiritual Divorce, The Right Questions, The Best Year of Your Life, Why Good People Do Bad Things, and The 21-Day Consciousness Cleanse. Copyright © 2018 by the Estate of Debbie Ford. Reprinted with permission by HarperOne, a division of HarperCollinsPublishers.