![]() As I approach the end of my soul cleanse, I have several thoughts and new outlooks on life that I hope will alter the way I navigate my life. Looking back at my previous blog post, I mentioned that this year has been incredibly transitional for me and although I had many positive changes and opportunities I didn’t feel completely grounded. This cleanse was initiated for several reasons. The first one being that death had become much more realistic for me as I realized people who were young and vibrant just as myself were susceptible to being killed. Of course, I was always aware that death was a part of the process, but the experience opened my eyes to how I needed to alter my ways of living to prepare for that process. Also, I hoped to improve the overall quality of my life by engaging in activities that served purpose in my life and by removing activities that did not serve purpose in my life. This cleanse was a test of my self-love, self-worth, and overall strength. I gave up things that society portrayed as being vital to a happy, functional, and meaningful life. I gave up alcohol, clubs/ bars, caffeine, and social media. I forced myself to mend rocky relationships with people that I never imagined ever reaching out to. I challenged myself to improve meaningful relationships. The changes I made this past month allowed for improved productivity, peace of mind, knowledge, sleep, and healthier interpersonal relationships. Similar to many of my followers and friends, I enjoy social media and the many positives that it has to offer, however I am not blind to the many negatives associated with it. Recently, Apple released an update that would alert users of their phone usage. My average daily phone usage was about 7-8 hours per day. That is a typical shift for a full-time job. When I processed my daily phone usage I couldn’t help but to think of all of the tasks I could complete in that amount of time. Along with being more aware of the amount of time I spent on social media, I began to notice that I was willing sacrifice sleep for extended social media time. I began to notice that I was limiting my productivity because I was more entertained by scrolling through a timeline and much more satisfied avoiding actual responsibilities. Considering that I was in a huge transitional period of my life, I knew that social media would have to be removed from my life entirely in order to complete tasks that would allow me to move to the next phase of my life. I have been without social media for a month and the changes in my lifestyle are significant. Instead of scrolling through my phone in the morning, I hop out of bed to get my day started. Instead of scrolling through social media before bed, I drink herbal sleep tea, listen to music, and started reading “the sun and her flowers by rupi kaur.” On my commute to work, I make a to-do list for the day while listening to a podcast (typically Ted talks related to self-help, mental illness, and success). As I approached the end of my cleanse, I downloaded my social media apps to filter the content I posted and the content I absorbed. I decided to delete all of my photos and to start fresh with meaningful content that represents where I am post-cleanse. I chose to go through the Instagram accounts I followed to be sure the people I was following were posting content that supported the goals of post-cleanse Jada. As I previously mentioned, a crucial part of my cleanse was to mend rocky relationships. This was probably the most interesting part of my cleanse. I initiated this phase of my cleanse by making a list of people I felt I had rocky relationships with and hoped to take ownership for the aspects of the relationship I may have played toxic parts in. This list wasn’t extremely extensive because I attempt to create as many positive, meaningful relationships as I can. However, I am not perfect and am still learning how to navigate different people who have had different upbringings and who move through life with different purposes. When reaching out to the people on this list, I explained my reasoning for reaching out and I apologized for moments in which I may have reflected my insecurities, unhappiness, or toxic ways onto them. A huge part of healing is understanding how YOU were toxic. People often don’t want to take accountability for their actions, but there is no room for growth if you aren’t able to see how you added fuel to the fire. I had no expectation of hearing back from some people and quite frankly no response was the best response for me. Thank you to those of you who understood my journey and who allowed yourself to be a part of my journey. I am hopeful for healthier relationships. Right now. At this very moment. I feel grounded. I feel secure. I feel capable. I feel thankful for every moment that I am able to work toward my aspirations. I feel at peace. I encourage all of my supporters to consider a soul cleanse. Adjust the goals and features of the cleanse to best fit your lifestyle. Ensure that you are mentally prepared to take on a cleanse. If you’re not mentally prepared to take on a complex monthly cleanse, try altering one thing in your routine every month. For example, try doing one good deed every day for a month or try going without caffeine for a month. Start piece by piece then build your way up to step-wise soul cleanse that tackles several aspects of your life. You get to restart as many times as you need to. Thank you to my friends and family members who supported me during my cleanse. Thank you for respecting my limitations. -The Jay-Word
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
July 2021
Categories |