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Here’s a potentially fresh take on a detox for you. Sometimes I get inspired to share fairly personal adventures, not so much to blab, more so to story-tell. If I’ve learnt anything, it’s that we all are connected, going the through the same lessons in our own different and challenging ways. So if my wins can help spark a win for someone else, that’s pretty rad in my books.
I’m a mind-body-spirit kind of gal, and regular acupuncture has been a high priority for me over the past 1.5 years. Consistently battling with low energy and adrenal fatigue (don’t we all!) I made the decision to focus on bringing balance into my body, starting with TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) and the energy meridians that interconnect all of our organs and systems. The basic premise of TCM is that if an energy pathway is blocked, in excess or lacking in energy, that particular organ will be affected and continue to spill into all other pathways and affect our overall health and wellbeing. Each session I would ask my amazing acupuncturist what he had worked on and the connection with my emotional health and how I could improve my situation. Being a typical perfectionist virgo, I naturally like to analyse everything and try to solve it myself. Overnight.
So after months and months and more months of the word ‘liver’ being announced and me feeling instantly better after the session yet back to fatigued shortly after, I was baffled; not only was I listening to my body in terms of not over-exercising, I hardly ever drank alcohol and my daily nutrition consisted of raw and steamed veggies, fruit, nuts and lean meat. I began to realise there had to be something more I could do.
I researched ‘liver detox’ and didn’t find much I wasn’t already practising; cut out processed foods, sugar, alcohol and caffeine. From this, I took away two red-flags. I had to give up coffee, and I decided to go all organic. The only other time I’ve ever lived this way was in my last 6 months of life in Adelaide, and my health and happiness had never been better. My food was about to get pricey, and my pre-workout piccolo latte (and if I’m honest, often an arvo almond latte booster) was about to receive a break-up call, but I considered it my medical intervention. Game on Kirst.
Since deciding to detox my liver, I do miss being welcomed with “Good morning princess!” each day by my coffee guys, but it’s totally worth the sacrifice... My. Life. Has. Changed. I feel physically lighter, emotionally lighter, energetically lighter. I feel like Kirsty again. My energy is rapidly improving. I am running again. My digestion is improving. My skin is glowing (take that teenage acne... POW!!). Stubborn body fat is falling away. In fact I am feeling emotional just thinking about the incredible changes that have taken place in my life in every sense of the meaning over the past couple of months. Do I miss my habitual coffee and commercially farmed produce? No way!!
So why does a liver cleanse help you feel so great?? Here’s the emotion connection.
In TCM, the liver is our anger centre, storing our repressed anger and frustrations. If we are in tune with our body and energy, we can often discover the heart of the issues ourselves; if not we need extra help to bring it out to the surface to let go of.
Now I’m definitely not an angry person, in fact most people will tell you they can’t imagine me angry. So here’s where things get a little bit crazy; just because we haven’t expressed anger doesn’t mean we haven’t felt it. Perhaps we’ve chosen to ‘think positive’ and instead squashed it and changed our thoughts and actions, rather than addressing why we’ve felt frustrated, dealing with it head on and then changing our thoughts and actions. Perhaps we haven’t spoken up for ourselves and decided to let a situation go, when really we’ve actually buried it in our liver. And we continue to block the issues with alcohol, chemicals and processed foods and caffeine.
Everything starts from the physical. Once we change the way we think, feel and act, then we grow, transform and transcend. We release the old garbage; the ex-boyfriends, ex-girlfriends, power struggles, control issues, addictive behaviours, fears of receiving love and support, they all manifest as physical ailments in our bodies and they all begin to melt away. And we don’t necessarily have to consciously work through it all, unless we’re that way inclined and energetically in tune, we can simply choose to bring health and balance into our bodies and each individual organ will start to transcend the dark and bring in the light. And suddenly we don’t feel like coffee anymore. Suddenly we’re un-interested in emotional eating. We start feeling like a ball of energy, we wake up creating our own sunshine and we attract other people and situations that resonate with us.
All because we have chosen to quit the things that promise instant happiness but result in long-term injury and loss of energy to our bodies and our souls.
Deep blog huh.
I you are prepared, I dare you to do a liver cleanse. Even just start with alcohol and join Dry July (sign up for free: www.dryjuly.com it’s not too late!). Try one thing at a time. Going all organic can be inaccessible financially, so instead commit to eating organic where it really does matter. Meat is super important; get it as clean as you can. Many fruits and veggies are heavily sprayed and others not so much (check out the ‘clean 15 & dirty dozen’ http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/), but you can always choose produce with thick skins, such as oranges, that have a greater protective barrier.
You may or may not be ready, gosh it took me long enough to do it, but I do appeal to you to be open to making some small changes for a greater purpose. Feeling amazing is well worth the effort!
Go on, break up with your coffee guy. You can still go back and say hi J
Xx Kirsty
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
KIRSTY WELSH
Personal Trainer, Health & Wellness Expert; Health Writer & Presenter
She is a qualified Fitness Trainer & Yogafit Instructor; holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Health and Human Movement; and is a qualified CHEK Holistic Lifestyle Coach & Reiki & NLP and Timeline Therapy Practitioner; and it doesn’t stop there.
For Kirsty, health and wellness is a way of life and she is keenly passionate about inspiring others to help them achieve their optimum health. Aside from running a successful personal training business, Kirsty has also worked extensively in the media & entertainment industry; as the personal trainer for Mel B (Scary Spice), the 2011 Final 12 X-Factor contestants, and as the behind-the-scenes trainer for Channel 9′s BIG: Extreme Makeover.
Today, she appears regularly in The Sunday Telegraph’s Body+Soul weekly lift out, recently becoming the face of their body + soul revolution program – a 10week online diet and fitness program aimed at helping people achieve a balanced and healthy lifestyle.
She also appears regularly on healthyMEtv.com.au, writes for Women’s Fitness magazine and Yahoo! 7 Lifestyle and is regularly quoted by various newspapers and magazines for her outstanding knowledge of health and fitness.
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