Recently I participated in a mental fast. This is a practice that involves keeping close vigilance over thoughts that come and go in the mind… The intention is to watch for the least budding of a negative thought. When a stressful or low frequency thought surfaced, I would immediately apply the principle of “upping” the emotional/mental frequency by looking for a “higher” version of that thought. The other application is, instead of spiraling into negativity, to consciously return the mind to a place of gratitude.
By the fifth day of this practice, much to my surprise, I found myself processing a very dense load of stress producing unconsciousness! The result was that I saw myself being more negatively reactive than I'd been in years!
SO What happened? Why wasn't I experiencing MORE peace and harmony instead of this onslaught of negativity?
I decided that this arduous mental task of monitoring negative thoughts may work very much the way a physical cleanse sometimes does in the body.
As I think about it I'm reminded of a type of alternative health treatment called “chelation therapy”, which is a way of clearing toxic metals out of the body's main arteries. Some professionals warn against chelation because it can loosen up toxins in the body so fast that the “debris” can end up overloading the bloodstream with dangerous residue. As a result, a chelation patient may end up getting really sick, even becoming deathly ill, as the body goes through its' healing crisis.
This “loosening of painful debris” is what I think I experienced on a mental level. Through the practice I think I stirred up “mental toxins” in the form of old beliefs and negative stories that had been lying dormant for years. As I practiced consciously “upping” my emotional frequency by changing the negative thought to a higher vibration, I imagine chunks of painful childhood story loosening and coming to the surface … assumptions about self and the world that had lay hidden, deeply embedded in unconsciousness floated to the surface of awareness for my “viewing pleasure”.
My task (and it WAS a challenge) was to see this process as a good thing, rather than use thus surge of negative thoughts as a reason to derail my mental practice. Rather than decide the practice wasn't working, to see it as doing the very job intended – to purge the mind of stressful thoughts by bringing them to the surface of consciousness where I have the opportunity to clear.