The Mental Cleanse

I am not sure if any of you have ever heard of the 30 Day Mental Cleanse. It means not watching TV., reading newspapers, internet, listening to negative people, talking negative about anyone.etc Basically, “stop the negative chatter in your mind.” You know some of that Self Help Stuff.

My husband, who is a police officer, started it about 4 months ago. I am only just finishing up month one. What took me so long to join my husband you may wonder? Well…..to put it simply, I was in total denial.

I did not need Any Self Help! I have always felt I was a pretty positive person. I was convinced I didn’t need to stop watching TV or reading the newspaper to prove that. ( This from someone who reads the obituaries in the paper first…how uplifting…lol) I LOVED watching T.V. Now, I work from home so I never have time to watch T.V during the day. However…I was very much addicted to the wonderful invention called the DVR. As soon as things were settled at night I could not wait to cuddle up and watch T.V. I loved reality T.V. too. After all, it was the most dramatic.

I mean how fun watching other peoples negativity and drama , right? Oh…and did I mention that every morning I checked the news headlines on the internet…..yes, very positive indeed…NOT. I was convinced I could do all those above listed things and still be a truly positive person. Lets not EVEN get started about the listening to negative people. IT AMAZES ME THAT THE MOST NEGATIVE PEOPLE I KNOW CLAIM THEY CAN”T STAND NEGATIVE PEOPLE.

Power of Positive Thinking After watching my husband, who is a police officer totally evolve as a person in the last four months. I decided that in fact there may be something to this Mental Cleanse stuff. As many of you know, being a police officer is a thankless job. You are basically seeing other human beings at their worst. They are underpaid and underappreciated. These factors can make even the most positive person, negative. On top of all that, many of the guys my husband works with LOVE to sit around and talk about the injustices of the pay and lack of appreciation.

So, my husband went to his negative job, came home and watched the negative news, read the negative headlines, listened to negative co-workers…you get the point. He decided enough was enough. He started a new business and joined Mentoring for Free and joined the mental cleanse. It has been amazing watching his transformation. I am so proud of him. So, you could say that he was my inspiration for finally doing it for myself. Wow, the power of positive thinking!

The first week I started it was pretty difficult. I was kind of consumed with the fact that I was not supposed to watch T.V. It was all I could think about. I started reading THINK AND GROW RICH by Napoleon Hill. This book is also part of the Mental Cleanse, you read a chapter a week, write a lesson plan and then get on the phone with others doing the same thing once a week and talk about it. More about that later……The book is a hard read but amazing. So, I changed from watching T.V. at night to reading books about the power of positive thinking. Eat, Pray, Love and the Go-Giver were two of my favorites.

Also during this process I became more aware of who the heck I was surrounding myself with. I could not believe how my eyes were opened to the fact that there were many people in my life who did nothing but spew negativity. I guess I never realized it, before. What was worse….I kind of liked all that drama…oh no…..maybe I wasn’t as positive as I thought…Maybe I did need some of this self help! I would get on the phone or get together with a friend for coffee and I was all too happy to engage in some negative, judgmental talk about someone else.

This cleanse has made me realized that I enjoyed that gossip and negativity a little too much. We have a joke down here in the south that the we may say some pretty mean things but if we follow it up with “But bless their heart,”it somehow lessons the blow.

In the weeks that followed it got easier. I was so inspired by a chapter in Think and Grow Rich that I wrote a lesson plan that was picked from hundreds to be read by me on the weekly Mental Cleanse call. The people on the call that day had some pretty incredible feedback on my lesson plan. That has only inspired me further to continue this Mental Cleanse, to dig deep and really look at myself.

As one of my favorite authors says” Small minded people talk about people. Brilliant people talk about thoughts.”

I still struggle with that from time to time. I am far from perfect. I am learning as I go. In the beginning of this cleanse, I was doubtful. Now, I am excited for each next step!

Angela Bobal

Learn all about the mental cleanse by reading the ebook, Success in 10 Steps.

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