Decreasing Toxicity: Step 1

As a refresher, in the last post about decreasing toxicity, I’ve talked about the first three steps; the first step is openness, the second is education and the third is acceptance.  It was mentioned how the first and third step is where most people may get stuck.  In this post I will discuss step one more in depth.

Step one, again, is openness.  You must keep an open mind, because the so-called healthy habits that have been taught via mass media (at least in the past) may be contradicted.  For example, what if all that calorie counting that you’ve been in the habit of doing is counter-productive?  Fortunately, much of the old ideas about healthy living are changing, because many facts that I’ve known to be true for years are becoming more popular.  Eating organic fresh produce, for example, is something that I’ve been doing for years.  There was a time when I’ve been lectured or mocked for it because it is so much more expensive than conventionally grown produce and it seemed nonsensical.  Now, even the great Dr. Oz advises to eat organic when you can.  When you are happy in your comfort zone it is VERY difficult to keep an open mind.  The resistance that I often get from loved ones when I try to urge healthier habits is unbelievable sometimes.  One individual was resisting something that I said about toxicity so adamantly that he started to analyze what a toxin REALLY is.  I, at that point, just stopped talking and just listened because it was very obvious that this individual did not want to know what it was that I had to say about toxicity.  He wasn’t open.  In his defense, I did come charging like a rootin’ tootin’ cowgirl with all my information about toxicity when he just wasn’t ready to hear it.  Just as one needs to be open to the fact that some information may make them uncomfortable, I as a life coach need to be open to the fact that there are people who just don’t want to know.  When this individual's contentment in his comfort zone was threatened, intellectualization was his defense.  He pushed away the information that I offered by over analyzing details like how there are toxins in the world that are useful.  Yes, there are useful toxins in the world, however, that wasn’t pertinent to the conversation.  If an individual so tenaciously desires his safe, warm and cozy comfort zone; they will fight to stay there.  They will fight to stay unless something brutally pushes them out and sometimes they STILL won’t budge even then.

When one meets resistance in step one that is when I should stop because at that point I cannot expect change.  When one is willing to hear more, that is all that is necessary to graduate to step 2.