Welcome back to our brand new guided interactive series – How to Flourish! If you’re joining us for the first time, make sure to go back and check out last week’s article so you don’t miss a thing. This week we’re talking about your mental diet, or inputs, and how important they are to flourishing. What you allow to come into your mind is a big part of what your daily reality looks like. We’ll get clear on why this is important and then we will take you step by step through what we call a Mental Detox.

How to use this guide:

• For the sections entitled “questions” or “practice,” you can approach these a few different ways. You can just allow your thoughts to flow in a “brain dump” style journaling session, or using voice notes. Feel free to keep these to reflect later or even delete them once the thoughts are out of your head! You can also work through these questions with a friend or partner. 
• It may be helpful to do this work in short sessions daily or a few times per week. Get comfortable, make a cup of tea or coffee. Put on a soothing playlist or enjoy some quiet time. 
• You can also feel grounded by doing some deep breathing before you get started! 
• An easy exercise to begin with is inhaling for 4 and exhaling for 6, pretending like you are blowing out through a straw. This will help you activate your parasympathetic nervous system, aka the “rest, digest, recover” part.

How to Assess Your Mental Diet and Detox Your Mind

All the time, with what we think and what we take in, we are shaping our brains. But how often do you take stock of what’s going in there? You may be used to doing this for food, makeup or skincare, or even cleaning products. But have you ever done an assessment and detox of your “mental diet”?

Over the next week or so, let’s get curious and explore each area. With each category start by raising your awareness and approaching it with curiosity. Remember, the point is not to judge yourself.

1 – Assess Your Mental Diet

Take stock of what’s coming into your mind and brain in each area.

• Is it a habit? Is it something you actually want to do? Do you do it out of obligation or to have topics for discussion with coworkers?
• How does it make you feel, before, during and after?
• How much time do you spend?
• Is it serving you and the person you’re becoming? Your future goals? What do you want to create in life? The way you truly want to live?
• How can you curate it to be supportive to your goals and new reality?

2 – Detox Your Mind

After you assess what’s coming in and how it makes you feel, the next step is to decide if it’s in or out! Just like any sort of physical detox or decluttering, get rid of the stuff that isn’t helpful or supportive.

You also may want to take shorter periods of time completely away from electronics and devices.

Tips for getting started:

• Choose your own adventure
• Remember, this is an area in which you have way more control than you think! 
• However you’d like to proceed is up to you. You can choose to keep or temporarily delete apps. You can do a complete digital detox for a day or for a week. 
• You may choose to engage with any of these things however you want, but after the assessment and edit, you might feel differently, and that’s okay! 
• It does not have to be all or nothing! 
• And you may return to this exercise every few months, or yearly, making adjustments as necessary.

3 – Curate What You’re Taking In

Part of flourishing is creating your new reality and one key way to do this is by getting intentional about what you allow into your world. As you have already gotten clear on your values, vision, and perspective in Part 1 of our Flourishing Series, compare what’s in your mental diet to these things. Does what you’re taking in match your values? Does it support your vision? Does it give you energy or does it drain you? Does it help nurture positive thoughts? And does it help propel you forward in your goals?

4 – Reflect, celebrate, and create

Reflect each day on how it’s going – celebrate yourself for doing this for you! And see where there are opportunities to shift your thinking further. You may want to keep a journal or write small notes in your notes app. You’re going to gain powerful insights as a result of doing this. Let’s see what we can create with this new mindset!

On to the Work! – Your Mental Inputs

Go through the above process with each area below. We recommend taking the week and going through one area per day. You can also feel free to take more time and come back to any area as needed.

Social media

You can choose to follow only people who inspire you and share helpful things? If you don’t want to totally let someone go, can you mute them so you can choose when you look at their stuff?

Or maybe you find that certain platforms are more conducive to your well being than others. Maybe you don’t enjoy facebook but feel the need to check out of obligation. Or maybe you prefer LinkedIn and you’re looking for a new job or opportunity, so you decide it’s helpful to spend time there. With instagram or tiktok, maybe you’re following more people than you’d actually care to, so you unfollow.

Email lists

Unsubscribe from anything you no longer want to receive, you can always resubscribe later! We know there are discounts to be had and sometimes it just feels like work, but consider which emails are adding value to your life. Are they sharing things that are helpful? Do you feel better after reading them? Do you even open them? Or are they just pressuring you to buy things that you truly don’t need (or let’s be honest, even want)?

News

Maybe instead of keeping the news app on your phone and seeing the previews all the time and potentially going down a rabbit hole, you can decide on a time you’d like to check on it and read only what you actually want to. Or instead of having the news on tv on in the background, you can choose to just read or watch at a set time only. And perhaps reducing your consumption from daily to weekly or even less.

TV

What’s the content of the show? How do you feel before, during and after? Perhaps you find yourself watching more episodes of a show than you originally planned. Maybe you set a goal to watch one episode instead of two. Can you recruit a friend or partner to hold you accountable to this goal?

Music

Music can inspire emotion, positive or negative. You can use music to change your state. 

Once again, let’s analyze the content. Is the music you’re listening to building you up or making you sad? Do you listen to music while you work? While you’re driving? Walking? And how does it affect you before, during and after?

Can you add instrumental or frequency music like binaural beats to improve concentration? What about adding in nature sounds as a way to relax? Is there a balance?

Podcasts

We love learning and being inspired and that’s our main goal with podcasts. How about you?

We also want to encourage you to have some quiet time every now and then. It’s easy to get on such a kick with podcasts that you never allow yourself to time to hear your own thoughts.

Do you listen to podcasts while you work? While you’re driving? Walking? And how does it affect you before, during and after?

Next Steps

And that’s part 2! We hope you enjoy taking time for your own self discovery as well as the homework assignments and the resources. Feel free to reach out to us via email, instagram (or comment below!) with any insights, questions, or breakthroughs! We would love to hear what you love and what you’d like to see more of.

Come back next week for Part 3 of our interactive Flourishing series! Next week we’re going to dive into Fears and Feelings – working with your fears, feeling your feelings, and emotional regulation. Want to get the series sent straight to your inbox? Sign up for our free email newsletter, Your Well and Whole Week! Each week we share a theme, a question, and a simple wellness practice for your week.

Looking for more personalized support on this journey? Want to go deeper? As we always say, it may be called “the inner work,” but that doesn’t mean you’re meant to do it alone. We would be honored to be your guides! Book a free session with either of us here. It may be the most valuable thing you do to move forward in your personal development journey!