Hands up those of you who, after an overly indulgent weekend, have vowed to “go on a detox”. Some of you will have tried cutting out carbs, drinking litres of luke-warm lemon water or perhaps eating bowlfuls of cabbage soup, hoping to clean out stagnant residue and give your body a new lease of life.

Yet how many of you have given the same attention to spring-cleaning your emotions? Just as a glut of junk food, alcohol or drugs stagnates in the body, toxic emotions can keep you mentally stuck in the same place or suck you into a downward spiral. Is it possible to detox your mind and move towards a happier and healthier emotional state?

Emotional danger

There is no such thing as a negative or unhealthy emotion. Every emotion has its place and can be good for you, as long as it is dealt with in the right way. Emotions may feel unpleasant but they’re not “good” or “bad”; it is only your attitude towards the emotion and what you do with the energy it generates that causes it to become toxic.

So what makes a healthy emotion turn toxic? Toxicity occurs when emotions are rejected, judged, suppressed or lied about. These behaviours create emotional mind states that eventually lead to the core psychological disorders of our time: depression, addiction and anxiety.

However, there are a number of specific emotions that commonly cause the most suffering when they are hidden or denied for long enough. The emotions that most often turn toxic include — but are not limited to — hurt, sadness, shame, hopelessness, fear, anger, hate, jealousy, pride, resentment, greed and guilt. Although some of these emotions are interconnected, each can cause its own uniquely catastrophic impact on physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing.

Emotions that turn toxic

• Hurt
• Sadness
• Shame
• Hopelessness
• Fear
• Anger
• Hate
• Jealousy
• Pride
• Resentment
• Greed
• Guilt

For some, even reading the words “fear”, “anger” or “hopelessness” can bring up uncomfortable feelings, memories or associations. From an early age, many of you may have been taught to repress, suppress, endure, deny or escape so-called “painful” emotions, the result being you grow up having learned to fear their expression. Many men have been taught that emotions in general are effeminate — women’s stuff — though women fare little better. They may be a little more comfortable with the idea of emotions in general but have been taught to endure them in silence. The majority of us believe we shouldn’t feel what we do.

In fact it is quite normal and healthy to express emotions such as anger or fear. It is only the extreme of an emotion that is unhealthy, particularly when it is repressed. Left unchecked, emotions can become toxic time bombs, draining energy and sabotaging happiness, success and health.

Mind-body manifestation

Toxic emotions don’t just affect your mental state; they are the root of many physical ailments and diseases and are therefore just as damaging to your health, if not more so, than actual toxic waste within the body. Ancient Ayurvedic texts describe disease as the final expression of toxic accumulations in the mind-body physiology. Similarly, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) identifies extremes of joy, anger, fear, anxiety, fright, pensiveness and grief as emotional states which, when repressed, wreak physiological havoc on particular organs of the body.

An excess of stored anger is said to damage the liver; an excess of fear to damage the kidneys; an excess of joy to damage the heart; an excess of grief to damage the lungs; and an excess of sympathy/pensiveness to damage the spleen.

Additionally, according to TCM theory, emotions do not just damage their related organ. Due to the relationships between the energy meridians (or channels) within the body, left long enough, the excess of any unexpressed emotion will inevitably lead to damage in the liver channel. The liver is ruler of emotions, balancing them and ensuring free circulation of qi or energy. When an emotion becomes “stuck” in an organ and the liver is unable to shift it, the liver becomes blocked and so the body loses balance.

In the 1960s, the modern-day mind-body medicine phenomenon finally validated the connection between emotions and illness that has been at the core of Ayurveda and TCM for centuries. The so-called “cancer personality” was studied; so was the Type-A personality which was linked to a higher risk of early heart attacks.