{"id":769,"date":"2009-11-19T18:22:15","date_gmt":"2009-11-19T18:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/2009\/11\/toxic-thoughts-and-the-four-elements.html"},"modified":"2009-11-19T18:22:15","modified_gmt":"2009-11-19T18:22:15","slug":"toxic-thoughts-and-the-four-elements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/11\/toxic-thoughts-and-the-four-elements.html","title":{"rendered":"Toxic Thoughts and the Four Elements"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The_Four_Elements_by_NLbroekieNL.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>Today in my acupuncture session, I had a fascinating conversation about toxic thoughts.  I shared with my acupuncturist my “message dream”<\/a> in which I heard the phrase “toxic thoughts are water soluble” over and over again.  <\/p>\n

I told her how that image had turned into something of a mantra for me these past couple of weeks.  We human beings are essentially made of water, and I’ve been visualizing clear, clean water flowing through my veins…dissolving any toxicity that might find its way in via bad food, negative thinking, polluted air, and more.  Water, purifying, cleansing water.  <\/p>\n

She then shared how she imagines toxicity–as wind.  She visualizes herself as a screen door, able to feel the toxic wind and live with it, but just watching it blow through her, unable to stick or hold onto her body or mind.<\/p>\n

Wow – between the two of us, we hit on two of the four essential elements.  I thought I’d give the other two a try.<\/p>\n

Fire seems like a gimme, right?  Like those little pieces of flint-y paper that burst into a spark-flame and incinerate?  In the purifying fire of a clear mind, toxic things will simply consume and be gone.<\/p>\n

Earth is a little more tricky, because it conjures an image of being buried – not something we want to do with toxic thoughts.  But here’s my attempt–think about dirt as the rich, fertile remains of something that was rotten and dying (like the contents of a compost pile, aka leftover salad from last week).  Imagine toxic things crumbling into clean, dark earth, ready to receive the seeds of something new and alive.<\/p>\n

Which element are you drawn to?  <\/p>\n

(image via: http:\/\/www.freewebs.com\/avatar-videos-online\/pictures.htm<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Like what you see? <\/strong>Click here to subscribe<\/strong><\/font><\/a> and get Fresh Living in your in-box every day!<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can get rid of toxic thoughts by imagining them as any of the four essential elements–earth, wind, fire, or water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-holly-lebowitz-rossi","category-holistic-living"],"yoast_head":"\nToxic Thoughts and the Four Elements - Fresh Living<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/11\/toxic-thoughts-and-the-four-elements.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Toxic Thoughts and the Four Elements - Fresh Living\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You can get rid of toxic thoughts by imagining them as any of the four essential elements--earth, wind, fire, or water.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/11\/toxic-thoughts-and-the-four-elements.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fresh Living\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-11-19T18:22:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/11\/The_Four_Elements_by_NLbroekieNL-thumb-215x215-9539.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"hrossi\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Toxic Thoughts and the Four Elements - Fresh Living","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/11\/toxic-thoughts-and-the-four-elements.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Toxic Thoughts and the Four Elements - Fresh Living","og_description":"You can get rid of toxic thoughts by imagining them as any of the four essential elements--earth, wind, fire, or water.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/11\/toxic-thoughts-and-the-four-elements.html","og_site_name":"Fresh Living","article_published_time":"2009-11-19T18:22:15+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/11\/The_Four_Elements_by_NLbroekieNL-thumb-215x215-9539.jpg"}],"author":"hrossi","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/11\/toxic-thoughts-and-the-four-elements.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/11\/toxic-thoughts-and-the-four-elements.html","name":"Toxic Thoughts and the Four Elements - 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A graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Divinity School, she has more than a decade of experience writing about religion and spirituality for Newsweek, The Washington Post, Spa Finder, Sojourners, Search, and many other publications. Her commentaries have also been heard on NPR\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153All Things Considered.\" When not at her desk, you can find her baking, in her garden, or rockin' out in water aerobics class. She lives in Arlington, Mass. Visit http:\/\/www.hollyrossi.com for more.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/author\/hrossi"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}