Reducing Toxins to Support Spiritual Awakening

I quit drinking alcohol completely in November 2018 to support my mental health. Before this, my relationship with alcohol was messy—one of numbing and excess. There was lots of fun and partying that I absolutely don’t regret, but I’d gotten to a point where I realised that consuming alcohol daily for years was hugely hindering and harming my mental health. It limited my capacity to do other things I wanted to do due to hangovers. I didn’t realise how much alcohol consumption was fuelling depressive thinking patterns within me until I started introducing breaks from it, which eventually led to giving it up completely.

I also significantly reduced the chemicals I put on my skin. Around 2017, I got obsessed with the chemicals in everyday products and totally cleaned up what I was putting on my body. I ended up making a lot of my own “chemical-free” products, such as washing up liquid, clothes wash, soap, shampoo, and makeup. I was also vegan for a number of years and conscious of the “chemicals” I was ingesting in processed food. Though admittedly, as a self-confessed food lover (including various types of “junk” food), I’ve never managed to eat an entirely plant-based, whole food diet for extended periods. I was entirely plant-based for maybe six years but still ate lots of nommy fried food, replacement meat products, and takeaways.

I also used to fast, practising intermittent fasting on and off for a number of years. This obsession extended to what I drank, so I filtered my drinking and cooking water too. I tried to eat organic where possible and reduce my exposure to seed oil and PUFAs (polyunsaturated fatty acids), especially when cooking—checking the heat point of oils I used and mostly opting for coconut oil or olive oil when cooking at home.

I’d given up smoking tobacco a few years before and had given up an e-cigarette that I was permanently attached to a few years later. And, of course, I was practising yoga and meditation, which was clearing out my energy channels.

I don’t include this information to be self-celebratory; I only share it to give an idea of the circumstances in my life that supported my spiritual awakening. I have since lapsed on many of these habits and practices, and am still on my spiritual path, so I share these experiences without any presumption of whether any of them made or make any difference. I know people who eat meat and/or drink alcohol and are deeply spiritual (I mean, we all are – we’re spiritual beings having a human experience) and have shit-hot intuition; some people smoke weed and do other drugs and are still very “connected”. It ultimately is a mystery, but what I learned about yogic science made me wonder whether these lifestyle choices had been an influence in my spiritual awakening.

Can Spiritual Awakening Happen If I’m Taking Pharmaceutical Drugs or Medication?

When I experienced my spiritual awakening, I was on antidepressants. I think I was on 20mg of citalopram. Not long before this time (within a couple of years before it happened), I’d been on antipsychotics (quetiapine, though I can’t remember the dose but it was for a few months). I also took sleeping pills for insomnia (zopiclone 7mg, but I often split them in half).

In terms of physical health and medication, I had mild asthma and needed to use a blue and brown inhaler sometimes. I’d had it since I was a child. It was aggravated by pollution, exercise, dust, and chemicals in products like synthetic smells (so think man-made perfumes and aftershaves) and smoking. I say “was” because my Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training actually cured my asthma. At the time of writing, I haven’t needed to use an inhaler since the start of February 2024 (six months ago) when the teacher training started, despite needing my inhalers every day in India prior to this point because of the crazy pollution. More on that healing in another post…

Anyway, there’s a lot of misinformation and judgement out there in both the spiritual and non-spiritual world about medication, especially psychiatric medication. Sometimes people feel guilty for taking medication or like it might make you less spiritual or “block” you. I think this is dangerous to perpetuate. While I recommend limiting the toxins in your system, or at least bringing awareness to what you’re putting in and on your body, I absolutely support and encourage using medication when needed, especially psychiatric medication. I personally don’t like to stay on psychiatric medications long-term, so I try to come off them once I’m starting to feel better and more stable.

However, antidepressants lifted me out of a place where I was completely broken and could barely care for myself or function, and lifted me to a place where I could start to live normally and work on healing myself. In my experience, being on pharmaceutical medication doesn’t affect spiritual awakening.

My Awakening Experience with Light Language

My spiritual awakening involved the activation of light language, an experience that felt like a profound shift in consciousness and connection to a higher spiritual realm. When light language first activated within me, it was a spontaneous and transformative event. This experience came after years of setting intentions around healing my mental health and taking my meditation practice more seriously. I worked with chakra meditation, vipassana, visualisation, affirmations, pranayama, mantra, and yoga nidra.

Interestingly, when light language activated, I was on antidepressants (citalopram 20mg) and had previously been on antipsychotics and sleeping pills. Despite these medications, the awakening occurred, highlighting that spiritual experiences are not necessarily hindered by pharmaceutical drugs. The practices of meditation, mindfulness, and reducing toxins in my body seemed to create a conducive environment for this awakening.

Supporting Awakening with Meditation

I know of one individual who experienced a spiritual awakening through meditation. It spontaneously occurred when she was meditating; she hadn’t heard of it or received it before. To me, this illustrates that meditation should not be discarded when trying to support a spiritual awakening. Even if an awakening never happens, meditation will change your life anyway.

Before I had my awakening, I had been setting intentions around healing my mental health for a couple of years. I had also been meditating and taking my meditation practice a lot more seriously for a couple of years. I worked with chakra meditation, vipassana, visualisation, affirmations, pranayama, mantra, and yoga nidra.