It seems I’m supposed to ‘detox’. I may have mentioned that I have this internal rule that if I see, hear or experience something three times, I’ve learned to pay attention. For instance if someone mentions a book I should read and then someone else asks if I’ve read that book and then I happen to open the paper and read a review of the book, I take it as a little nudge from the universe that I’d probably better read the book. It might seem like a goofy quirk to some but over the years it has worked for me.

Over the last several weeks, I keep coming in contact with the practice of ‘detoxing’ your body. I had a conversation with a friend last week who had done this flushing out of all the toxins that get into our bodies through a variety of means. Then I was at a co-op and was confronted with a display of detoxification powders, liquids and educational pamphlets. Finally day before yesterday, while at the exercise club, I saw a brochure from a local chiropractor that provided a checklist of symptoms a person might experience that could be relieved by detoxing. I looked over my shoulder as I picked it up. Is someone trying to tell me something?

Several years ago I started going twice a month to a massage therapist who helps me keep the stress in my life under control. Yesterday as I climbed onto her table I asked her about detoxification. She in turn asked me ‘what I needed to get rid of?" Good question. I then told her about how my hands were cold, it felt like the circulation wasn’t working as well as it should. And then I laid down and finally began to melt into the table as she worked on the stress points in my shoulders, neck, head and finally my very tense arms.
Wow! What have I been trying to hold onto…hold together…..fix…be in control of? As the muscles made their way back to the rightful position and elasticity, my hands warmed up and I felt the tension flow out of my fingertips onto the floor.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had this kind of experience. Coming to a realization of how you carry the stress and worries of your life literally within your body. I know people often carry stress in their back or even in their neck and sometimes in their voice. This stress leads to countless hours of pain, lost work and a less fruitful life. It seems to be a by-product of our fast paced, disconnected way of living.

And so it was with a smile that I opened the paper this morning to read the words of The Dalai Lama who visited Mayo Clinic yesterday for his yearly physical. Go figure….The Dalai Lama comes to Rochester, Minnesota for his health care! Of course, if anyone should be feeling stress right now, I’d say he has good cause. The eyes of the world are watching as China prepares for the Olympic Games and the people of Tibet live under oppressive rule. As the exiled leader of Tibet, he must have much on his mind. And yet when asked about his stress level, his ability to sleep well, he answered: "If there is no solution, why worry? If there is a solution, why worry?"

Maybe that’s all the detoxification I really need. Even though I have only read these words one time, I am paying attention. I just felt my arms relax.

"Do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time, for it is not you who speak but the Spirit of God speaking through you." Matthew 10:19