Cleansing is not just about the physical self—it’s about your emotional self as well. I’ve noticed both personally and with my clients that during spring, we can feel overwhelmed with emotions, which may be old and stagnant. My suggestion is that we don’t stuff our feelings; rather, we need to dig deep and bless our bodies for working. In order to move forward, we must let the past go.

Here are some tips to help you through what I call an “emotional cleansing”:

1. Make a list of all your grudges, frustrations, dislikes, and grievances. Then create a meditation around them such as the Buddhist “loving-kindness meditation” (I like Pema Chödrön’s version). Or, create your very own loving-kindness ritual or chant and picture forgiving all the people who have hurt you. Let them go with love and send them off in a bubble of white light. I like to shrink whomever has hurt me in my hand, in the bubble of white light, and then gently blow them away as I set them free. There they go, floating away in their own protected space.
2. Write down all the dreams you have stored away and put on a shelf somewhere, then mark them off your list as you accomplish them one by one.
3. Create a sacred space inside or out—then every morning or evening, perform a cleansing ritual for your emotional healing. I like to go into my yoga space and strip off all my clothing as I meditate in the nude, as if somehow I’m being baptized or bathed in light as I breathe and wash away the emotional baggage from the past. Find a space where you can reconnect to the light, your source, or whatever your higher power is; feel yourself enveloped in self-love and acceptance. Realize your purpose as you sit quietly day after day. Plant the seeds of perfect health as you meditate on your healthy body, heart, and mind. Forgive yourself in this sacred space, and make amends with yourself and others. Dig in deep as you clean away all the muck. Cry, laugh, and hug yourself. Get to know your beautiful new body with all its new scars, if that’s the case. When we’re naked, we feel liberated and free, and we gain a sense of what our bodies really feel and look like. No shame, no guilt, no judgment—just look at your body as the beautiful gift it is.
4. When I absolutely must rid myself of negative emotional ties or something that I just can’t seem to shake loose, I burn it in a ceremony. The full moon is a powerful time to ask the universe to help you let go, and the new moon is a great time for bringing in our desires. I write or draw a picture of the thing I must eliminate from my life and then create a ceremony around it as I burn it. I watch the ashes fly away as the problem goes with it, into the winds.
5. Finally, try the Native American technique that’s known as a “tree giveaway.” Take a personal belonging that is reminiscent of your problem, and then wrap it in a piece of fabric with some coffee beans or corn kernels as an offering to the earth. Hang your giveaway on a tree, and say a prayer as you let go of all the items in the bag. (No, you cannot hang an industrial-size garbage bag with all your problems from the neighbor’s tree.)

There are as many varieties of cleanses as there are people who need a good cleanse.

Cleansing is absolutely necessary for healing. After you’ve let go both physically and emotionally, you’ll see things more clearly, as if you’ve awakened from a sort of slumber. You will feel acutely alive. Celebrate like it’s your birthday, for you have been reborn.