By Amy Dirksen — Last Updated: March 11, 2025

Spring has sprung! Living here in Minnesota, I always look forward to these first true “coming out of winter” days – the light looks brighter, the air smells different, and we start to see the changes in nature around us. With this seasonal shift, I am always ready for spring cleaning, almost like a “detox” for our living spaces—the opportunity to fling open our windows and air out our winter spaces, clearing dead energy and letting in fresh air and new opportunities.

I find this time of year calls for me to deep clean in other, more personal, ways. After extra time spent sitting, streaming, scrolling, and eating the hearty food I prefer in winter (and maybe some extra snacking?), I can feel the need – physically, mentally, and emotionally – to revisit, revamp, and re-evaluate my choices about how I nourish myself. I can feel the need to detox.

But why bother with a detox? Anytime we find ourselves in a groove, rut, set pattern, or lovely schedule, we can become complacent with how we feel – “It's fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.” We’ve been in the pattern for so long that it’s hard to remember how we felt before that pattern. Maybe we’re not really fine?

A detox allows us the opportunity to discover how fine we really are.

No matter how healthy we are, or what measures we take to remain healthy, toxins and pollutants build up in our bodies, taking their toll. Poor eating habits – what we eat, how much we eat, when we eat – chip away at our vitality, energy, and immunity; they chip away at our healthiness. Our bodies are constantly changing, and detoxifying provides a chance to guide that change into more positive directions.

Detoxing - getting the junk out of our systems – allows us to feel the changes that are possible when we fuel ourselves with cleaner, healthier choices. With the mind/body connection that I have fostered through over 20 years of yoga practice, I have – without question –made changes that I doubt I would have without that connection. Noticing how my body feels as I move through my days has automatically led me to look for and nourish it in ways that are supportive and beneficial.

Does that mean I only eat vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins? For sure, it definitely does not mean that. I enjoy pizza. I enjoy an adult beverage. And dark chocolate has no chance around me.

Knowing that I don’t always make the healthiest food choices, especially in the cold darkness of our winters, I have participated in two different detoxes over the past few years. In each of them, I could almost immediately feel the changes – my energy was higher and more consistent throughout the day, I slept better, my mind was less foggy, and I could better live in my natural wake/sleep cycles, without the artificial energy of caffeine and processed sugar.

Although each of those detoxes was different, they shared some guiding principles:

Eating Mindfully. Any of us who have snacked our way through a book or movie have experienced the opposite of this: Mindless Eating. Just as mindfulness on our mat allows us to be present in our practice, so too does it allow us to be present in our food choices.

Eating Intuitively. This is the opposite of diets or magic potions or pills. Eating intuitively is eating because. Because this food invigorates me. Because this vegetable will boost my immunity. Because this food counteracts inflammation.

Eating Water-Rich Foods. Water-rich foods are easier for us to digest than other foods and help keep us clean on the inside. Unlike drinking water, the water in water-rich foods (primarily fruits and veggies) contains a host of beneficial vitamins and enzymes.

Eating Actual Food. Processed foods have had many of the actual nutritional benefits of that food removed, replaced with chemicals and “food-like” substances, and they tend to be loaded with salt, processed sugar, and/or fats. Getting back to making food from actual food can feel revolutionary in our bodies, as we receive the nutrients we so badly need to keep our engine running.

These detoxes allowed me to really feel what a difference my food choices made and helped me discover what changes - changes that didn’t feel like deprivation - I could make as part of my new nutritional lifestyle. As I added foods back into my diet after cleansing, I did so mindfully, noticing the effects of those new additions.

I began noticing all the added sugars in our foods and looked for options with less added sugar. I found preparations for our preferred veggies that made those veggies disappear and did a victory dance when “Can we have that roasted cauliflower you made last week?” were words actually spoken by my husband and son. Pizza? Yeah, it’s still in the mix.

In community, join Green Lotus in April for a 7-day detoxifying cleanse, starting with kick-off meetings to bring us together, answer questions, and support each other. We detox together, sharing joys, tribulations, and recipes. We also cleanse individually, finding our intentionality, our balance, and our personal detox journey through the seven days.

Days 1 & 2: Fruits, veggies, whole grains, and lean protein

Days 3, 4 & 5: Any form of fresh fruit or veggie (did you know tomatoes and avocados are fruits?)

Days 6 & 7: Fruits, veggies, whole grains, and lean protein

Modifications to our food diets will be supported by daily yoga to help support the cleansing process, opportunities for daily sweating (check out our infrared sauna!), information about supportive sleep practices, ion detox footbaths, and detox suggestions for our minds and emotions (less social media, anyone?).

Detox is Spring Cleaning for Mind and Body. Join us for seven days that could last a lifetime.

Learn More about Spring Detox

Amy Dirksen has combined her passion for wellness, for service to others, and for business by operating Green Lotus in Eden Prairie, Minnesota from 2015 - 2024. A former marketing executive for a national banking company, she also has many years of experience in teaching fitness and yoga classes in the Y system and at Green Lotus. She gives attention to students' individuals needs and is adept at adapting poses to make yoga accessible to as many people as possible. As a former owner of the Eden Prairie Green Lotus and our first license, Amy brings new insight and energy, laughter, and care to her current role as multi-center manager and to Green Lotus's its mission of integrated wellness. She lives in Eden Prairie with her wonderful husband and son (The Dude).

Emotional Well-Being