Fresh Thoughts for Your Monday: Get Rid of the Clutter

Now’s a perfect time to let go of what you no longer need. A clean space and mind allow for something new to enter your life.

Live a life free of clutter. You have what it takes to thoughtfully and easily remove those things from your life that no longer suit you. Those things may be actual objects, but they can also be negative thoughts clouding your positivity or over-commitments weighing heavily on your shoulders.

Consider spending time today removing the tangible and intangible clutter from your life and get to the essence of what’s important to you.

Fresh Air

     When you live in a cold-weather climate, there's nothing as lovely as opening windows for the first time in the spring and letting in fresh air. My routine spring tasks include sweeping out the mounds of sand from the garage floor that had accumulated over months of snow, washing winter salt off of the car and putting screens back on casement windows. I practically dance whenever I do these chores, for it means one thing: spring! Warmer weather is on the way. It’s a time of newness.

      It's been our habit in recent years to remove the screens from our home’s windows in the fall, washing them down and storing them for the winter so we can get the most out of the precious daylight streaming through our windows during the long, dark months. Whenever I hear the temperature is supposed to soar into the 60s, I wash the insides of the windows, reinstall the screens and then let in the fresh breezes to release the stale, cooped-up winter air.

      Such activity makes me think of the stale energy that might be cooped up and cluttering my mind and heart.

      A few years ago, I didn’t want to admit I was stuck in a rut. Things were difficult in my life at that time between my own illness and caring for a dying parent. I felt stuck in chaos. In looking back, however, I realize I was indeed stuck in a rut. I was stuck in the mindset of how I thought things should be in my life, not how they actually were.

      Once I identified my true feelings and set into motion some new thoughts, I opened my mind and heart, letting go of the difficult things that weighed me down. That new perspective brought about an acceptance and gratitude that helped me through a tough time. Rather than staying stuck in “what should be,” I found peace in “what was.”

      When I breathe in gratitude and change my way of thinking, it’s as if that old energy dissipates and a new, affirming energy sweeps in to take its place. I grow by gaining new insights. Where I had been stuck, there is now release. The windows of my world become clearer. The salt and sand stuck in the crevices of my old mindset are swept away. That’s one type of cleaning that doesn’t have to wait until spring.

Spring Cleaning

It was a slate-gray, windy and rainy Sunday, and I was home in my pajamas and robe, snuggled in my chair, coughing, blowing my nose and suffering from aches and chills. The weather and my body seemed to be accurate reflections of each other. A spring cold was not on my to-do list. While I missed several scheduled events due to this unwelcome cold visiting me, including singing in a choir concert that afternoon, I decided to use my quiet time to spring clean. Unlike the physical exertions of washing windows, removing clutter from closets and scrubbing down cupboards, this spring cleaning involved ridding myself of the clutter in my mind. First of all, I searched for those things that were lurking around in the recesses that didn't contribute to my well-being. I found that I had a more than generous load of assumptions, expectations and sorrows that were only weighing me down. As I searched some more, I uncovered grudges, judgments and over-commitments. There were stresses, uncertainties, fears, worries, negative thoughts, sad memories and statements I wished I could take back. With eyes closed, I visualized unloading these burdens that were causing me so much harm and creating in me a sense of dis-ease. I evaluated each concern and worked to frame it more positively, turning fear into hope, sorrow into gratitude, stress into peace, uncertainty into clarity, worry into joy, crisis into opportunity, old hurts into new understandings. I was amazed at how hard it was to let go of those burdens (Why did I still want to own them?), but as I released them little by little, my mind, body and spirit felt healthier. Who would have guessed that a cold, in all of its untimeliness and unpleasantness, could actually end up being the gift of such necessary spring cleaning?

Time for Spring Cleaning

It may sound kind of silly, but January and February are traditionally my months for spring cleaning.  I started this ritual a few years ago during a blizzard.  With nothing to do, I set to cleaning out cupboards, vacuuming behind the refrigerator, culling the closets of clothes and other belongings no longer worn or used, cleaning the insides of windows and basically getting our home gussied up for another year.  When April and May arrived, I was grateful to have done the big jobs while it was still sub-zero with feet of snow on the ground, for in the spring, I had only one thought in mind and it wasn't about cleaning.  When Daylight Savings Time rolls around again and the sun feels warmer and the sky looks bluer, I want to go outside and stay out there until the first frost.  So, in keeping with tradition, I enlisted the help of my husband Larry to clean the kitchen one recent Saturday.  Everything was wiped clean, even the tops of cupboards and light fixtures.  We, then, moved to the ceiling fan blades and the bathrooms where everything was dumped out of drawers, cleaned out and returned to their proper places.  It felt good to get such tiresome jobs done.  There's still more to do, but we have February for that. When spring really does arrive, I'll be able to march right outside, guilt free, and take in the season with joy, leaving my clean house behind.

Spring Cleaning and Greening

For the past couple of weeks, I've been spring cleaning indoors and spring "greening" outdoors.  I've cleaned kitchen cupboard surfaces, swept the garage, dusted ceiling fan blades, wiped out bathroom cupboard drawers, cleaned carpets and wood laminate floors, and swept away salt and other winter debris from the inside of my car.  I've trimmed back the hydrangea, removed last fall's leaves from around the shrubs, and returned my sedum pots to their familiar spots along the front sidewalk.  When you live in a condominium, there isn't as much to do outdoors, but the weather's been so grand that it's been hard to decide if I should be devoting more energy to the abundant tasks of indoor cleaning or the limited tasks of outdoor greening. I've dabbled in a little of both most weekend days.  The potted sedums were an experiment this year.  I wanted to see if I could winter over last year's plants, simply by placing them in the garage.  I'll give them a few weeks to see if they revive and green up or if they need to be replaced by new plants.  Spring is filled with great energy.  I can feel it in and all around me.

Coming Clean

I can tell it's January.  That's when I begin my de-nesting process that started in the fall.  I get the yearning to deep-clean, de-clutter and organize anew.  Sort of a new year, fresh start type of thing.  And so it was this morning, just like clockwork.  As I got ready for church, I started examining my wardrobe and identifying those items that should be recycled back to our local thrift store.  I looked at our home decor and decided that some things need to be stored away or re-purposed.  It's just that time of the year, plain and simple.  And speaking of plain and simple, that is truly my style in clothing, home design and obligations.  I don't like being encumbered by too much.  I'd rather keep it simple and streamlined so that what I have, what I wear, what I do are the most important things -- no distractions.  So, on this sunny January Sunday afternoon, I begin my annual winter ritual of pretending it's spring and digging deep into my spring cleaning, lightening my load, lifting my spirits and starting anew -- again.