Spring is the season of renewal, rejuvenation and abundance. And cleaning.
For the past few years, I’ve been getting really clear on the fact that everything — every thing — is energy. What you do with the things in your life, what you let in and how you store it, affects the quality of the life that you experience.
A neat and orderly sideboard
Think about those tend-to-be cluttered places in your home — garages, drawers, kids rooms, linen closets, entryways etc. Doesn’t the energy in those areas feel stuck?
These messes actually drain us.
Clutter causes mental fogginess. Even worse, those piles of things to be dealt with, while they sit there, encourage more stuck-ness. The mental and physical gunk festers and proliferates, increasing stress hormones, decreasing our physical and mental wellbeing. It may be subtle, but if we are holding onto clutter — in our homes, our finances, our relationships, our habits — we are actually fostering vagueness and upset in our lives.
In contrast, think of a spot in your home (or somewhere else you’ve been) where the space is orderly and neat. Notice what you are feeling in your body as you hold that image in your mind; do you feel clear, calm, happy? That is because in an un-cluttered environment your mind has more space to be clear.
Now, imagine adding beauty to the equation and your brain gets even happier!
Starting with neat-and-orderly creates room for beauty to enter. So, messes and accumulations of old stuff you no longer use are not only gunking up your personal energy flow, but also impacting your happiness.
Clearing clutter enables us to live a happier, more easeful life, makes us feel nurtured and invites prosperity.
It’s not uncommon to have some areas in our homes or workplaces where clutter is gathering. After all, life just has a tendency to invite accumulation of stuff. However, given everything I am discussing with you today, I highly recommend that you take some action steps to get a jumpstart on lightening your load.
I invite you to follow me through to the end of this post to be reminded — after all we already know what I’m saying, this is just a gentle nudge to do it! — of a few small steps that could attract more positive energy into your life this beautiful Spring season.
Tip #1: Enlist an organizing buddy
Life is busy! Most people barely have time these days to spend quality time with people we love. So, why not combine time with a friend with your organizing projects? Enlist a pal who has a good sense of how to organize and swap Saturdays with him or her. Maybe you aren’t the best at organizing, but you are an awesome cook and in exchange you can teach your friend your favorite kale recipe or how to make green smoothies.
(To my girlfriends in the audience, an added bonus: Did you know that women are biologically designed to gather and do stuff together? When we’re with other women, we emit a happy chemical called oxytocin!)
You’ll be amazed at how much you can accomplish when you are supported, witnessed and encouraged to let things go.
If you don’t have someone to swap help with then contact a professional organizer. Gabrielle Fishman of GO can help. If you are de-cluttering your wardrobe talk to Jill DeWan from Flair. Jill recently helped me purge three bags of clothes and shoes!
Tip #2: Change begins with one small action at a time
When we take an action in a positive direction, more positive actions result. The universe shows off for us, even if it is just one small thing.
Clean out just one drawer. Go ahead, try it.
And then post in the comments below about how it made you feel. And then come back two weeks later and post an update about what happened next.
Tip #3: Throw out anything that is broken or you haven’t had fixed in a year
If you haven’t done it yet, you probably won’t. So just let it go.
Tip #4: Make seasonal changes at your entry, inside and out
Replant the pots near your front door, replace the door mat, repaint the front door.
Put away any winter-weather items that have accumulated in the front hall — heavy coats, winter shoes, umbrellas — although there could be a few more April showers… wait a few weeks for that one).
Tip#5: Get rid of anything you don’t love
I invite you to find five things in your home that you don’t absolutely love and drop them off at Goodwill this weekend.
Letting go of what you don’t use or enjoy creates space for something that you really love to come in and replace it.
Today I am committing to just one thing on the list above — replacing my worn out doormat and re-potting a dead plant by my front door.
How about you? What do you commit to doing?
Go ahead, make just one small move.
Remember, big shifts happen one choice at a time.
Kris Carlson, Amy Ahlers and Christine Arylo having a moment
The reason why some home interiors feel less than finished even after taking big steps like purchasing new furniture, replacing carpet and painting is that without the books, the candles, the sculptures — the objects that remind us of our lives — the furniture feels… lonely. We wonder why after all that work, it doesn’t look finished and that’s because it’s not!
Our role in the project was to bring the beauty, via selection of lighting, finishes and paint colors throughout their home. LMBI Senior Designer Andi Yablonski and I worked together with Mimi and Cory to select the materials, hues, and textures that would be most pleasing to them as well as most reflective of who they are and what they wanted to create.
