After a week of consistently bad weather, it was a relief to get some sunshine this weekend. And I certainly made the most of it, up at the crack of dawn to mow our lawns that were long overdue a haircut.
However when I tried to get the lawnmower out of the garage, I was reminded pf how messy it is. Before Ben, we spent a lot of time putting up shelves and hooks and filling it full of systems to help us keep it tidy. However, when Ben arrived everything got put on hold, and instead of carefully putting stuff back in it’s place, stuff got put on other stuff until the straw broke on saturday when I had to fight with junk just to retrieve the lawn mower and strimmer.
So after mowing the lawns, whilst Ben was taking his nap, I started to sort the garage out. My tools had drifted in to numerous boxes, so I got them all out, organised all of my tools in to the toolboxes, threw out a lot of stuff that had been moved in to the garage when we converted Jen’s office in to a nursery, and gave it a good clean out. We continued this together on sunday culminating in 2 trips to the tip to recycle and dump a load of stuff that we just didn’t need any more. The result is a clean and tidy garage that allows us to get to everything in there in a safe and easy manner.
And it occurred to me that it’s easy to allow our minds to end up like my garage. After all, our minds are constantly receiving new stuff and it’s not always obvious what box to put it in, or to find a hook for it. Plus, what do you do with your old stuff? Lots of people are under the impression that there’s no way to get rid of the boxes of knick knacks that you no longer need, or perhaps never needed.
Well in fact you don’t need a car or a trailer to carry stuff to the tip that you no longer want in your mind, you can imagine that there is actually a home service that will collect your garbage and take it away for you. So why not clear out that redundant or harmful stuff that is gathering dust in your mind, so you can utilise the resources of your garage, or any other room in your mind, efficiently and without worry.
How? You ask.
Well the first step is to make an inventory of memories and feelings that aren’t productive, such as bad experiences that you relive every time you are called upon to do something similar. Which ones trouble you most, are holding you back? Most of us are under the illusion that our memory of an event or experience is the truth, when in reality it is just your perspective on the experience, and parts of what happened are deleted, distorted and generalised (see this article) by who you are and how you feel… it’s not reality at all, so if it’s unproductive we can adjust that memory to make it productive.
Simply the act of becoming aware of that which holds you back will start the process of change. Once you see, get a sense or hear what is limiting you, notice what you see, hear and feel if for a moment that limit is removed. That simple act on each item on your list will start the ball rolling in making the changes that will clear out your garage automatically!
I am happy to work with any of you by email, messenger or skype if you would like me to talk you through that process to show you how it’s done, just contact me with some of your list.
May 21st, 2007 at 12:25 pm
I could very well be interested in doing something like this via email. I am the worlds worst negative person and could do with dumping some of that clutter.
May 21st, 2007 at 9:03 pm
The world’s most negative person? Have you got a medal to prove it? If you could list the biggest bits of clutter, the top 3 say, what would they be and what would you be like without them? Drop me an email and we can talk about it.
May 22nd, 2007 at 10:46 am
[...] for all of your emails regarding my spring cleaning article. I’m surprised by the response, particularly as I thought it was only you and I that [...]