Spring has traditionally been seen as a time when people naturally turn their thoughts to some kind of spring clean.
There was a time in my earlier life when I perceived clutter simply in terms of the things in my physical space.
Nowadays my interpretation has widened considerably and extends to different parts of both my inner and my outer world.
In this podcast I go through seven areas of life that can be a focus for a good declutter.
You may be surprised by some of them.
If you'd like to feel lighter, brighter and clearer then have a listen and give the whole of your life an energetic spring clean.
You'll be glad that you did.
Thanks for listening!
You can discover more about my work on my website: https://www.harinderghatora.co.uk
Follow me on Instagram for free information on healthy, balanced living: https://www.instagram.com/harinder_ghatora/
Spring has traditionally been seen as a time when people naturally turn their thoughts to some kind of spring clean.
There was a time in my earlier life when I perceived clutter simply in terms of the things in my physical space.
Nowadays my interpretation has widened considerably and extends to different parts of both my inner and my outer world.
In this podcast I go through seven areas of life that can be a focus for a good declutter.
You may be surprised by some of them.
If you'd like to feel lighter, brighter and clearer then have a listen and give the whole of your life an energetic spring clean.
You'll be glad that you did.
Thanks for listening!
You can discover more about my work on my website: https://www.harinderghatora.co.uk
Follow me on Instagram for free information on healthy, balanced living: https://www.instagram.com/harinder_ghatora/
Hey, it’s Harinder here, Holistic Life Coach and Counsellor, helping you to bring peace and balance back into your life.
It will be spring soon and thank goodness. It can’t arrive soon enough especially after the long, bleak lock downed winter we’ve all been enduring.
Spring has traditionally been seen as a time when people naturally turn their thoughts to some kind of spring clean. I always find the sunshine, welcome as it is, exposing dust and dirt in nooks and crannies I hadn’t noticed before.
There was a time in my earlier life when I perceived clutter simply in terms of the things in my physical space.
Nowadays my interpretation has widened considerably and extends to different parts of both my inner and my outer world.
I don’t know about you, but I find it difficult to operate in a chaotic or cluttered environment. I’m acutely aware of the fact that my stress levels rise and I find it hard to focus. My productivity, creativity and sense of well-being are all adversely affected.
And, over the years, I’m come to view a cluttered life as a stagnant life; a life within which the energy is solidly stuck. There is no room for movement. No room for new opportunities and growth. No room for lightness; for spontaneity; for mental or emotional ‘space’ to work things out. It represents a life that is heavy and clogged up.
This is why I find it therapeutic to periodically review different aspects of my life and have a good declutter. Afterwards I always feel better; happier, lighter, and clearer. I am able to focus, and be more creative. I can breathe with greater ease, settle deeper into my body, and enjoy the experience of living in the moment.
In this podcast I’m going to go through seven areas of life that can be a focus for a good declutter.
The first and most obvious place to start decluttering is in the home. If like me, you’ve been forced to stay at home you may already have tackled this one over the course of the last year. But, if you haven’t, then here’s a good strategy I came across a while ago for sorting through the stuff we all seem to accumulate over a period of time,
I take each item and if it is broken and beyond repair, I throw it out.
If it belongs to someone else, I give it back.
If it doesn’t fit or I don’t like it, I give it away.
And, here’s the difficult one: if I haven’t touched it for a year (used it or worn it for example) I hold it up for a serious review.
I know this isn’t for everyone but here’s what I do:
If it is something that is inexpensive and/or easy to obtain, I dispose of it. If I haven’t used it for a whole year chances are I don’t really need it and if and when I do I can easily get another one.
If it is something that is expensive and/or difficult to obtain, but someone I know has one that I can borrow, I donate it to the charity shop or sell it on eBay.
If it is something that has sentimental value, or is rare, precious and difficult to get hold of, then I keep it.
It sounds simple enough but discarding things can be mentally and emotionally difficult. I often have to fight the urge to keep things that I haven’t used in years, simply because I think I may need them at some point. A few years ago I took a deep breath and recycled a whole pile of wedding presents my husband and I received but never used. You’re going to laugh when I tell you we’ve been married for thirty years! This stuff was clogging up space in this little cubby hole above our boiler cupboard. I hadn’t even noticed these things were there.
Do you struggle with letting things go? When was the last time you decluttered your physical environment?
The next time you come across something you haven’t used in ages, ask yourself why you are keeping it. What is the real reason?
People hoard things for all sorts of psychological reasons that go way beyond rational reasoning. Ask yourself what would happen if you did dispose of it? Who holds the power? You? Or this item that is cluttering up your home?
The rewards of a good physical clear-out go way beyond just creating extra space and tidiness.
A second area of my life that I seek to keep uncluttered is my schedule.
There was a time when my life was full of duty and obligations relating to my family, work and home. My schedule was so jam-packed that it felt like there was no room to breathe!
Nowadays, I regularly review my schedule and ensure that I am spending my time as I choose. I say ‘no’ to any commitments or requests that are not important to me or that don’t fit into the projects I am working on.
When was the last time you had some free time and actually chose what you wanted to do with it? Are there things in your daily and weekly schedules that you could discard?
Perhaps you could:
• group similar activities together so you get through them faster
• delegate some chores or commitments to others
• do some things less frequently.
By monitoring and reviewing how your time is currently spent and then implementing a few small changes you can reduce your stress levels and give yourself a greater sense of freedom, choice and space.
The third area of life that needs regular review is around the use of technology.
Like most people I use IT on a daily basis for communicating, working, learning and leisure. A significant proportion of my life now exists online.
A few years ago it dawned on me that some of the gadgets I use were starting to control me! My hand would mysterious and of its own accord pick up my phone and I would start checking emails and messages, and starts scrolling through social media streams without consciously deciding to do that.
I remember looking up the characteristics of addiction for a client I was working with when I realised, to my horror, that I was ticking a few too many of the boxes myself when it came to my incessant checking of texts and emails! This, along with my need to respond to messages immediately and to stockpile ‘useful’ emails, resulted in a very cluttered mind and real feelings of overwhelm. I had to make changes and apply some rules around this issue.
Now, for example, I process emails and message twice a day at an appointed time. I try to keep my email responses short and to the point. I also ensure that I am offline the rest of the time. Weirdly every now and again I notice this issue creeping back into my life. So, like an addict, I need to stay vigilant and reinstate the rules firmly every now and again.
So who is running the IT show in your life? You? Or your phone, tablet or computer?
Or are you addicted to Netflix? I’ve made a point of turning off the TV exactly at the point where I’m told that the next episode is about to automatically start in thirty seconds. How dare these people try to control and manipulate me in this way! How does sitting in front of the TV for hours on end advance my life or my health? It doesn’t. These companies want us enslaved to them. Don’t give them your power.
The fourth area for focus is relationships.
This is a less obvious and more difficult issue to address. When was the last time you reviewed your relationships? Have you ever sat back and thought about the impact that different people have on your mood and sense of well-being?
I’m a very kinesthetic person and I’m always mindful of how people make me feel. Over the years I've identified, and gently distanced myself from, those people that drag down my frequency.
Do you have people like this in your life? Are there some who take a lot from you without giving you anything back in return (emotionally, materially or spiritually)? Perhaps you know some ‘drama queens’ who constantly disturb your peace. Or, maybe you have a lot of friends and acquaintances and can’t relate to all of them with the depth you would like?
Relationships provide a fertile ground for personal growth. Some of us actively use them as a tool for highlighting areas within ourselves that need to develop, grow and heal. But, relationships can also clutter up our lives and disturb our peace. So, there is a balance to be struck.
It’s not always possible to cut people out of your life but you do have some choice as to how much time you spend with them. Being mindful of and ‘cleaning up’ the space between you and others can have a significant impact on your stress levels and sense of well-being.
The fifth area of focus is the body.
How does your body feel today? Light, graceful and at ease? Or, heavy, lethargic and tight? I know for sure that you don’t need me to tell you that exercise, sufficient hydration, good quality sleep and diet all affect how our bodies feels.
I know how lethargic I feel when I don’t exercise and eat well and this seriously affects the quality of my life.
We all know that diets high in fat, sugar, chemicals and processed food have an adverse and coagulating effect on the human body. We also all know the benefits of a detox. We feel lighter, brighter and more energetic.
Are there changes that you could make to your diet and lifestyle? What is your body saying about your current levels of health and well-being?
Then we have the mind.
This is a big one; the one that can make a colossal difference to the quality of our lives in every way.
About thirty years ago someone gave me a little blue book called 'The Quiet Mind' by White Eagle. This tiny book, and the spiritual organisation that published it, changed my life. I realised that the cause of most of my suffering wasn’t coming from outside me, it was coming from my own mind. I also realised that if I could declutter and quieten down my mind, then I could access my divinity and bring true peace, joy and well-being into my life.
Eckhart Tolle’s life-changing book “The Power of Now” reinforced this learning for me. I’ve since been on a long journey spanning decades to transform my crazy, negative, unruly mind to a quieter, calmer and more focused one.
A busy, cluttered mind makes it difficult to relax, to think clearly, to problem solve effectively, to concentrate, and to feel joy. Ultimately it stops a person being happy.
Have you ever spent time observing your mind?
What is it filled with all the time?
Can you control and quieten down your thoughts?
Can you access that place of stillness, of peace, that exists deep down inside all of us?
I learnt a wonderful mental decluttering trick from Dr Wayne Dwyer who I went to see at Wembley Arena many many years ago. Wayne said, observe your thoughts and divide them into three categories:
God’s business, other people’s business and my business.
God’s business were thoughts about big issues that we, as individuals at a particular moment in time have no control over; the economy, the pandemic, the state of the world for example. There was no point in wasting time thinking or worrying about these things so dismiss then immediately.
Other people’s business; these are thoughts and judgments about other people and their lives. These things have nothing to do with me so I shouldn’t allow these to take up any mental space.
And, finally my business. These are the thoughts that I need to focus on.
This little formula still helps me to declutter my mind whenever I get overly mentally busy. Give it a go. You’ll quieten your mind down quite quickly.
This kind of mindfulness and the discipline of a regular meditation routine are great practices that have been clinically proven to quieten down a busy mind. Taking time out every day to actively work on this goal can positively change your life forever.
I’ve been teaching an in-person six week meditation course since 2011 and am currently working on creating an online version. It’s called Six Weeks to Inner Peace. If you’d like to be notified of future dates then please join my mailing list from the home page of my website.
And, finally the last part of us that seems to be decluttering itself over the last year, whether we like it or not, is our emotional body. 2020 was a pivotal year in terms of the planetary energetic shifts. Many of us found ourselves naturally processing old emotions that were deeply buried in our bodies.
Cast your mind back to 2020. Did you experience some physical distress or inexplicable bouts of anger or sadness or guilt or shame or fear? Did old memories and old issues surface out of nowhere? Were you forced to process old traumas because life became so difficult and you just couldn’t keep these memories and these emotions buried in the shadows any longer?
For many people 2020, and 2021 so far, have resulted in a seismic energetic shift. We were all spiritually invited to raise our vibration but none of us could do that until we had shed some old emotional baggage.
If you’ve worked with me you will remember the analogy of a hot air ballon. You can’t rise upwards if there are big sandbags full of trauma and buried emotions sitting at the bottom of your hot air balloon basket.
If you do my job you get to see the truth behind the masks people wear. There were, and are, mental, emotional, physical and relationship breakdowns happening everywhere.
We are still going through this purge at a planetary level. It’s not over yet. But, we can help the process by riding the wave and actively releasing any old emotional baggage through journaling and/or talking to someone in confidence.
So... how about spending some time today reflecting on the amount of internal and external clutter that exists in your life? Are there areas, in addition to your physical surroundings, that could benefit from a good spring clean?
It’s well worth making the effort.
Trust me, you will feel lighter, brighter and happier. And, we all deserve that.
Okay, that’s it for today.
Remember to take excellent care of yourself. Because we both know that if you don’t no one else will.
Bye for now.