HOW TO SPRING CLEAN OUR LIVES The idea behind this is that there are times in a year, in our lives that we need to look at our lives and shake things up and clean our minds and soul. The concept of rebirth during the spring isn’t simply a religious or seasonal metaphor. Spring is the perfect time to recreate ourselves and blossom into the beautiful potential we envision for our lives. Everything that happens in your outer life begins with your internal choices or lack thereof. When you are clear about who you want to be and how you wish to live your life, then your choices and actions become as easy and natural as a spring breeze. Gaining that internal clarity first requires the awareness that it’s necessary. It requires you to step back, breathe deeply, and make the conscious decision to evolve, to activate your own metamorphosis. Here are some ways you can begin the internal spring cleaning process. 1. Re-define your core values: These are the guiding principles of your life around which all decisions and actions should be measured. When you are clear on the values you hold most dear, then it is easy to discern where and how your life doesn’t support or reflect those values. You may have dozens of values, but you need to have a handful (maybe 5-10) that are the most important, non-negotiable driving principles of your life. Your values can change over time. At one point in your life, adventure might be a core value and at another point it might be security or flexibility. This is a good time to clear out the old values and reinforce those that are important for your life now. 2. Restore your integrity: Are there areas of your life that don’t reflect your core values or where you are living out-of-alignment with your personal integrity? Perhaps it’s a relationship that is inappropriate or doesn’t serve you. Maybe you are accepting something in your job that rubs you the wrong way. Maybe there are parts of your lifestyle that feel inauthentic or meaningless. Where do you feel your life and your sense of integrity don’t match up? What can you do to correct that? 3. Harmonize your close relationships: There are people in your life whom you love or care for deeply, but perhaps the relationship isn’t as strong as it could or should be. Maybe you’ve been distracted or perhaps you’ve allowed someone to treat you poorly. Sometimes we allow our relationships to slip into periods of inattention or malaise. How can you bring more harmony, communication, attention, and love to your close relationships? What do you need to release in order to be a better partner, spouse, parent, or friend? 4. Shine up your attitude: We become so accustomed to complaining, worrying, and seeing the glass half empty that we are blinded to all of the beauty and joy we have access to right now, even in this very moment. Use this time to shift your attention from all that is going wrong in your life to all that is going right. Allow gratitude and joy to move to the forefront of your thoughts, and actively seek to diminish the power and predominance of your worries and frustrations. Seek out goodness, beauty, love, humour, and positivity. Spend time with people who support this way of being and thinking. 5. Simplify your thinking: Sweep out extraneous distractions, projects, and tasks that drain your brain energy. Prioritize just a few main goals for each day, and allow yourself the time to focus on them deeply and thoroughly without being mentally or physically pulled in different directions. Visualize white space around each goal so you create plenty of room for imagination and critical thinking without anxiety or interruptions. 6. Change up your routines: Wipe away the old daily routines you’ve been following all winter long. Shake up your life a bit and create new routines and new ways of doing things. Our lives become boring and stale when we do the same things day in and day out. Even small changes, like going a different route to work or having your breakfast before your shower rather than after, can make you feel motivated and different. But consider larger changes too — like meeting a new group of people, taking up a new hobby, or going on an adventure. Change challenges us and stretches us to become more interesting and self-aware. 7. Reclaim inner peace: There are so many circumstances and interactions that we allow to steal our sense of equanimity and inner peace. We become so attached to things and outcomes that we become deeply disturbed if don’t achieve or acquire what we think we must have. We allow the moods and words of other people to hurt or worry us. We grow defensive over perceived slights. We allow ourselves to remain in environments that are too loud, disruptive, or draining. What is disrupting your inner peace? How can you clear away those things so you can enjoy more calm and contentment in your life? 8. Buff up your emotional intelligence: Part of on-going personal evolution requires that we demand increasing emotional maturity from ourselves. Emotional maturity simply means having control over your emotions rather than your emotions controlling you. It means being able to accept people and situations as they are without needing to change them. Ultimately, this allows you to experience the inner peace described above and to enjoy deeply satisfying relationships. Emotionally intelligent and mature people . . *know what they want and make it happen; *think before they act; *exhibit self-reliance and the ability to take personal responsibility; *have patience; *are able to connect with others in a cooperative and positive way; *are able to genuinely care about others and can demonstrate that; *exhibit honesty and can live by their principles; have moderation and balance in all things; *can show humility and say “I’m sorry.” Just as spring is a time of renewal and rebirth year after year, we have the opportunity to renew ourselves — to become the best version of who we wish to be as we define it year after year. Good day everyone.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Aug 2013 13:19:31 +0000