I am not talking about your closet or your pantry; I am talking about your mind.
We have had a year. One filled with the normal thoughts of life but I think 2020 may have brought on extra thoughts. Just like it may have brought on extra pounds, extra spending, or extra projects you have taken on, we want to deal with it. As they say, “Don’t just sweep it under the rug.” So I want to walk you through how to de-clutter your mind today.
Just like every other space in our home, things get stored up in our mind, and if not careful there are piles all over the place and you don’t really know where they go.
Have you ever been trying to do something productive and everything in you is bringing your attention to the mess around you? That is what happens in our minds too. We want to focus our brain on something specific but it just keeps showing us everything else. My brain likes to do that when I focus on a task for my business. When I sit down to write content all of the sudden I need to check on that bill that was due, or make that dentist appointment. Those are just extra thoughts and they are just bouncing around in my brain. They don’t have a place to go. My brain doesn’t know what to do with them because they are information and my brain is not meant to store info. it is meant to process it and solve it.
So if we have a clean and tidy brain we can direct the thoughts as to where they belong, create space in our brain to think new thoughts, and start processing, solving, and creating. Often our brains are crowded and don’t have space to do just that. The job that the Lord really wants our brain doing.
So where do we start?
A few weeks ago we decided to tidy-up, I think that is a Marie Kondo word in my mind now, and boy it was needed. I wanted to do a walk through of each room and see what fit, what didn’t and what needed to go. So I opened closets, pulled things out and saw what we were working with. After seeing it all I was able to really get a sense of what I had. Then I could make decisions about how much space was there and what would really fit.
If you have watched Marie Kondo, or Home Edit on Netflix then you know exactly what I am talking about. Marie always has them pull it all out. Look at everything you have and from there decide what you really want and what you don’t want anymore. I love how she says to release it or let it go.
That is exactly where we start. Getting it all out. I like to call it a thought download or thought dump. I do this regularly and so do my clients. We know how to empty it all out, and I mean all. Get in the corners and behind the shelves. That is where some of the most interesting thoughts are. They are the hidden ones that come up randomly and so very few times, that they stay there taking up space.
So you can either put 2020 on the top of the page and start writing, or just start, it doesn’t matter just fill up page after page after page. Write about your disappointments, surprises, losses, wins, hopes, dreams, failures, confusion, doubts, fears, and struggles. But don’t forget about all the random thoughts too. The ones that you don’t even know why you have them, but they just keep showing up.
I LOVE having a place for everything in my house. I am not a fan of things just hanging out and if I don’t know where something goes, who does?
The same is with your mind; you can have a place for everything. So take that list and start organizing what goes together in groups. My kiddos were putting all the Barbie toys in one area and all the art supplies in another area. Do that with your thoughts. Gather all the thoughts about relationships (dating, friendships, self, God, family), work, money, weight or body image, past, to-do’s, dreams, etc. Find all the common themes and group them.
Then pretend you have one page for each category and decide what thoughts you want to keep and what thoughts you want to purposefully let go. Clean it up. Throw out the thoughts you don’t want. You can cross them off your original list; you can compile those thoughts on one page and burn it, whatever you need to do. But now they aren’t up there anymore. You have one page filled with the thoughts you want to keep. Now store those pages in a file somewhere, but those are the thoughts we are allowing in our brain. They all have a place, nothing hanging out cluttering up the main processing, and creating space. You know what you have up there and you know it is tidy.
Once you have that done you get to open new categories in your brain. It is like you bought empty bins for your closet and you decide what goes in there. So what new thoughts do you want to start thinking? I would create these folders dating, 2021, goals, possible opportunities, books to read, problems to solve.
Just like my closet, I don’t have room to add anything new when it is crammed and full of old stuff taking up space, our brains can’t receive new thoughts if we have old thoughts taking up space.
Do yourself a favor and spend 30 minutes de-cluttering,I promise you it is so worth it and it’s kind of fun!
Organizing my mind too,
Angie
