Declutter your life for more joy E36

April 5, 2022

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Over the last few years decluttering your home has become very popular. TV shows like the one from Marie Kondo or the Home Edit have been successful in bringing order into your home. I believe this order brings more peace and harmony into your life. But we can take it even further and declutter as well the inside of us. Stay tuned to find out more.

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Have you ever decluttered your home? It is so much work but it’s the best feeling once you are done and you look at this tidy, less empty, beautiful spot in your home. The older I get the less clutter I like around me. I like to give things away that I don’t use anymore and over the years I have stopped buying so much. I really ask myself before I click the buy button if I really need it and if it will bring me joy. Like Marie Kondo is advising us to do with every item in our wardrobe – you can apply the same principle before buying another dress that you are probably never going to wear.

Our environment has a direct impact on how we feel

I like clean and empty spaces around me. And yes, the inside of my drawers or cupboards are not so tidy, but I feel it brings me peace when my home is tidied up and clean. The environment we are living in has a direct impact on how we feel through the flow of energy. And if our home or our workspaces are messy, then our minds and our feelings may be messy inside of us, too.

“A tidied and cleaned house gives me feelings of calmness and actual enjoyment of the place. As if my home is part of me.“

If you are looking for more flow and calmness in your life, have a look around your home and workspace. Is it flowing nicely, and it is a calm place to be in? I am not talking about perfection, there are small things that you can do to improve your environment.

If you are not up for a huge declutter then do something small every day. One drawer or one corner of a room each day. Everything you do to improve and declutter will increase the flow and peace inside of you.

Declutter your inside and not just the outside

It is a fantastic start to improve your environment in the physical world, in the 3D world we are living in. But there is another area where you can apply the principles of decluttering and that is our inside environment. The inside environment is made up of our thoughts and our feelings.

Now that I am more mindful and aware of my thoughts, this process of decluttering will never ever stop. I would not want it to. I don’t think we can ever be done. New information comes into our life nonstop, and with that new information come new thoughts. There will always be a need to look at the thoughts we are having.

Obviously, this is not an activity that we can do all the time otherwise we would never do anything else, but the more you practise it, the easier it gets. It becomes like a habit to check in with your thoughts. I have trained myself to be quicker at becoming aware of a thought that is not serving me anymore.

At the same time, I know there are still a lot of thoughts going on in my mind who could do with decluttering as well. I will get to them when the time is right.

“That’s why I call this a never-ending process. But it is not a burden or something that is not fun.”

It’s a wonderful practice because every time you find a thought, catch it and let it go, you put your life on a more positive trajectory. Every time you declutter one of these nasty thoughts the baggage you are carrying with you gets lighter and you lighter.

How to declutter thoughts that don’t serve you anymore

You might ask yourself what do I do to let them go? Sometimes it is as easy as saying that I let a thought go and it disappears never to be thought of again. Other thoughts are a bit more sticky and it might take a few rounds of becoming aware and letting go before they are really gone.

I might actively replace them with a different thought and write this new thought on a sticky note so I keep reminding myself of it. Sometimes I journal on a thought. It’s like a dissection of it, taking it apart, looking behind the curtain to see where the thought is coming from and why it is in my mind in the first place.

If the thought is so strong that it has become a belief that is programmed deep in my subconscious and hard to shake off, I will use my meditation practice to change it. Changing something during a meditative state is more powerful and therefore a good weapon again hard programmed beliefs. There might be other techniques to let go of thoughts but these worked well for me so far.

And what about decluttering our feelings?

There might be certain feelings that you are tired of having. You are tired of them popping up in your life, especially at the wrong moments. So it is a good idea to check in with our feelings and see what we want to let go of, declutter our emotional household.

Feelings are not as straightforward to change as our thoughts. An emotional reaction to something happens so quickly that we have hardly any control over it. Instead, we want to investigate the emotion and find out where it comes from. Why do these feelings keep coming up for you? When did it all start? Maybe you can find out and resolve it that way. If not, you might want to see if you want to change your perspective.

Let’s say you keep being triggered by a colleague at work and every time this colleague does something particular you get angry. In that situation, it would be hard to change the emotion in itself when the trigger is activated. You cannot suddenly have feelings of happiness instead of angriness when the person triggers you.

But what you can do is change your perspective of the situation. You can choose to look differently at the person, or the thing they are doing that triggers you. You might now tell me that they should change and not keep doing this thing that is just not right. Well, good luck with that.

“What do you think is easier for you? To change another person or to change yourself? Correct, changing yourself.”

You have the ability to take your power back from that person and not let yourself be triggered anymore. True, it might be better if the person stops that behaviour. But until they do would it not be more beneficial for you to feel better? You can still observe a person’s behaviour, see it for what it is and not be triggered emotionally. Just because you don’t get angry anymore, does not mean that you suddenly approve of their behaviour.

But you are taking care of yourself first. You take back and protect your energy and your emotional wellbeing first. And you know what? When you do this you might be surprised what happens. The person might actually stop behaving in this way around you.

Declutter emotional triggers in your life

I observed this before at work. My colleagues would complain about how our boss would treat them or give them stupid tasks to do. Or how they did not feel recognized or they were annoyed by our boss’s behaviour. My experience with my boss was completely different. Like they were different people. My boss never spoke to me like that. I never got stupid projects dumped on me. We always got along really well and had great conversations in our weekly catch-ups.

Totally different experience. I was able to see that my colleagues gave their power away to our boss. They let him emotionally trigger them and he might not have even done this on purpose. It happens when you give your power away to another person. When you let the actions of another person trigger you emotionally with anger, disappointment, and frustration.

I did that for decades

I gave my power away to my bosses, to my partner, to family members, to friends. And then I started to learn that this is not what needs to happen. We can take our power back. We can change our perspective and control if we let ourselves be triggered by a person or not. I took my power back and I still am. This is a journey. But you know what? The better I get at it, the more power I have over myself and over my emotional health. (Episode 41)

See, there is a way to declutter your feelings, too. And who knows? Maybe during this declutter exercise, you might even declutter a few people along the way without even lifting a finger. That is the best part of it when you see this magic happen. So change yourself first and you will see that the environment changes around you automatically. Try it out for yourself!

And finally, I want you to remember how powerful it is to declutter and create a void for something new to come into your life. When you let go you create space for something better. That applies to the space you are living and working in. That applies to the thoughts in your mind. And it applies to the feelings you are having. Give it a good go and start seeing synchronicities happening in your life. You will be surprised what suddenly will show up in your life. Trust that something better is just around the corner. Trust and let go of the old that does not serve you anymore.

Two easy ways to show your appreciation!

If you found value in today’s episode, here’s what you can do to show your support:

First, consider making a donation to the podcast. Every little bit helps to cover the costs of producing and hosting the show. And ensures that I can continue to bring you the latest insights and opinions on the topic of energy and improving your life.

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So whether you choose to donate, leave a rating and review, or both, know that you’re an integral part of my vision. You are helping everyone who struggles with burnout or high-stress levels to experience how awesome their life can be. So, thank you for your support!

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Don’t work harder, work on yourself instead Episode 76

I have a great resource for you to become clearer about your goals

This Guide focuses on YOU. Working through it will get you to know yourself better which will help you plan for the next 12 months ahead with so much more fun and energy. Going through this reflection process means that you can let go of some failures and defeats of the past 12 months more easily instead of carrying them with you into your future.