Hello, good folks 🙂 So we just talked about The Upgrade. Well, what happens when you take The Upgrade and just go nuts? We have The Purge! And that’s been me in 2020 so far. But I couldn’t be doing it without The Upgrade; that’s the key to everything. It’s the key for me, anyway, because I can be very “all or nothing.” And I’m finally starting to learn to find a middle ground that’s a more sustainable way to live, and not so up and down. With The Upgrade, I’m always at least doing something here and there, so it keeps the energy and momentum from coming to a screeching halt. And I’m excited to see where all Of this leads. I’ve never done so much of it before, so we’re in uncharted territory. And I like it.
So what have I been purging? Everything. Physical and electronic. Give away and throw away. Declutter and organize. There’s still so much more to go, but I really am enjoying the process. There are two dressers in my bedroom, for instance, so I went through the drawers, for the first time in a very long time… And I couldn’t believe the sheer volume of old, unwearable clothes that I literally hadn’t touched in over eight years, in many cases. EIGHT YEARS!? They filled a massive garbage bag, the huge kind that you put heavy yard debris in. We’re talking about old t-shirts that smelled like mothballs. And I don’t own any mothballs, by the way, nor do I even know what a mothball looks like. In fact, I wouldn’t know a mothball if it fell on me. I’ve heard of them, though, and apparently I know what they smell like.
Next, I went through the hanging clothes in my closet. The rest of the closet remains, and it’s a large closet, so it’ll be a beast, but that’s okay (I’m compartmentalizing and knocking out one area at a time, while giving permission for the other areas to be a mess). Then I went nuts under my bed. Since my crib is very small, storage space is quite an issue (and yes, “crib” has been one of my favorite words for like twenty years now, and it means “house” in case you did not know). So my bed is on risers, with four of those large, clear plastic storage bins stacked underneath. And what was in the storage bins? More old stuff that smelled like mothballs. Bye-bye. Multiple huge trash bags, folks! I also cleaned the tile floor underneath and behind the bed, and that felt so good. I don’t want to be sleeping on top of a bunch of old ass t-shirts and unusable old bed sheets, along with crazy scary dust bunnies. Crazy scary dust godzillas! Seems like bad juju to me.
I also went nuts at my office. It was cool how the cable guy came to install some fresh internet a few weeks ago (my officemates moved to a new building last year and I was the lone holdout). He had to put the modem/router thing behind these file cabinets, which concealed the biggest mess in the office. Out of sight, out of mind… for four years… So it forced me to go nuts on it. Can you say, “Unopened mail from 2016?” Apparently I can. But not anymore! Now it’s spotless, and it feels so good, like Chuck Mangione.
I also swept the whole place and de-cluttered the bookshelf, then added one of those super zen fake rock water fountain things, plus a fake white orchid. And it all looks and feels amazing! Way less clutter, more space, so cool. So. Darn. Zen. Thanks for sending that cable guy to me, universe! The desk has been totally cleared off as well. Some drawers remain, and they’re on the list – all in due time.
The car trunk also remains, and so does the old, useless clutter on my porch. And the final frontier will be the Scary storage Space that I’ve been avoiding. I’m really not a hoarder! I moved around a lot back in the day and just never dealt with it. But all good, now I’ll just upgrade everything into submission, until the momentum picks up and I go nuts on the storage space. And I’m truly looking forward to seeing how all this unfolds this year. No rush.
We also have electronic purging, as I mentioned above – that’s a great one in our fancy, modern day, connected world. My email inbox is on the list, along with learning how to use Gmail “labels,” and learning how they work with Apple Mail (apparently they automatically create “folders”). So we’ll be deleting tons of old emails along with redoing things so that the inbox doesn’t even get that unruly in the future. And instead of feeling like this is a burden, I feel super excited about it! Because how much better life will be for Future Me?? So cool. Uncharted territory, folks. For this guy, anyway.
You see, this kind of thing has always felt like a burden to me before. Clean the email inbox, learn a better way to use Gmail, learn how it syncs with folders in Apple Mail, clean the car trunk, clear out the Scary Storage Space… No thanks, that doesn’t sound fun. So what’s the difference now? Why, it’s self-love, of course! That’s always the first answer here, and it really is The New Way. I’ve been doing this work for a few years now, pretty consistently as needed, and I guess that’s just what it has taken – a few years – for me, anyway. And it’s been shifting things the whole time, but from the inside-out. So it can take some time to actually see the shifts (that’s the “out” part). But rest assured, powerful stuff is happening inside of you the whole time. Just be consistent and trust the process, and your world WILL change. After all, it’s the law.
So I’ve been loving the part of me that’s been lazy with certain things for all these years. The second I’ve noticed the part of me that has a terrible attitude toward things like BS paperwork, routine office work, cleaning the inbox, etc., I’ve loved that part of myself, on the spot. Like, a lot. The breath becomes a loving hug to my heart; for real! And I’ve said to him, “It’s okay that you don’t like that stuff. It’s really okay.” [Breathe Deeply] I’ve talked to him lovingly as a parent would talk to a child in need of love, literally breathing love into him, and the child has slowly been growing into an adult. And the adult in this case is no less that the soul.
So I’ve been loving the lazy part, the “bad attitude” part, etc. I’ve also been loving the part of me that doesn’t like the lazy part! The part that judges him and says, “Why can’t you just take care of the paperwork and emails as they arise?” He gets love, too. The part that says, “Will I ever implement systems to streamline my life – and DO them – instead of letting things build up again and again and again?” He gets love, too. And I answer him honestly, saying something like, “I don’t know, that sounds amazing. I’m actually doing my best, though, and I love you however you feel about it, anytime. I totally get it. But I really am working on it.”
Note that this is exactly what our cornerstone of Loving What Arises looks and feels like, so you might read that last part again and imagine doing it in your life, at exactly the moment a part of you needs it. It’s kind of huge. I mean, it’s really huge. This stuff is super transformational, folks, and it’s also so gentle. It just takes time and practice. So it might seem like I’ve had a sudden shift, out of nowhere, but it’s actually been building for years now. And I’m just as curious as anyone to see where it leads and how it all unfolds.
So where were we… That’s right, The Purge. “Notes” is another frontier, something else I’m working on now. There are tons of notes on my phone as well as those little sticky notes lying around all over the place. I downloaded a free app called Trello on my phone and laptop just yesterday, in fact, and a friend came over and helped me get started. She’s been swearing by it for years now, preaching the gospel to everyone she knows, and apparently I’m the first one to bite. And I had so much fun playing with it! A truly amazing Saturday night. My how the nightly have fallen… Just kidding!
You see, there’s a lot that I want to accomplish in the near and far future, and my super jacked-up system – or lack thereof, really – is clearly not going to cut it. Also note that learning this new Trello thing would’ve been viewed as a bad thing in the past, intimidating and pressure-packed. And now it’s actually fun and exciting! Wait a minute, do you know what this must mean?? It must mean that some of that extreme (and often debilitating) perfectionism that I mentioned in The Upgrade is being healed. Thank freaking god, y’all!! Amen to that.
So there you go, folks! I’m just giving you a little peek into my life now, with all of its upgrades and purges. And how Interesting that it always circles back to the inner practice of self-love in our unique way, called “loving what arises,” as we shift our lives from the inside-out. So hang in there, be consistent, and see what happens in your life as you practice this. I get to see not only the unfolding of my own life, but also that of so many clients’ lives, as they learn to live in exactly this same way. It gets downright freaky sometimes, to be honest, but in a really amazing way. Because things happen that we could not have even imagined, very good things. But our healing through self-love has to happen first, as old emotional debris gets cleared out of our energy field along the way. So happy decluttering, or not – no pressure! And know that I’m always here to help if I can 🙂