For almost 10 years, I worked helping women remove the clutter from their home or office.  It was so rewarding to see a room being transformed to a place of peace and joy.  Many times, clients would call me at the end of the day to tell me how wonderful it felt to sit in the room we had just decluttered that day.  They were so full of joy.

Well, clutter can be found in many places.

Places such as:

• Individual rooms of your home
• Garages
• Attics
• Basements
• Closets
• Cabinets
• File Cabinets
• Refrigerators
• Photo Boxes
• Yards
• Sheds
• Automobiles
• Pocketbooks
• School lockers
• Toy boxes

Yikes that list can make you feel overwhelmed for sure.  But one area I didn’t put on the list was your mind.  Your mind can be so full of clutter that you cannot tend to much in your life.   A cluttered mind makes it hard to process things throughout the day … whether at work or at home.  It shuts down your creativity and increases your ability to procrastinate … hence not getting much done.

A cluttered mind at times makes you feel like you are losing your mind!  There is so much going on in there that you cannot sort through any of it nor make any semblance of logic.  You struggle to get answers to your questions, and you can feel like you are in a maze you will never exit.

What are some of the causes of a cluttered mind?

Well, let’s go into the different rooms in your mind, identify the clutter so you can begin a decluttering process.

• Trauma – unhealed trauma will cause you to ruminate the tragic event over and over in your mind. You will try to make sense of a perhaps senseless situation.  You want to be free of the pain but your body is getting filled with the outcome of your trauma that you feel very out of balance.
• People – are there people in your life that seem to pull you down? For example, when you are together or when you talk to each other, you walk away feeling drained.  There was nothing uplifting about spending time with that person.  You feel exhausted, condemned, not good enough, less than and even stupid.  Perhaps you should consider removing yourself from these relationships and build friendships with like-minded friends that uplift you and you up lift them.  Consider even deleting these contacts off your Smart Phones so you are not tempted to reach out in a time of feeling lonely.

What’s in your home?

• Cable TV – do you have a massive package with your cable company with so many channels that you never even watch? All it encourages you to do is sit on the sofa and click the remote going from one channel to another never finding a program that suits your desires.  Consider changing your Cable Package or even better yet, consider canceling it all together.  I canceled my Cable TV years ago and don’t regret it for one minute.  I do have ROKU and watch programs from different APPS but all in all I’m not a big TV watcher and especially don’t watch sitcoms or weekly shows.
• Saved Emails – are your email files full of emails saved that you have not even accessed in months and some even years? Consider doing a dump of those emails to clear your email program.  When we see so many files, it can seem overwhelming to our mind and can even make it harder to feel focused in your workday.
• New Emails – consider unsubscribing to emails that you receive but never really read. Sometimes we subscribe to emails because of a “free” offer but then realize it’s not really something we are interested in but we continue to receive their emails.  Don’t clutter your inbox daily with junk!

There’s more to a cluttered mind

• Worry and Fear – living in worry and fear is probably one of the worse ways to live. It can paralyze you and cause you to not think clearly and make logical decisions.  Is it easy to stop?  Not necessarily.  But if your life is consumed with fear and worry, you might want to consider getting some outside guidance on how you can remove this from your life.  It is truly possible and highly recommended. You absolutely do not need to live in fear or worry.
• Stress – living a life full of stress can truly clutter your mind. It causes almost like a “brain fog” and your thoughts become muddied and confused.  Learning to breathe … really breathe deeply can be a way to calm you down.  But sometimes stress is so prominent in our life that it’s almost like our friend.  Seek support to help you eliminate this from your life … or at least learn how to manage it.
• Negative thinking – this can become such a bad habit and at times hard to stop. If we have had some trauma in our life with negative things happening to us, it could be hard to move away from that negative thinking and to alter your thinking to look at the good in life.  But negative thinking only brings your down emotionally and spiritually.  Until I was healed of my abuse, I had a lot of negative thinking in my life.

A balanced life is a must!

• All Work – many people have a life of “all work and no play.” That is truly an unhealthy way to live.  We must have balance in our life with time to play and enjoy the fun life has to offer.

What you do to your body!

• Lack of Sleep – it is so important to get a full night of un-interrupted sleep. Our body/mind gets restored as we sleep.  Our cells replenish and our body detoxes.  When we don’t get the right amount of sleep … especially night after night, we don’t give our bodies a chance to heal.  This is one of the most important areas to focus on.
• Low Fat Diets – understand that we need fat … healthy fat. Our brain needs fat to keep it healthy and whole.  With that being said, you need to watch what kind of fats you are taking in.  Trans fats and saturated fats should be eliminated or eaten at a minimum.
• Neurotoxins and Metal Toxins – this is an important area. So many of our body care products are full of chemicals and can act as neurotoxins.  Many chemicals can get past the blood brain barrier and affect our brains.  Really take a conscience effort to look over your body care products and look at the chemicals they contain.  It’s critical to change any that are full of chemicals.

So, consider putting on your calendar time to go through this list and make an effort to remove those items that perhaps are causing mind clutter and affecting your thinking, clarity and motivation.

If you feel stuck and not sure how to begin tackling this area, then let’s chat.  I’m here to help you … propel you … and bring you to abundant living … a life of peace, joy and health!

Your Spiritual Life & Health Coach … believing in you!