A New Year inevitably brings a yearning for a clean slate, a new you and fresh beginnings. Its almost innately programmed into us, with the most popular question on the eve of the New Year being, “What are your new years resolutions?” Losing weight, drinking more water, working out more, being more organized? These are the top promises people make to themselves and the discouraging facts are, only 8% of people really stick to them. It’s damn hard to change deeply ingrained habits overnight. So, here is my three step, slightly unconventional way to make some powerful changes happen easily. Trust me.
SERIOUSLY DEEP CLEAN YOUR HOME
The best thing you can do for yourself right before the New Year or on New Years Day is to CLEAN your home. In a big-I’m-getting-rid-of-shit-that-I-don’t-really-need-or-use-way. It means judiciously sorting through all the inevitable holiday gifts that you’ve accumulated and don’t even like and either giving them to someone else or giving them to charity. It means going the extra mile beyond dusting and vacuuming and doing tasks like editing your sock drawer, throwing out old, crusty condiments in your refrigerator, mopping in dark and unpopular places like under the bed, throwing out half of the contents in your medicine cabinet that are expired, or half used – including all those hotel samples that take up space. You get the picture but here’s the key: While doing all of this, connect any unwanted behaviors, habits and experiences to all that you are throwing out. Let the unwanted Christmas gifts represent family guilt you’re holding onto and the moldy jar of pickles in the fridge are your sarcastic self-preserving responses that don’t serve anyone around you well. Say goodbye to it all as every item leaves the house.
SAGE YOUR SPACE
After you’ve cleaned, then its time to sage your home. This isn’t some new-agey, airy fairy waffle. Its a spiritual cleansing ritual that has been around for ages and ages and is a part of nearly every single culture in the world. Whether you are in the Catholic church and the priest is smoking up the aisles with frankincense or in a Buddhist Temple filled with incense, the belief is that the smoke is carrying up intentions and prayers to heaven while purifying the space. Native American’s used sage to clear a space and that is what I find most effective too. It’s not just the symbolism. There is something so tangibly powerful about a space that has been cleansed with sage. It feels different. It feels lighter. It’s because you are getting rid of all the invisible, energetic accumulated clutter – and hopefully that makes sense to you. Chances are, its been gathering for a long time and it’s energetically embedded in the matrix of your space.
Sage has become so mainstream now, you can go into any Whole Foods or natural, organic market and find it in the apothecary aisle. Or you can get it all packaged together in a lovely gift to yourself or others, here. Open the windows, light it up and walk around your space, wafting the smoke everywhere. Hang out more in areas where clutter accumulates, arguments have occurred, bad dreams, or negative habits have went down. Visualize all that negativity leaving your home. It’s going out the window. You now have a clean slate to let all the best unfold.
TIE IT ALL TOGETHER
You’ve cleaned your home, you’ve saged it. What’s next? Now you need to do the same for your brain. Say what? Here’s how to do that:
- Connect your clean home to your thinking. Just as you have gotten rid of physical things that jam you up, get in the way and weigh you down, make the connections to new ways of thinking. Allow your physical space of a fresh perspective to be the supportive layer to welcome a fresh viewpoint that supports your goals.
- Keep it going after this. Look at the pile of yesterdays newspapers that begin to pile up in the same way as holding onto toxic relationships or unhealthy food choices. You would not want to keep stuff around that you don’t need or that is bad for you, so don’t do it with relationships or food either.
- Look at your efficient way of keeping organized as also your efficient, organized manner of mental clarity. You are as clear and uncluttered as all your surfaces. Because your space and yourself are so deeply connected. It impacts your way of being so much more than you know.
Instead of making any resolutions that could easily set you up for failure, just adjust your physical space first while setting your intentions. You can’t help but feel inspired, motivated and truly supported for goodness and change when your sparkling surroundings are offering you a clean, focused slate to step into the New Year.
