The Urge To Purge: Using Nature’s Second Cleaning Season

Using the energy of Fall to clean Space, Body, Mind and Spirit all have the same result: Vibrant Life and Great Use of Winter’s Magic

“Better out than in, Donkey”  Shrek

Ever wonder why, in the two ‘busiest’ seasons of the year, we get the ‘bug’ clear our spaces.  Why, in Spring and Fall, when there’s so much else going on, we feel the urge to clean, organize and donate?

It’s Natural and we are intimately connected with Nature, even if we sometimes doubt it.  In March and April, the winds and storms of Spring snap off the dead twigs and branches, making the trees and plants healthier for the pruning.

As Fall approaches, winds and storms again de-frock the trees and create a warm nest of leaves for the roots of plants and bulbs to weather the winter storms.

Not only do we need to get down to it and clear out spaces, readying for Winter, all aspects of our lives can be revamped to give us fertile ground for health, vitality, clarity of thought, emotion and purpose. Remember that in Feng Shui: Everything is interconnected.

By giving ourselves a clean slate in Fall, we can use Natures push inward to enter Winter’s quiet and dive deep into ourselves to discover the seeds of greatness we can nourish in the next Spring season.

Here are some tips that can help you make the most of this ‘second cleaning season’:

Mind:

You mind creates your perception and you can change your mind. Your subconscious creates your reality from the things around you and your perception of them. This is how life is created and you can, with some effort, take control of what’s feeding your reality and change it to create what you want.

Determine what takes your energy up and what takes your energy down. What fuels your joy and then decide what you will let in your life. For short or extended periods of time, give yourself permission to take a media fast: don’t listen to the network news or talk radio. Look at the art, posters or book titles around you, those words and images are programming your reality. Give your mind and soul a break to discover the real beauty around you. Trust that you will get the information you need when you need it.

Body:

Our cells hold all the substances our body cannot metabolize or detoxify in a timely manner.  We spend a lifetime inputting food, air, water and toxins into our cells but it’s only recently that mainstream America has gotten wind of the need to detoxify to assist our bodies in healing themselves.

Even a simple body brushing or shower mitts (start at the ends of your arms and legs and brush toward your heart) will help to detoxify and exfoliate your skin, allowing your bodies largest organ to refresh itself, help you actually breathe better, move you lymph and an added benefit, you feel so soft and look beautiful.

Reset your health:  Although Spring is the best time to do a body detox as the energy on Earth is rising and helping toxins to leave the cells, any time is a good time to reset your body.  Many indigenous cultures have a one day per week fast and rest to allow healing to occur naturally.

Because the energy of Fall is contracting, it is not the best time for a medical or physical detox, but I have found a wonderful way to reset your body using natural foods.  Rather than a deep or harsh detox, Stephanie Merchant offers a program that will walk you through an easy, gentle diet change to help your body recalibrate its needs, diminish cravings for sweets and carbs and bring more vitality back into your step and life.

It’s never bad to ‘lighten up’ and Stephanie coaches you to help you stay on track.  During Fall our bodies need more warming and cooked foods, more root vegetables and you can work these into your diet along with the RENEW Cleanse.  Find it here at http://thenutritionmom.net/the-renew-cleanse or you can go directly to check out the coaching and program at  RENEW CLEANSE.

I highly recommend Stephanie and her program.  I met Stephanie recently at a conference in Fort Lauderdale and she is delightful.  I am thoroughly impressed by the life she lives and the programs she provides.  We even went food shopping and yes, she really ISthat good. She has her feet in real life and makes it easy to learn to eat and live healthily while being a loving, busy parent.

Even if you are not a parent, you probably have a lot going on and Stephanie helps you take healthy eating in stride.  Better yet, she walks her own talk.  Here’s to your vibrant health!

Spirit:

What feeds your Spirit?  This is where FUN comes along.  What is fun to you?  Start to warm up to the notion that you can laugh, giggle, enjoy, and just play without having a ‘purpose’…which is, by the way, its own purpose—unscheduled joy.  Nourish your spirit and soul with little things, all day.  Laugh a lot, be a kid, enjoy the juiciness of the colors around you, make pictures of the clouds.  Take a shower in candlelight, luxuriate in the feel of a large oversized towel, the scent of your favorite body wash, replay the giggle of a child, notice the hopping of a chipmunk or silly squirrels as they dart around the trees.     These little things feed your Spirit and help to detoxify your soul.

If you can’t get to that space quite yet, perhaps you need to quiet the noise of today’s society that might be clanking around in you.  Meditation is a wonderful way to soothe and detox your Spirit.  There is no ‘right’ way to let the programming of life just wash over you, but try many until you find the one that works for you right now.  I have tried just about everything from Transcendental Meditation to teaching Primordial Meditation, to the One Breath to guided meditations, imagining the thoughts are clouds across the sky, noting them but keeping your mind on the ‘blue sky’ between the thoughts, knitting, making fishing flies, walking can all be a meditation to delete others’ directives and the past or future and just allow the present to be your gift.  They all work, some for longer than others.

Tip: Keep doing it:  “you never get IT done, and you never get it ‘right’”…  life keeps moving and coming at us, and the more often you return to stillness (if even for the time span of one inhale and exhale) the more your body, mind and soul are being reconnected to the healing force within you.

Space:

Take advantage of the boost of energy left in this Fall Season.  The ‘metal’ energy prevalent now helps us to cut through the clutter and the excuses and get down to business.  It also helps us be accountable, make decisions and get moving.

This is all good but If you don’t know where to start because you are overwhelmed or just tired at the end of the day, there’s hope.

You probably don’t know that there are many little moments throughout the day that can actually be used to your benefit.  We have become a nation of multi-taskers, and although this in itself is a depletion of your energy, we can take advantage of a bit of it by using our time and brain power to it’s full advantage.

Tip #1—5 Minutes to Less: Next time you are on the phone, open a drawer in front of you and empty it out, put back only what works, what you love, and what is beautiful and organize it.  If you have a damp cloth around, wipe the drawer before you put everything back.    During the span of the phone call you have made a huge inroad toward your ability to think more clearly, make decisions more effectively and open space for more opportunities in your life.  Can you image?  All that from one drawer?  It’s true, that’s the power of our spaces through the science of Feng Shui.

Tip #2– Attract MORE! Give yourself 5 minutes to attract more of what you want.   If you want more clients, more clothes, more shores, a new relationship, more creativity, etc. making the space for them to show up will guarantee they arrive.

More clients:  go through your file drawer…empty everything that isn’t current and put it in a box marked, 15 minutes.  Before you go home from work today, set your timer for 15 minutes and archive the files that are more than a year old, discard the files that you haven’t touched for over a year and be clear that you only have 15 minutes to make those decisions.

More clothes:  go through one drawer or one closet and pull out everything you haven’t worn in a year, 6 months or a season.  Replace only the things you are currently wearing for this season.  Take a few minutes, not more than 15, to make decisions about the clothes you just removed.  Do they fit perfectly and make you feel sexy and alive? If not, to the donation pile they go.  Do they compose a part of an outfit that is happy and stunning?  No?  donation pile again. The more space you make, the more you will have available for not only clothes, but for opportunity, clarity and fun.  Be clear and decisive and be patient because you are opening the space, it will come.  I guarantee it!

More romance:  What does your bedroom look like?  Does it make you feel like you just entered a beautiful spa hotel?  Do you feel ready for romance?  Is it a room that you and your significant other would find pleasing?  If you have items from your childhood, clothing under your bed, a view of the bathroom or you are sleeping with your dirty laundry or photos of lots of people you know, you aren’t setting yourself up for the joy of relating, relaxing and refreshing that you need.  Take a few hours on a Saturday to make the effort and within hours you’ll feel better, within no time at all you’ll be floating along on romance way.

There are more tips like this in the 28-day Clear Your Clutter Programyou can download it right now.

By doing so, you’ll also be notified and you can join me as I lead you through, step-by-step in this gentle but no-nonsense way to clear for your new life of fun, peace, joy or whatever it is you are needing and wanting in your life.   It will be online on November 1, filled with steps, tips and videos to help you clear the way for your new life.

Important Non Self-Sabotage Tip:   Eliminate the “just in case” syndrome.  Many times we keep things ‘just in case’ we think we’ll need it.  Often, we prove ourselves right, after discarding or donating something, we say, “Oh I just had that and now I need it.”  But wait!  This is subconscious confirmation of lack, believe it or not.  That’s actually coming from a place of lack of resources, time, energy, ideas: ‘Lack’ thinking.  Affirm abundance instead.

You can reprogram yourself for abundance by letting go of the things that you don’t love, don’t use or that done work.  Allow yourself to know that at every point in the future, you will have exactly what you need, when you need it.  That will become law in your life.  You’ll begin to see that if you don’t have the ‘thing,’ either you really don’t need it or you’ll have a brilliant idea of what to do instead.  In the meantime, you will have opened up space for more goodness, less stress, more weight loss, and more vitality by unburdening your spaces with extra stuff.

Important Step:  Be proud of yourself.  You have just opened up space in your life for more…more of what you have been wanting.