Five Mind Habits To Declutter Your Life

In today's fast-paced world, decluttering our home and workspace can feel like the solution to a busy and chaotic world and whilst this can be helpful, real change comes from an internal shift in our relationship to life. In this talk, I'll share five inner habits or approaches that are the real cause of living simply and with tranquility.

Transcript

In today's chaotic,

Complicated world,

Many of us yearn for a simple way of living,

One that nourishes and sustains us.

We crave well-being,

Despite the clutter and complication,

Quietness and time for reflection,

Instead of noise and busyness.

One answer is to look to our homes and workplaces,

And it certainly seems to make sense to simplify our life by cleaning and clearing,

Going through drawers and cupboards,

Throwing out old things that no longer serve us,

Tidying up the debris of everyday living.

Taking this a stage further,

We might simplify our relationships and routines,

Ruthlessly cutting out the toxic and whatever no longer works for us.

Now all these ways of simplifying do make a difference,

And I know from my own experience that taking bags of unwanted clutter to a charity shop is a joyful and cathartic experience.

Similarly,

Reducing screen time and limiting mindless scrolling through social media has given me the time to start reading again,

And these books are far more nurturing,

Mind-expanding and life-enhancing than my social media accounts ever turned out to be.

But with all of this,

We need to take care that we're not missing a huge important part of the jigsaw that needs to be in place,

And this is what I wanted to explore with you today,

And it's this.

Nothing in our life changes permanently,

Unless something in us transforms as well.

You can do all the decluttering you like,

But unless there's some sort of internal shift,

Some transformation in your inner landscape,

You'll find yourself repeating your patterns time after time.

So what really creates a simpler life?

We start by looking at what's going on inside our mind.

By turning our attention inward,

We can transform our life and tap into the inner tranquility and spaciousness we crave,

Irrespective of the circumstances of our life.

So let me share with you five ways that transformed my inner world and created a richer,

Deeper experience of life,

But one that also externally looks far simpler than it once did.

As I'll show you,

Simplicity starts in the mind.

So number one,

Pay less attention to the stories you create in your mind.

Complexity and busyness are first created in the mind.

Now I know it looks as if these feelings of overwhelm have everything to do with stacks of unwashed pots and pans,

A busy diary full to the brim with meetings,

Or a never-ending list of chores.

But these in of themselves are not the problem.

But that's crazy,

I can hear you cry.

They have everything to do with how I feel.

How could they not?

Well,

Perhaps it would help to think about it this way.

How could a feeling ever be transmitted to you from an untidy house or a full-to-the-brim diary?

And why do some people seem calm and tranquil,

No matter their surroundings or how much is going on in their life?

More significantly,

Have you ever noticed that these things bother you sometimes,

And at other times,

Despite the mayhem,

You feel calm and serene?

No.

These external circumstances never had the power to make us feel a specific way,

No matter how far off the planet this idea may seem.

Let's take this a step further.

How aware are you of the voice in your head,

The one that comments upon everything that happens to you from the moment you wake up in the morning until you fall asleep at night?

It's this voice that's at the root of all the clutter in our minds.

This is the voice that,

Seeing an untidy kitchen,

Tells you a story about how bad you are at keeping your house tidy,

Or whines that it's going to take forever to clear,

Or complains about the busy diary or the noisy,

Unruly workplace.

It's equally the voice that,

Without drama,

Tells you how to organise your time and get chores done.

There's no objective reality about what an untidy house or office means and the implications it has for us.

The emotions we feel are a direct result of the story we tell ourselves,

Once we begin an untidy workspace so that means.

One way leads to anger,

Depression,

Frustration.

The other leads to a calm response to a situation that it feels like we need to sort out.

So number two,

Notice the present.

This takes us to the next step of seeing what is taking place now,

In the present moment,

And giving that all of our attention.

The feeling of time slowing down occurs naturally as we do this,

Automatically leading to life feeling more straightforward.

We're dealing with life one step at a time,

Rather than holding,

Often with difficulty,

All the competing priorities and demands that need to be focused on in the next five hours,

Days or weeks.

It's far easier to stay in that quiet space if we place our attention on what needs to happen,

Right now and here.

Number three,

Accept the present moment.

This brings us neatly to what for me has been the most important step in living a more simple,

Quieter life,

And that's to accept what life is giving us now.

For many years I've wanted to live somewhere else but the demands of work and family have made that impossible and impractical in the short term.

For a long time,

Okay years,

I fought the reality of this.

It was the source of many internal silent complaints in my mind and I felt as I was living in a constant battle,

The longings of my soul and the demands of reality.

But at some point,

To find a gentle way of being,

I knew I had to find peace by either uprooting myself and leaving my family,

Which frankly was never going to happen,

Or accepting that this is what life is giving me at this moment.

Now this doesn't mean that these dreams can't be something to work towards in the future,

But insisting that life should be something else now,

Being cross,

Being frustrated with how life is in this moment,

I'm blinding myself to the beauty and possibilities of all that life has to offer me now.

Number four,

Accept any emotions.

Oh how we like to complicate life.

With any emotion we feel,

There often comes a large amount of baggage and unless our emotions come within a narrow category of acceptable feelings,

It sometimes feels impossible for us to simply feel an emotion.

We might not like the emotions we feel or we might feel guilty about them or fear them.

There's no right or wrong about emotions and squashing them down or ignoring them and rejecting them takes up an incredible amount of what we could call psychic energy.

It's a bit like going through the day carrying a huge suitcase of useless objects.

No matter what we feel about these emotions,

They're still going to be there.

Although this isn't an excuse to give those emotions full range and act on them,

But simply to notice them and feel them without judgment.

Anyone in a long-term relationship has no doubt noticed that murderous feelings towards a partner can sometimes raise their head,

But the sane and legal response is to acknowledge to ourselves how we feel and share that anger in a respectful loving way.

Number five,

Trust that you will have wisdom in the moment.

The final step that I want to talk about is all about trusting that when life goes haywire,

We will know how to manage and what action to take.

Complexity comes when we're trying so hard to anticipate,

You can change that word for worry,

About what may or may not happen in the future.

In many ways this also links to being in the present moment because when we're caught up in worries about the future or regrets about the past,

We lose the only moment we have which is the present one.

I also love that Mark Twain quote about worrying about things that might happen in the future,

Most of which never will happen.

The future is for many reasons impossible to predict and whilst there are some things that are a dead cert,

The death and taxes argument,

Most tricks and turns that happen to us are never foreseen.

So we can start to trust in ourselves more,

Trust that the more we relax into life and who we are,

The more simple it will be to know how to respond when life goes strange.

So finally then,

By all means carry on decluttering your external environment,

Strip out those cupboards,

Clear out those hidden nooks and crannies,

Throw out the unwanted and unused,

But do it with an awareness that the most important place to start to lead a simple gentle life is by examining your internal world and your relationship to life.

Once we do this we realise that the peace and tranquillity we've craved for so long have always been far closer to us than we might have thought and never been dependent on the tiring fruitless control of our external world.

So thank you so much for joining me here,

If you've enjoyed this talk please have a look at my other ones,

Courses and join me for lives.

Have a look at my profile and if you haven't joined me already please follow me,

That would be wonderful to meet you again.

But in the meantime thanks so much for joining me here and I look forward to meeting you again soon.

Bye-bye.