"Before I Begin, I Clean Up"

I have a dear friend, also a dancer and a choreographer, who has said this to me many times. And I realize I do the same thing. My kids tease me about my habit of putting the house in order before I go out. OCD or not, it just feels better. Whether it be starting a new dance, getting ready for a new project, having a baby or any other life change, I try to organize all other parts of my life so I can devote undivided attention to the new tasks at hand. There has been something cathartic about streamlining my finances, taking care of old business and reorganizing my closets- getting rid of "the dead wood". I even had the good fortune of having another dear friend, a designer, feng shui my house. What an incredible difference that has made; same stuff, whole new energy flow (Mind Your Body). After a few weeks of moving furniture and many trips to Salvation Army, my environment is ready to reflect and support my new beginning.

Clutter is a funny thing. Physical, mental and emotional. It creeps into your life without really noticing how much it can accumulate and also how it can provide an obstacle to new opportunities. Say you go through a painful break-up with a significant other. Once you get past the hard-to-breathe shock of it all, usually one of two things happens. We either feel so much anger towards the other person and even life itself that we move forward with dukes up and toxic energy spewing. One kind of clutter. Or, we might turn the feelings onto ourselves; make ourselves right about the fact that we are unlovable or less than perfect. A real self-hate syndrome. We retreat from the world and wallow in sadness and self-pity until some survival mechanism kicks in and we rejoin the land of the living. Yet a different brand of mess. But all of it keeps us from being open to new possibilities and we run the risk of missing the very reason the change is happening in the first place. Something great around the next bend.

But it's one thing to clean your basement and entirely another to lose the psychic debris. We are such products of our past experience. If we grew up thinking everything was our fault (how godlike of us), we might take on guilt for anything that goes wrong for the rest of our lives. Or, we might respond as if nothing is our fault, ever. Always the other guy. And we wonder why our relationships never succeed. Unless we interrupt that pattern. And it takes a concerted, relentless effort to re-program our deepest beliefs about ourselves even if we have to delve deeply to realize what these are. Unless we slow down long enough to breathe into the space that allows for awareness and be open to the new possibilities, clutter continues to accumulate.

Both in my external environment and my inner landscape, I seek a sense of balance. And balance is only possible by losing the excess baggage. I always marvel at how balance looks different for different people and in different situations. For a dancer, balance is palpable; when standing on one leg, you're either on your balance or not. For me it is a matter of releasing rather than efforting but it's also a dynamic condition that requires minute adjustments continually. Just like life. The state of balance is always shifting and we are ever making small changes as things occur throughout our day. Staying stuck in the expectation that everything should stay the same and meet our notion of a perfect life is not useful because it is not possible. We are in a constant state of change. As Maya Angelou said, “Everything in the universe has rhythm. Everything dances." If we stay clear of the mental chatter and ruminating, the fear and the negativity that can keep us chronically off balance and if we delve deeply to remove the clutter, we begin to notice everything as one giant, energetic dance- each finding balance in relation to the others from moment to moment.

#cleanuptheclutter #getridofthedeadwood #psychicdebris #findyourbalance