Mental Spring Cleaning

Spring Cleaning for Your Mind

By Lauren Archer, CH

Ah, Spring. Time to take stock of your belongings, get rid of stuff you haven’t used in a while, dust the cobwebs out of the corners, and clear your space.

While you’re at it, how about clearing your head at the same time? Spring is a perfect time to shine a light on your thoughts so you can re-evaluate your life and get rid of beliefs that aren’t working for you anymore. It’s a bit like dusting out the cobwebs from the deep, dark recesses of your mind.

In order to shine a proverbial light on your current way of thinking, you get to take stock of your mind and become the observer of your thoughts.

Here’s an interesting statistic for you...

Did you know that the average person thinks about 60,000 thoughts a day, and about 90% of those thoughts are habitual? So most days, we’re walking around thinking about the same things we thought about yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. We tend to replay the same old tapes, as they say. (For those of you under age 25, audio and video was recorded on tape before everything went digital, so many people still refer to recorded media as tapes. I suppose now we should all say that we’re replaying the same old files. What a coincidence – we have just experienced a prime example of clearing out an old belief and replacing it with a new one).

How do you actually perform mental spring cleaning?

It helps to know that human beings process thought in three primary ways:

1. With pictures/images in our mind’s eye;

2. With sounds in our mind’s ear; and

3. with sensations /feelings in our body.

One of the easiest ways to identify your repetitive thinking is by listening to the incessant ramblings of your inner voice. You know, the one that says, “You should have done it that way,” and “there you go again,” and “this happens every time!” The next time you hear that voice, you can turn up the volume as you observe the thought without letting yourself become identified with it. Just say to yourself, “wow – listen to that thought I was thinking – isn’t that interesting to observe! I wonder how many times I have thought that same thought in the past?” Perhaps you may even imagine Dr. Phil’s voice saying, “how’s that working for ya?” Now that you have observed the thought, you get to decide whether to keep it or clear it out.

Like spring cleaning, here’s an easy way to process your inventory of thoughts. Imagine creating three boxes in your mind – label one “KEEP,” label the second “RETURN,” and label the third “TOSS.” You may uncover some ideas or beliefs that were given to you as a child by your family, friends, or culture. You can imagine “returning” the ones you don’t like by placing them in the “return” box. Put all of your self-critical or limiting thoughts in the “toss” box. I bet you can be really creative with how you imagine tossing the contents. You definitely want to keep any thoughts that support you and make you feel good. In fact, you may even want to dust them off and put them on display in a place where you can observe them more often.

Albert Einstein knew the importance of this process when he said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” That reminds me of the famous line by Dr. Seuss --“Oh the Thinks you can think up, if only you try.” Clearly, both Einstein and Seuss were willing to question established beliefs and think far “outside the box.” Now that it’s spring, you may find yourself solving problems more easily as you begin to clear your head. You can apply this simple process to get rid of old beliefs to make room so you can think up a few new thoughts.

Happy cleaning!

Send mail to Lauren@PositiveCentral.com with questions or comments about this web site. Copyright © 2007 Positive Central

Send mail to Lauren@PositiveCentral.com with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 2007 Positive Central