It is Springtime and most (if not all) of us think about ‘cleaning up’ our yards, garages, closets, and attics – to discard accumulated junk; and make space for new stuff that we will collect over the coming year. Some of us are by nature, packrats, and must keep everything for some future use. Others have a personal attachment to some of the items and just cannot get rid of them. Bottom line – some have cleaned up personal spaces, while others choose to continue with their packrat existence.

This got me into thinking about our ‘cluttered’ minds – and the need for a periodical cleansing. Let us put this in perspective. A cluttered mind is like your home with all sorts of ‘no-longer required’ or, junk/unnecessary items occupying useful (often required) living space. Another way to look at this is a comparison to your computer’s hard drive. How often do we delete the browsing history data, junk internet files, and ‘defragment’ our hard drive disk space to have our programs and data space contiguous, vs stored as data fragments. This speeds up the computer and enhances our user experience.

The symptoms that indicate that someone has a cluttered mind, often are – when a person is constantly anxious depressed, and/or stressed. Most of the time, they do not even know what is causing this state of mind. The impact of constant churn in their minds is that they may not be able to relax and/or sleep well – often building up into chronic conditions that may need intervention and help. We process billions of data segments, and most of this is in the ‘short-term’ memory space, or scratch-pad memory in computer terms. A lot of the data although, is retained in long-term/semi-permanent storage, for whatever reason. Some of these are good memories, while others may be dark, haunting, and negative. We all can relate to our good memories, which we often surf through to bring a smile to our faces. My reference to a cluttered mind is the dark, de-motivating thoughts that hang like a cloud in our minds, and often reflect on our behavior and personality. My reference is NOT to severe trauma-induced memories like PSTD etc. These are too deep-rooted and personality-invasive and need professional help – as most veterans must seek out, on their return from serving their country. They cannot be easily rooted out and can fester, grow over time, and be disruptive.

What I am referring to as ‘clutter causing’ – is clearly in our control to suppress or clean up and refresh our minds. Some examples would be:

  • Feeling inadequate, at not achieving personal goals
  • Being hurt by insensitive personal comments, made by someone you care about.
  • Personal experience of rejection and negativity
  • Break-ups of a long relationship – could be friends, family, or intimate ones.
  • Bottom-line – anything which festers in your mind, that you cannot forget or let go and which constantly re-surfaces from the depths of your mind, to distract/depress you.

Spring cleaning or a regular review of all such junk in our heads can only elevate us out of the quick-sand dump, to make long-term changes. We often ‘forgive someone’ but can never ‘forget what has happened’. This will result in murky data that floats around our minds, which I believe is in our control to clean up periodically. Forgetting what you have already forgiven – will revert some of the calmness in your life. So, this spring, along with your outdoor cleansing – remember to meditate, dig deep into your minds, and cleanse whatever is impacting your quality of life. We all have only one Life, so let’s live it to the fullest.