In The Rising Podcast- A Health and Wellness Podcast

The Benefits of Spring Cleaning for Your Mental Health

April 20, 2021 Bettina M. Brown Season 2 Episode 72
In The Rising Podcast- A Health and Wellness Podcast
The Benefits of Spring Cleaning for Your Mental Health
Show Notes Transcript

It's April!

This brings to mind cleaning out closets and garages... but what about spring cleaning YOU??

In this episode I pose 5 questions that you can ask yourself to help spring clean your mind and soul.

I then dive into 10 habits that can clutter you right back up... 






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[00:00:00] Bettina M Brown: Hello, hello and welcome to In the Rising Podcast. My name is Bettina and I am your host, and this is the platform I have chosen to talk about living a life that's really in alignment with your dreams, your hopes, your goals. And also figuring out what your dreams, your hopes, and goals are, as well as leaving behind the shame blame game.

That really does not do very much for most of us pretty much all of the time. So each week I pick a little bit of a different topic regarding self-care, self-love, identifying and knowing, and realizing your self-worth, because right now is the time to start it, not five years from now. Not when situations are different, but right now to recognize the importance of your life and how important your life is in the eyes and shoulders of other people.

We all lean on one another, and so it is April and. April always reminds me of, well, where I live, lots of wind, hopefully a few rainstorms, which really never come to pass and spring cleaning, and in that spring cleaning, getting rid of stuff that somehow we've accumulated since the last spring cleaning and the spring cleaning before that.

But there is such a thing as spring cleaning for the soul. And that is just as vital, like clearing this emotional and psychological clutter is just as important as physical clutter. There are a lot of people who need just a clean space or a clean work desk, or they, you know, they're like, I can't think in this environment.

They need their space around them to be a certain way, but you need a certain space around your ideas and your thoughts. And even your soul in order to move a certain way. And that movement is direction of what is important in your life. And ultimately, the only one who can really identify what's most important for you is you.

But what does that mean? How do you spring clean for the soul? Well, there are certain questions that you can also ask yourself. So, number one, what, if any, do you have any old habits that you would like to get rid of this season? And a lot of us do have some habits of procrastination of winterizing and eating too much of, resting too much, getting back into shape.

And for a lot of people, the habit of not doing things that they enjoy not being out with their friends and their family. And within the past year, that's been even more difficult because of certain health concerns and health reasons, but, Just connecting with people in general may not be something that you find all that important, but you want to, you want to not be exactly as hermit as much of a hermit as you have been before.

So, looking through what habits like you're just your go-to. That you're not really interested anymore. And you know, for some people, myself included, we used to just love to party and go out every Friday and Saturday night. That would be a lie. I went out Monday through Friday and then Saturday as well.

But there was a point, it became a habit of going and it wasn't a lot of joy. But when you're surrounding yourself with people or situations or environment where you just keep doing the same thing, you don't want to change. So, looking at what habits are not really up your alley anymore does not mean that they are bad.

It just means that you've done them long enough that the interest is not there anymore. Do you have any. Memories that are associated with the spring season that you'd like to carry on, either with friends, with family, with your parents, with your children, where there's certain camping trips that you used to do or certain trips to parts of the country, or even having game nights or having more barbecues in the backyard.

What are, what are memories that you really like about this time of year that you want to honor? And continue. I guess it's looking at the same sort of habits, but in a new way. What memories do you want to really bring forward? And I'd like to put a pause right there for just a moment. Like what does that have to do with spring cleaning?

Well, spring is that time of freshness, right, of rebirth, of regrowth growth, and it is often associated with a lot of opportunity. So if you are having an opportunity to make brand new memories, why not go for it? Or what about making brand new memories with things that you've never, ever done before? But just knowing that there's something that you really, really enjoy and you want to bring forward into your life is an awesome thing to do.

Ask yourself this other question number three. Do you have any routines that you do for yourself that help you maintain a good mood? And if so, keep doing them. And if not, begin them. You know, spring cleaning is again, freshness alive, vivaciousness. So what keeps you in this mood that is just on fire for life?

And if not on fire, just upbeat. So not even just the status quo of, no, I'm not happy and I'm not sad, I'm content, but just really like a little bit of a, like a little matches underneath you, and you're happy, truly, just happy someone cuts you off. You're still happy, scared for a moment, but you're still happy.

What are routines that help you do that? And if those routines are not really in your life, what can you do to initiate those? All really spring cleaning does right now is just to take that moment to self-reflect and see what is really important to you. And I like this next question, is there anything you want to particularly focus on in the near future?

And I guess part two of that question is, do you have any plans on how to do it? So, you know, there's so many quotes, so many quotes of focus on the direction. Like when you play, when you're playing bowling or you're actually bowling, you don't look. All the way down. You look directly in front of you at those line of arrows, and you aim there because you know those specific arrows lead you to a different path.

Now the thing is that path is really far, far away. I don't remember. I used to know that number, but I don't know where the pins are, but they're down there. But the arrows are a lot closer. So, in order to have a result in the future, I need to make. Some plans according to things, closer to my near future.

So, it's wonderful to daydream and it keeps us actually kind of in a childlike trance. And imagination is all about hitting the pins at the end of the bowling alley, but in the beginning, before you get to those pins, there are certain movements plans. So, you will, to get to that point. What would you like to focus on?

Because you know, for a lot of us, the pins are just too blurry anyway. You have to look a little bit closer. What is really important to you? Is it getting started on your workout routine? Is it reaching out to family more often? Is it even journaling on a regular basis? What is really important to you? So, while you're putting away and donating stuff to Goodwill or the Salvation Army, You can run through your mind what's really important for you right now, and move on with that.

And is there any way that you wish you had an easier way of making things happen? So what does that really mean though, an easier way of making things happen? I believe. That easier just means that easy is not always the path of no resistance, but there is involved, there's some, some flow involved with it.

If things are going one direction and, and one thing is leading to another, why not go along on that path and see what's going to happen? Does everything need to be completely organized and planned out? Or are you a little bit looser with those plans? You know, they, they, they're lightly this direction.

They're, you know, somewhere between southwest and northwest, but it does not have to be specifically on the west. It does not specifically have to be there. So isn't that an easier way of going that direction? So in order to answer those questions, which I'm going to read to you really quickly again, What, if any old habits, would you get rid of this season?

Do you have any memories associated with the spring season that you'd like to continue on with? And if so, do you have any routines that you do for your yourself to help maintain a good mood? Is there anything you'd like to particularly focus on in the near future? And do you have any plans on how to make that happen?

And is there any part of this journey that makes it an easier, cleaner way of happening? So, in order to move those things forward, I want to just tap on right now the 10 habits that can drain our energy from doing this spring cleaning. And number one is taking things personally. Everything is not always about you, right?

We are very self-centric, and that's important, especially in times of our life when we are really sad or a lot's going on. But you know, everything isn't about you. Someone sharing their story does not immediately need your input on how you add an event in your life. Everything is not always with an arrow pointed at you.

So in order to spring clean, Shirk off some of that per, you know, taking everything personally. Habit number nine, we're going backwards. Excessive social media. I love social media, but. There's a part when it's not keeping you social and there's a part when it's really a lot of boast posts and it's not moving you forward into your cleanliness moving forward.

Looking at, uh, at, at endless things from other people really takes away from the focus of yourself. You have to answer your questions, and scrolling through someone else's timeline is not going to help you figure out what is important in your life. Habit number eight. Trying to prove your worth, you have worth by default.

There's nothing you can do to make someone believe it. There's nothing you have to prove. You just have it. You don't need a certain amount of money in your bank account. You don't need your space to look a certain way. You don't need to be wrinkle free. You don't need to be a size two. You have worth. So thinking you don't drains your energy back away from those questions that really just clean the clutter for your own life.

Number seven, this is my very guilty one, multitasking. More and more research shows that it doesn't even exist. It really just moves your brain in multiple different directions, and it's fatiguing and it breaks you down doing one thing at a time, even if it is one thing for this time and one thing for another, and then you go back to the one thing, which was part A, but just trying to do four or five things all at once, you're going to do nothing effectively.

It's draining and exhausting. Sweep that out, sweep it out. Number six, sitting still for too long. And for some of us who are currently more in a seated position, like at work, and I am one of them, I feel like I'm almost glued to the chair just sitting too long. Does not help with motion. Like we are really motion full people.

We have emotions, we have energetic movements. We are all over the place and we're just static. We tend to be static. There is no mental forward motion. There is no spiritual forward motion, so even getting up and stretching, but make a point of moving your body not in accordance to some steps. But in accordance to what you need.

Number five is worrying about others' opinions. There's a little saying, other people's opinions are not my problem. I love that. You can't worry about it. What will they think? You don't know? You have no control over it and to continuously worry about it is trying to put control over something you don't have.

You have no more control over someone else's opinion. Regardless of who that someone is, as you do the ability to stop a tornado, it just doesn't happen and it's not effective. And worrying about a possible tornado is also not effective. Preparation is get rid of the worry. And you know what? Some of us are just genetically, I think more prone for worrying, but just acknowledge where you are.

Number four, eating junk food. Enough said number three. Sleeping in too late. Sleeping in too late can really just drain you from all of the things that move you to reducing your clutter and really cleaning, freshening up your life. Sleep is important, but sleeping in can become one of those habits that may not really be helping you move forward effectively.

And the last one, number one. Anger, bitterness or resentment. When you're anger and bitter, you're not able to really look at those questions. You know you're not able to look at your old habits or even wanting to recognize any memories that were associated with this time that we're good. If you're bitter, are you really thinking about being in a good mood?

I have yet to meet a bitter person who's excited about being in a positive mood. I have yet to meet that person. So looking at those 10 habits that can really drain you and how that is not effective is so important for cleaning up the cutter clutter and freshening up your life to move forward in this spring and in every single season from here on out.

So thank you again for listening today. I appreciate your time. Because you know what? All this time you don't get back. Every minute we have is valuable and important, so let's keep building one another up.