Spring Cleaning Is Here Again – Inventory Time

Spring is nearly upon us, what better time to clean up your insides than NOW?

There may be a handful of people out there who operate in conscious mind, fully aware in every interaction they take part in throughout the day, but I think for the majority of us we have yet to reach that mark. A benefit of achieving such presence in the moment is that you will uncover just how well you interact in social settings, how well you connect with your loved ones, how well you respond to authority figures, how well self-care is working in your life and the list goes on forevermore. I lived most of my life in the dark when it came to an honest perspective of my internal workings. I always found it much easier to avoid my own problems and judge the lives of others instead. I used to pride myself on being able to critically analyse the lives of people around me and offer them my whole-hearted critique of their lives, whether it was called upon or not. I mean, a good friend is supposed to provide you with this type of integral life guidance, right? I was totally convinced that is was my rightful duty to examine everyone’s life and outline there areas in need of improvement. The best part of it all was that the more attention I could place re-jigging their lives the less time I had to look at my own rough edges, and there were plenty to examine.

Now fast forward through life to the day of awakening where my life wasn’t working in full capacity (heaven forbid) and I needed some outside help, it all began to click. The sting of judgement and critique I had been so freely passing all my life really stung. Having someone assess my weak links can really shake you up. It was startling to see that I had been able to live so blindly for years, avoiding so many areas of weakness and it now seemed I was sinking in my own quicksand. The question of what molehill clean up first came to mind and I was left frozen with indecision. It’s funny how we go through life so blinded by our own short-comings, and then the joyous day arrives when we are focused to have a look at ourselves with a fine eye (usually when we are hurting) and the details uncovered are truly overwhelming.

This might be a great time to correct some of those useless behaviours you have incorporated into your life over the years. One of the best ways to accomplish this is to sit down with a pad and pen and make a moral inventory. We are not here to place judgement on all of the terrible things we have all done in life, but rather to diligently narrow down some of the emotional speed bumps that keep on raising their ugly heads (yes, we all have them). To point here is to learn a little bit more about ourselves and understand how we tick. Once we get a feel for the underlay of our internal workings we can then make some finely tuned adjustments. Yes, it is does all come down to that old phrase of “awareness is the first step to change”. I still hate hearing that phrase today, there is something so very condescending about it. It’s like someone else is telling me that I clearly have not been looking in the right direction for the answers to my problems, and by voicing those words they then become some wise sage guiding to wisdom town…grrrr! “Thanks for that special eureka moment captain obvious. Now pleasantly go fuck yourself, that would be great, thanks!”

The point here is that no one likes to be told what to do, and when it comes to uncovering our inner workings it is the last thing we want to hear.

Now considering this phrase has been used for generations and generations before my precious life came to existence, maybe there might be some serious grounds to the bold statement after all. This wouldn’t be the first time I may have overlooked something due to ignorance, maybe I might take a closer look. Let’s break down the word awareness quickly. After a good search on-line most dictionary definitions will return to you with something along the lines of “knowledge or perception of a situation or fact”. That doesn’t sound too invasive, now does it? Step 2, let’s now narrow in on the word perception. The first thing that comes to my mind when I think about the word perception is a powerful quote by Les Brown, “you can’t see the whole picture when sit inside the frame”. What that means to me is that I can’t see all the dimensions of my complicated life picture because of my limited and very biased view on my own life. I think this really summaries the whole issue at hand. We are too close to the problem, which of course is ourselves, to really see the problem.

To step outside of the frame of your life and to start making progress, refinement or betterment of self you might start to make a list…..wait this is starting to sound like a lot of work now isn’t it? Maybe you should just head back to Facebook or scroll through some more pages on Pinterest, that might help you get that extra edge you were looking for.

Never in the history of life have we been bombarded with more useless information than today. With social media shares, and like buttons desperately calling out to be pressed we step further into the evasion of self. Making an exploitative list about how you operate in life doesn’t really sound like a lot of fun, but it needs to be done. Your right, there might not be any intrusive comment made from a ‘friend’ hiding behind their computer screen guiding your choices with positive or negative reinforcement, what a shame!

You can keep on trying to ignore that inner voice of reason that keeps on telling you to switch things up, but it really isn’t going anywhere, why don’t you stop everything and just say hello for once. Make things easier on yourself and face the music, you might even like the delicate sounds that you then hear. The blame game has come to an end and you are now left with the original creator of your life’s chaos, yourself. What’s  your move now, back to Facebook?