Spring Cleaning From the Inside Out

Spring is known for renewal and rebirth, and for being a traditional time to purge, clean, and reorganize your living space. This annual ritual is usually associated with the physical but doesn’t have to be. The transition time between the chilly winter and the hot summer can also be a great opportunity to take on some mental cleansing as well.

According to Catherine Roster, a professor at the Anderson School of Management at the University of New Mexico, “Messy spaces tend to prevent clear cognitive thinking. It has a distorting effect that can bleed into other aspects of a person’s life—not only their emotions but their productivity.”

I think she’s absolutely right. I can appreciate the physical, mental, and even emotional benefits of cleaning up and clearing out what you don’t need. Spring can also be a time to examine your mindset, so you can truly bring yourself for the rest of the year.

Re-evaluate your manifestation mindset

At the start of the year, you might have set goals or an intentional direction for what you wanted to achieve. After three or four months, taking a look at your progress can be a good idea. Hitting reset on what you want to achieve isn’t a failure, but rather a tool to keep you headed in the right direction.?

If you think you have gotten off track, you might want to take stock of what you’ve accomplished so far to determine if you need to make changes. Bring patterns of behavior that may have undermined your progress into the light, along with those that moved you forward. Everyone is different, but checking in with someone who can hold you accountable, meditating, journaling, or even creating a new vision board can bring light to what’s working for you and what’s not.

Manifesting can help bring your aspirational goals into focus. With a different mindset, you might start seeing possibilities where before there were problems.

Measure your boundaries

As you thoroughly examine your head and your heart, you’ll probably encounter some uncomfortable situations that require setting boundaries. These could be boundaries within a relationship, a habit you’d like to modify, or even for your career. If you struggle to establish boundaries, spring can be a poignant catalyst for change.

Part of setting boundaries can be identifying people, places, or emotions you need to let go. Some of what you do serves a specific purpose for a particular time, helping you for a while but eventually losing value.

The same principle applies to relationships you’ve outgrown and jobs you’ve outpaced. Letting go is never easy, but getting rid of what no longer serves you can bring you closer to what you want to achieve.

Writer Eleanor Brownn said, “Clutter is not just physical stuff. It’s old ideas, toxic relationships, and bad habits. Clutter is anything that does not support your better self.”

When you let go of what doesn’t matter, your capacity for creativity, openness to new relationships, and curiosity to learn can grow. Letting go can make more room in your head and heart for what truly sustains you.

Spend quality time with those important to you

Great relationships can bring incomparable, incandescent joy. These bonds aren’t made overnight, but they’re worth nurturing. There’s nothing more life-giving, fulfilling, or joyful than sharing your life with the people you love.

Research shows that those who have close friends enjoy greater life satisfaction and are less likely to suffer from depression. They’re also less likely to die from a host of chronic diseases. Conversely, having few social connections is associated with premature death.

Another recent study found that older adults who spend time talking to friends or family members on the phone at least twice a week had a lower risk of mild cognitive impairment and dementia than older adults who are more socially isolated.

Cleaning the outside may be an annual ritual for you, but maybe this year is the time to start a new tradition. This spring, try cleaning from the inside out!

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