Clean Up the Mess: How to Create Calm in Your Head

I have a secret…

I hate having “stuff” but I hate starting the process of getting rid of it also.

It annoys me that I have a little bit of a hoarding problem.

I remember growing up and packing every little space of mine with treasures.  They would include bits of paper, rocks, old wrappers, various coins, broken jewelry and other trinkets.

Whenever my mom would tell me to clean my room, I’d barely get rid of anything.  Instead, I’d try to make it look better by stacking and “organizing” all the stuff. 

I remember thinking… “I might want to use it/love it/look at it/play with it later.  What if I regret throwing it away?”

Now, as an adult, I lean more towards the minimalistic side of things rather than hoarding side. But, recently, the tendency started to show.

See, I make A LOT of notes to myself. They are my thoughts that come to me in the moment that I want to think about more later or write about.  I HATE throwing these little gems away. My short-term memory is not that great. Thus, I have this intense fear that I have a piece of “gold” in all the scribbles and will lose it forever if I throw any away.

So, the bits of paper stack up.  It all accumulates.  It becomes harder and harder to see through the mess….

...the mess of all my thoughts.

Yes, all those thoughts.  I bet you have them too.  Those thoughts probably aren’t written on pieces of paper, but they are swimming around in your head.  I’m here to tell you, they are accumulating and making a mess and you may not even realize it.

Here are what messes in our brain look like:

• Negativity
• Over eating
• Yelling at your kids
• Arguing with your spouse on a regular basis
• Overwhelm tied to busyness
• Lack of energy during down time
• Physical messes in your home or work
• Starting a fight with a friend

Sounds kind of messy, huh?  Our world wants us to look at our actions to fix these things.  Like, eat only whole foods to stop over eating or have regular date nights to decrease the arguing with your spouse. 

While these actions are good, they aren’t getting deep into the messiness. It was like how I wanted to stack and hide all my “stuff” so it would look nicer on the outside.  But if you opened that closet door it would have tumbled out and there would be the complete picture of the chaos.

We don’t want to see the messes. 

I get it. 

I didn’t want to see all my stacks of thoughts and notes any more either. It takes so much effort and work to go through all of it.  It’s slow.  It’s kind of painful.  And it’s definitely not fun.

What’s the point then?  If it’s such a pain to clean the mess, why even do it? 

Well, you know how wonderful it is step into a clean, organized and comfortable home.  Where things have their place, you know where to find what you’re looking for, the couch doesn’t have bits of food strewn over it and you’re not afraid to walk around in bare feet.  And when a home is like this, you know the feelings you get; the warmth, enjoyment, happiness and calm. 

The same goes for your mind.  When you clean and organize those thoughts you make space.  Space that lets the Holy Spirit work on your thoughts.  You also get those wonderful feelings of warmth, enjoyment, happiness, calm and so many more.

Do you want a mind like that?  A mind that makes you feel that way? 

I sure do.

Do not copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. -Romans 12:2

Here is how you do it…

1. Awareness is key. Seeing everything, all the thoughts. In my case, taking out all the pieces of paper. But for your mind, it takes writing everything down. You’ll get a complete picture of what is going on.  From there you can start to make informed choices.
2. Understand if a thought serves you or not. Thoughts sometimes sound nice, but they don’t lead to the action you want. Example: The thought, “I hate wasting food.”  Yes, it is a nice idea to not waste food.  But if you’re eating it so not to waste it and it turns to fat on your body, aren’t you wasting that food anyway?  My philosophy is, if I’m not using it, I’m wasting it.
3. Is it current or outdated information? I have so many people that ask me about my coffee.  Yes, I put almost a tablespoon of coconut oil in it.  They will question, “Isn’t that a lot of fat?”  It is a lot of fat.  Fat to keep me satiated and my body working right.  High fat diet doesn’t correlate to adipose tissue (fat) on your body.  That is outdated information.
4. Do you want to keep it? You get to choose. God gave you free will to choose your thoughts.  You get to decide if you want to keep telling yourself you are fat, ugly, or lack self-control.  You get to decide if you want to keep thinking you are lazy, tired all the time or too busy to take care of yourself.  Those are all choices you make.

The thoughts in your brain will create the reality of your life.  Life is made of internal and external.  The external is the direct reflection of the internal. 

My suggestion, you start with the internal.

As someone thinks within himself, so he is. Proverbs 23:7

Next week, I will be talking more about how the internal is reflected by the external and how this all relates to your weight loss.  So be sure to stop back and read next week’s post!

P.S.  If you are trying to work on the external and nothing seems to be working, why don't you sign up for a FREE consult with me?  We'll look at the internal and get a good picture of how it's affecting the external.