The first breath of spring is here, and many of us become intent on cleaning out our homes and offices, giving them the deep cleaning that’s been missed over the winter. Sometimes, though, the house isn’t the only thing that needs clearing. We dedicate time and serious effort to primping and refreshing our spaces, yet we often ignore the most important area of our lives: our minds.
Spring is an excellent time of year to refresh and organize your emotions and mental state after winter and the start of the year. When our homes and offices are cluttered with old files and bric-a-brac, we feel the effect on ourselves, and the same is true of our emotional space. Fortunately, there are some tips we can provide for clearing your mind for the new season.
Letting Go of the Past
Just like you go through your closets to find old, worn out clothing, our minds can hold mental clutter which can accumulate over time. Small annoyances, old grudges, resentment, anger, guilt: Small things can build up if left unresolved. Spring cleaning means letting go of the old to freshen up your space, and creating that mental space gives room for more positive thoughts and feelings. As a first step, sit down and spend 15 minutes creating a list of all the stuff in your mind. Sort the list: If there are items you cannot control, cross it off. If there are items you would like to address, take the time now to put them in order of priority, and create a specific plan of action to deal with each. Clearing your mental clutter and the cobwebs of past negative thoughts creates room for growth. In our clinic, we work with our clients to go back into their past and re-frame previous experiences in a more positive light.
Future Growth, not Future Worries
A common habit of mind is to worry about the future. If we are focused on what can go wrong, we create feelings of worry and stress, and feel less in control of our present. To let go of worries, we need trust, and understanding that the obstacles we face are what allows for growth. Challenges are not catastrophes to concern ourselves about, they are exciting opportunities. Consider one thing you are worrying about today, and try reframing it as a new learning experience, a new chance to excel. What ways could that benefit you in the future, and how do you picture yourself rising to meet it?
Future goals can be difficult to quantify, which is why we work with client in our clinic to set achievable and specific goals to tackle during hypnosis. For more ideas, see our blog post “Important Characteristics of Attainable Goals.”
Commit to Simplifying
Spring cleaning isn’t just about organizing what you have, it’s about eliminating things in your life that are taking your time, attention and space, but not giving enough back to you. It is a good time to go through your commitments: Is there something you aren’t benefiting from? Could you say “no” to something that doesn’t fit with your goals and values? Something on the To-Do list that isn’t as important as you previously thought? With work, chores, home life, commuting, we have so little time in our lives to focus on ourselves. If we over-commit to things without thinking of their long-term impact on our most critical desires and dreams, we are left feeling unfulfilled, drifting. Focused, specific goals aren’t useful without the time and energy to act upon them, so we need to clear space in our lives for what is most important. We work with our clients to discover what is holding them back from striving for their most important goals. For more details, check out: “Achieve Anything with Hypnosis.”
Visualizing Change
Creative visualization is a tool to create rapid and lasting change. In our clinic, and during self-hypnosis, you enter into a hypnotic state which is highly conducive to guided visualization. By bypassing your critical faculty – the part of you that analyses and judges what’s happening around you – we give room for more free thinking, and create a state amenable for suggestion. Although it is called “visualization”, we don’t just discuss visuals: seeing is important, but so is touching, smelling, motion, emotions. The more compelling the feelings are, the more powerful the effect of the visualization. It is powerful because it creates a reason for change: your mind has felt how good it feels to achieve a goal, and wants to repeat the experience! Try visualizing the state of your mind as a room: The clutter is your resentment, rumination, worries. Gather them up, and let them float away – flying out the window and disappearing slowly, until they are just a speck on the horizon, and then, nothing.
As this Spring begins, consider cleaning not just your home, but your mind. Creating space for what is most important in your life by clearing your mind can create room for new opportunities. The Morpheus Clinic for Hypnosis can help you refresh your mind and start afresh.
One of our Client Care Coordinators published this post.