Let me share a recent experience of Mel’s as an example;
Mel moved into a new house earlier this year and for the first time had a home office with an actual door – very exciting times when at her previous house her office was an open space next to the kitchen. Not very conducive to getting work done when you have 3 seemingly ALWAYS hungry children there too.
The thing with having an office with a door though – is it very easily becomes a perfect solution for all of those boxes you don’t want to open yet but that you also don’t want blocking hallways or kitchen cupboards so in no time at all, Mel’s new office was moon lighting as a storage shed. She could still close the door though and access her desk to get work done so no real harm done right??
After a few weeks in her new home Mel started working with a business mentor – she confided in her that she was feeling a little overwhelmed with her ever growing to do list and unable to focus on tasks without getting side tracked and she was doing a lot but achieving very little. That her ideas have stopped flowing and she just feels really stuck – we’ve all been there right. Mel asked her if they could do some planning and work on some time management ideas so she could get herself back on track.
The first thing she asked Mel to do was to unpack every one of the boxes in her office and to begin prioritising having a clear ‘free from clutter’ space to work. She told Mel that NO MORE work was to be done until then – like zero.
Mel’s first thought was holy shit. I actually have to get some stuff done this week or Im going to be even more behind but out of respect for her mentor – she started unpacking.
She told me that after unpacking just one box – a solution to an idea she had been sitting with for awhile popped into her mind like a lightening bolt.
It was like a high five from the universe.
With every box she unpacked the easier it all felt and what had started to feel heavy and hard began to feel light and effortless. Idea’s were flowing again and that long to do list actually began to look exciting rather than overwhelming.
Why??
Because if we choose to surround ourselves with clutter and mess physically – then we will begin to feel cluttered and messy emotionally.
Of course there are times when clutter and mess works – many artists thrive on this creatively and it can also be effective in idea dumping sessions but when you are working on something that requires focus and attention it is debilitating and completely distracting.
Same goes for your home.
Messy cluttered home = Messy cluttered head space.
So when I made the decision to ‘capsule’ my wardrobe – little did I know that this seemingly simple choice was going to spiral into one of the most important changes I have made in my life to date.
Over the next few weeks I am going to share how this decision evolved into a personal commitment to live more intentionally – more consciously – and how that has impacted my life and the lives of those around me.
This week – just to give the process a try yourself – pick something REALLY small to de-clutter. It might be your car’s glove box, the good old ‘top drawer’, throwing out those pen’s that don’t work but you keep, the top of the fridge, your wallet/purse or if you wanna get a bit more crazy – your make up or costume jewellery box (eeeeeeeek I still haven’t done my make up).
Pick something small and see how your feel when you let that shit go.
Ok welcome back…
Are you with me on how important this is? Cause I really need you feeling me on this.
Lets get back to the basics. We are all about helping you guys have great skin and where does great skin come from??
GREAT SKIN BEGINS WITHIN.
Full stop.
This stuff – the decluttering – falls under the element that we call – FEED your Mind. And just like we detox our bodies to reset – we must detox, declutter and hit reset our mind regularly too.
Until you understand how important this part of it is – the inside mindfullness stuff – all our products will do with any of your skin concerns is maintain or help prevent it from getting worse.
Of course this is important too but the REAL healing of anything physical begins with the emotional and that my friends is an inside job.
Its takes much longer to fill your mind with new beautiful thoughts and idea’s when it is jammed with rubbish and clutter. Just like trying to put the groceries away in a pantry that jammed with food you never eat or food that is out of date and not yet thrown out. I once found a packed of something that was 4 years past its best before date.
Yep – go ahead and smile – you know exactly what Im talking about and I know you have been there too.
If we first clear the clutter – then we can make room for new inspirational ideas to flow on in or in the case of the pantry – food that isn’t covered in a layer of green fur….
If everything is energy (and it is) then everything is always moving and change, coming and going.
Change is the one constant we can always rely on.
If we have a BIG physical block (ie the clutter and things and stuff that no longer align with us) then this flow is interrupted.
I believe that if we are not properly prepared for inspiration and idea’s or if we block them with our old clutter – that they simply choose someone else who is more ready than we are. I first heard of this concept in the book Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert and it just clicked.
HUGE aha moment for me.
The other thing that can happen is that if we are lucky enough to be gifted the idea – but then we don’t have the energy or space to act on it – that it will again move onto someone who is. This is something we are going to unpack more deeply in our workshops and retreats because its best done in person, but the first and most important step is to everything we can to ensure there are no unnecessary blocks in the way.
A great way to start is doing a BIG brain dump of everything that is consuming your energy and thoughts right at this point in time.
When I do this – I like to use a piece of butchers paper so once I have done my first dump – I can then hang it up somewhere I walk past regularly and add to it for the next day or so.
I also like to have 4 different colour highlighters for this process – its the Virgo in me that loves for it all to be neat and easy to understand once Im finished with it LOL.
So the key is to write down EVERY single thing that is on your mind right at this very point in time including tasks, thoughts, ideas, etc etc.
Like EVERY single thing.
If you want – you can break it up into different areas like work and home. For me the lines blur too much so its just easier to do it all at the same time.
For example some of mine right now would be;
I am so frustrated that I have no door on my bathroom.
I get annoyed that I have no kitchen bench space – especially when everyone is in the kitchen at the same time.
I wish that I could have more than one wine without it making my breast milk alcoholic.
I need to start meal prepping more.
I need to get my eyebrows done like STAT.
My car needs a service – like a month ago.
Email Mel about essential oil idea.
You get the idea.
Its a dump of your to do list meshed with your current feelings and emotions meshed with ideas and inspiration you are yet to dive into. And well anything else that feels right to you.
Now remember – these are YOUR thoughts and yours alone.
Some of them might seem hurtful to important people in your world, some might seem completely irrational and some even untrue. That is all completely ok and trust me after taking LOADS of people through this process, it happens pretty much every single time. For whatever reason if these feeling and thoughts are in your head – they are blocking energy so they need to be acknowledged.
Even when they don’t make any sense to us consciously right now.
If you do have some stuff come up that will cause unnecessary friction in your life should someone else see them – then hanging it up in your kitchen probably isn’t the best choice for you and it might be best to write in down in a journal and to work on it privately.
If you leave out the thoughts that scare you or make you anxious then you are pretty much leaving them in there to contaminate all the new ones so just see this for what it is – a dump – and feel excited that the toxic shitty feeling stuff is coming up – if its coming up then its clearing out and that is a really positive thing.
Add anything that pops into your head from ‘write proposal for meeting with blah next week’ to ‘get waxing done’! This could be a SUPER long list or it might be short – just as long as everything you think of is written down – it is right.
We now have to turn that list into 3 more much shorter – much easier to manage sub lists.
So grab your highlighters (who else LOVES shopping in Officeworks for things they really don’t need like mini highlighters??) and the next step is to choose which of the following categories each item on your list fits into.
Here are the categories;
M – Maybe Later
I – Important
N – No Thanks
D – Delegate
Do you like how they form the word MIND. Pretty clever aren’t we.
SO;
Maybe later – these are the things that can wait until tomorrow or later in the week/month (we are going to create another list for them!) Anything that you know you can leave till another time goes on this list. Highlight all the Maybe Later items in one colour and then write a new list with all of those things on it. We call it Maybe Later because some of the things you put on here will magically become less important as they await your attention…
Important – these are the things that you need to focus on TODAY and today only! These are the things that REALLY have to get done in the next maybe week or so. Lets highlight these items in a different colour and write them out on another new list.
No thanks – these are things we can delete completely! Anything that you read back to yourself and realise it just doesn’t matter or if its something emotional and no longer has any charge or power over you (sometimes simply writing it down can do that so don’t be surprised if it has happened) – no need to highlight these things. Just go over them in a black marker and forget about them completely.
Delegate – are the things we can give to someone else to do. Anything you find that you know someone else can do or can help you with – highlight them in your third colour and write them up on the final list. Then I want you to write the name of the person you think can help you if you already know who that is and if you don’t just leave that blank until you find someone.
Double check through this last list and make sure that nothing on here is urgent and if it is move it to the IMPORTANT list and cross it off DELEGATE.
Then move all the other items on DELEGATE to MAYBE LATER.
You should now only have 2 lists – IMPORTANT and MAYBE LATER.
Anything new that pops up gets added to the MAYBE LATER list unless it is urgent and then it can go on the IMPORTANT list straight away.
Now lets move straight to our IMPORTANT list and get started.
A very important step that most people forget when it comes to writing to do list is next to each of the tasks, write down the approximate amount of time its going to take to complete and then next to that write down the date you are going to complete it by.
I find that when I work out the time its going to take it’s usually much shorter than I thought and it helps me manage my time for effectively. With the date – this is all about holding yourself accountable for getting the tasks completed. With REALLY important stuff I usually ask someone else to help keep me accountable by checking in to see if I am on track to have it finished.
If when you read a task you realise there are a few smaller steps that need to be completed in order for this task to come to fruition – work it back in your head to the first step and add that to the IMPORTANT list underneath the ‘main or parent’ task and write down the time for that first step only.
With the emotional stuff – it can be tricky putting a ‘completion date’ on those things but decide when you are going to take a step rather than find the solution. Its more about choosing to act and setting the intention to take a step in that direction…
Remember – one step at a time.
Once that IMPORTANT list is finished – go back to the MAYBE LATER list and restart the process all over again – you will find that things have changed since you did it and rather than just jump straight in work out once again what’s the most important, what can go, what can wait and what can be delegated.
And if you are anything like me – you will pretty much keep continuing this process for the rest of your life. I sometimes have a few lists on the go because I haven’t had a chance to re-do the steps BUT at some point every week I go back and do it again.
What we have talked about today is focused purely on decluttering your mind.
What this will allow you to do is to see ALL things more clearly and with a clear mind you will begin to notice the other things in your life that also no longer align with who you are or who you want to be.
Becoming aware of the things and stuff that no longer align is the first step in decluttering your life in a bigger way.
You can use a process just like this one to begin decluttering your entire life – to start living more intentionally and surrounding yourself only with ‘things’ and also people – that really make your heart smile.
We are going to take you through processes like that in our workshops (both online and in person) and our retreats that we have coming next year and it will become more clear each time you hear it but if you do have any questions or need extra help please get in touch with us on info@bubblesorganic.com.au or 1300 LOVE SKIN.
Take some time to remind yourself WHY this process was important in the first place – to remove all the old junk that no longer aligns with you and is possibly clogging up both your life and in turn your skin and make room for new inspired thoughts and idea’s which can only lead to clear, glowing skin.
Tune in next week when we re-introduce to you our skin detox kit Clean Three which would work alongside a process like this so perfectly.
A deep cleanse of the mind with a deep cleanse of the skin because;
Great Skin really does BEGIN WITHIN.
