Clearing Clutter to Play in the Sun

These endless days of rain in Fort Worth conjure up the plot to All Summer in a Day, my favorite short story by science fiction author Ray Bradbury.

The story occurs on Venus, where rain falls consistently for seven years and the sun emerges only for a brief two hours before the rain resumes. Nine-year-old Margot, whose family recently moved to Venus from Ohio, constantly reminisces about the beauty of sunshine and flowers. This annoys her classmates, who were too young to remember the last two-hour visit of the sun. At the height of their annoyance, the classmates lock Margot in a closet. Shortly afterward, the sun emerges. The classmates play and gather flowers outside and then return inside when the predictable first drops of rain announce the commencement of the next rain cycle. Sadly, the children forgot about Margot, who missed her time in the sun for another seven years.

Bradbury’s brilliant writing weaves its own spiritual and moral threads. For this article, though, the imagery of this story relates to issues that often arise when using goals to creatively transform your life.

Margot represents our spiritual self having a human experience. Her longing for the experience of sunshine does not mean she is living only in the past; instead, it relates to our soul’s inner longing to express its true calling. Our souls long to bask in the sun of the childlike innocence that views the world as a playground of possibilities for flowers and beauty. Margot’s innate purity characterizes the dreams and bliss you seek through the goals you set.

The classmates represent the thinking, analytical, practical, “reality”–driven aspects of our personality that serve us at particular times in our life. They are also portrayed as children so no judgment attaches to their behavior: All aspects of our personality serve us in some way. For instance, they protect us and help us accomplish tasks and achieve goals.

Margot is an outsider because her classmates have yet to experience the sun. Ideally, the children would play together. Similarly, our life existence should not focus solely on the accomplishment of tasks or the checking of items off of a list. Instead, we can openly experience a life of creativity and joy.

The classmates locked Margot in the closet. As humans, we also lock our opportunities for joy in the closet because we are only familiar with our current cycle of choice and consequence. Setting goals to make positive changes allows the classmate side of us to interact with and accept the Margot side of us. Unfortunately, this interaction sometimes feels hampered.

The Waters of Emotional Clutter

Water represents our emotions and the subconscious influences in our lives. We cannot change that it is raining, but we can change how we play in it. Sometimes we feel overwhelmed by lingering emotions, unresolved conflict or indecision, and these kink the hose of our creative energy. In other words, emotional clutter affects the flow of the creative energy we need to connect with the joy we desire in our life. Clutter, as an accumulation of things no longer needed, burdens us energetically and confines our spirit in a closet.

By clearing clutter, we function at a higher level and achieve clarity about who we are and what we really desire. Then, we can experience the sun now rather than wait out another cycle of rain.

Addressing Emotional Clutter
Our ability to creatively manifest our dreams, hopes and desires depends upon clear channels.

1. The practice of Feng Shui emphasizes clearing our physical environment from clutter. Evaluate each room and space where you spend significant amounts of time and determine if you have accumulated “stuff” you no longer wear, use, read or need. Consider donating or selling these items. If you clear out space, you make room for new things to arrive.

2. The clearing mental clutter works in a similar way. For example, make a list of things you are tolerating, projects that need completion or decisions that you are contemplating.

• For things [including behavior] you are tolerating, ask yourself why; then assess whether tolerance still serves you and change accordingly.
• Determine whether you can eliminate or delegate the projects, or what you need to finish them.
• For indecision, investigate what information you still need and the pros and cons to each side. Ask yourself what would make this decision a 'no-brainer' either way. Finally, set a date in a week or two by which you will make the decision and commit to not actively thinking about the decision in the meantime. Interestingly, the answer will come to you.
  

3. The first two clutter-clearing exercises will naturally reduce emotional clutter. Yet, this type of clutter requires some journaling or meditation on the relationships in your life. Our relationships effectively mirror any areas in which we can develop emotionally. Therefore, reflecting on old thought patterns, feelings of guilt or shame, regrets, or unexpressed grief can provide the key that unlocks the door to your freedom.

May you all bask in sunshine!

A congruent life feels vibrant and full of infinite possibilities where your body, mind, and spirit feel in sync.  Like a personal trainer for the physical body, I help individuals train the mind toward positive focus and deliberate creation. Visit my webpage at www.nicolemignone.com for more information.

Carefully Be Wishful

Evidence of our ability to creatively manifest often reveals itself with a twist of irony. Hence, the admonishing aphorism advises us to be "Careful what you wish for...you just may get it." Unfortunately, a negative tone undergirds this potentially creative affirmation. Instead of inspiration, it delivers a dilatory effect by stifling our inner motivation to wish for anything at all. I prefer to rephrase the statement to a more permissive: "carefully be wishful!"

Be Wishful

The wishing process resembles the planting of a garden. By sprinkling seeds or planting them in rows, you have the intention to create something beautiful and abundant. The seeds sprout and you may thin the seedlings, which is like refining your goals. When weeds sprout, you pull them out, similar to eliminating obstacles that arise when working toward your goals. All of this contributes to the cultivation process. Most importantly, you wait.

Do you see a seedling and then worry about whether you deserve to have the flower bloom or the plant grow? Do you further worry that too many other people have flower gardens already so there may not be enough flowers around for you to grow, too? As ridiculous as those questions seem, consider the self-imposed limitations we create in our own dream process. In truth, we are never given the ability to dream without also being given the possibility to create it. [with thanks to Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull for that wisdom].

Patience [faith] remains the most important ingredient to a beautiful garden. The process of growth also has an imminent beauty. We do not tell a rosebud to hurry up and bloom; instead we let its beauty naturally unfold. This revelation promises to make the dream process possible, beautiful and fun.


Carefully

Our minds, as great creators, can also be great destroyers of dreams. To continue the garden metaphor, a hoe or shovel could destroy weeds as easily as young plants; therefore, we must carefully discriminate how we will implement the tools at hand to achieve the results we want.

Regularly give yourself time to view your garden of dreams and refine as necessary to create the exact results you desire. As we gain experience as gardeners, we can plant with more specificity considering location, the time of year, temperature, soil, and sunlight. Similarly, we can plant our dream seeds with specificity as we become more familiar with unabashed requests for what we truly want and the unfettered use of our minds as a tool to create the optimal conditions for our garden to flourish.


Planting Exercise

Take two to fifteen minutes to write down an unlimited list of things you want in your life. Allow yourself to write down anything without judgment about whether you can afford or realistically have it. Just write it down. Put the date on the top of the list.

Within a week after the first exercise, take out the list and read each thing aloud. "I want _____________!" Allow yourself permission to want and have these things.

Circle three things you want to have in the next year.

On another piece of paper, write out all the reasons you deserve to have each of the three things. Then, write out a list of possible conditions that would impede your immediate manifestation of those items. Next, create possible solutions and a time frame for resolving those obstacles. Finally, think of one thing you can do in the next week to either gain more information or move one step closer to realizing that item.

In the weeks that follow, keep these items in your thoughts and come up with ideas and specific goals each week to get you closer to having them.

Happy Planting!--