Untangling from the tangle

The web of life – a beautiful, intricate tapestry of connection, that is what I picture when I hear this term. Sometimes, however, being immersed in the web of life can feel more like wrestling around in a spider’s web. You know what I mean?

Things get sticky, messy, hard to find your way out of.  Relationships can be like that – and it’s easy, especially if you’re the empathetic sort, to get stuck in the tangle.

To feel that you have to fix someone’s problems.

To feel driven to come to the rescue.

To take it on, so that you leave the encounter weighted down with the burden.

To feel responsible.

It happens without you even realizing it, until you take a moment to check in and realize you have lost connection with your own peace, your own center.

That awareness is the beginning of letting go… of that which is not ours to carry.

A deep breath. The realization that we are all on our own soul journeys. As much as I love and adore this family member, or this friend, no matter how close we are, their story is not my story.

So what is mine to do?  What is in front of me, what I can gladly offer from my heart? My presence, time, energy, highest thinking, compassion, listening. A helping hand. A knowing, that right where they are, Spirit is.

What is mine not to do?  Give advice (unless asked), judge, take on, resolve, rescue, feel sorry for.

It took me many years to learn this lesson. The hard way. So, I offer this as a reminder to myself, and to you too, if you should find yourself caught in a tangled web.

De-cluttering magic – letting go of the stuff of life

Last week on the blogging trail I chucked out a load of burdensome mindsets from my back pack.  This week, I decided, it’s time to tackle the actual physical stuff that clutters my desk, my shelves and my drawers – and hence my mindset.

I’d say I am a pretty organized person – I have my neatly labeled files, my tidily arranged storage boxes, in theory a place for everything… but the reality is, that despite my best efforts, it just gets out of hand. A few days of busyness, and lo and behold, the inevitable piles of paper, the stacks of books, the this’s and that’s, mushroom like magic, like mutant viruses intent on conquering my space.

Now, I know it’s me… only me who prints the paper and buys the books and acquires all this stuff and brings it in to my space….. and believe me I have tried almost every known system for dealing with it. Over the years I have probably purchased at least a dozen books on organizing your life, de cluttering, feng shui, etc., and yet wherever I look, office, living room, bedroom closet, and of course my sock drawer… there is always just way too much STUFF!  And did I say books? 

Speaking of books, I happened upon this little gem over the weekend – The life-changing magic of tidying up – the Japanese art of de cluttering and organizing by Marie Kondo. Her revolutionary method, which challenges the conventional little-by-little approach to de-cluttering, advocates a once and for all system that, she promises, leads to lasting results.

This caught my attention. Although I came to the conclusion that lightening my metaphorical backpack on the blogging trail was a daily practice, I’m not so sure that de -cluttering as a daily practice actually works. It really hasn’t worked for me, and judging by the fact that Marie Kondo’s book has sold over 2 million copies, I don’t think it works for most of us either.

So, I’ve decided to set my sights this week on liberating myself from the too much stuff of life, for once and for all. Sound unrealistic or overly ambitious?  Perhaps. Yet I know from past experience with short lived de-cluttering results, that it feels so freeing, so spacious, so fresh…. to have a clean desk and a minimal amount of stuff.

So starting today, until I’m done, I’m following Marie Kondo’s advice. “Start by discarding, all at once, intensely and completely.”

It will be interesting to see where this leads. Want to join me dear reader?

Lessons on letting go from Mother Nature, or to put it another way: Does a tree freak out when it’s leaves turn color?

As summer gives way to fall, and green turns to gold and red, there is no doubt that change is in the air……

And speaking of change, have you ever realized that you were over committed and that you needed to let go of something in your life?

This happened to me last week…  as a self employed entrepreneur, I’m constantly needing to assess where my time and energy are going, and looking to see if I’m on the right track to my goals. Even though I know that life is all about change, when it comes to having to actually make a change, and let go of something in order to make room for something else, it isn’t always so easy. 

I’m complaining about my schedule. My business coach asks me “Don’t you think you might be over committed?”  “Who, me?!”   Well, indeed the answer was yes. And it was fairly easy to hone in on what it was I needed to let go of.  A commitment I’d made a year ago, that made perfect sense at the time, was no longer serving my goals, even though there were so many things about it that I loved.

Ok, that’s clear.   I knew it was true. End of story, right? No.  As my always wise spiritual counselor Jeff  Anderson likes to say, we have that inner knowing of what is the right thing to do, but then our head wants to get in on the act, so that knowing creeps right up our necks and our head gets all crazy with it. “Oh but….. “, “What will they think?”  “What if…”   But still, we know, and I knew, so I thanked my head for it’s machinations, and listened to my inner knowing.

And so, dear reader, what’s your inner knowing telling you this week? Is there something it’s time to let go of, and gracefully accept that “to everything there is a season”?