Remember comedian George Carlin? He used to do a famous routine called “Stuff”. Carlin said that all your house really is – is a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff. Funny, right? Except it’s kind of true.
We’re a society of consumers. We buy things.
Do you ever look around your home and ask yourself where all that “stuff” came from? Do you ever feel like letting some of it go?
Bravo!!!
Last year, I read a book called “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up”. It was written by Marie Kondo, a Japanese woman who turned the simple concept of sorting your possessions and keeping only what brings you joy – into an empire.
One at a time, I piled my things on sheets on the floor. I held each one in my hand, felt its energy in my heart, and asked myself if it brought me joy. If it did, I kept it. If it didn’t, I bowed to it, thanked it for its service, and gave it away. It felt like a Japanese tea ceremony – reverent and beautiful.
And then something unexpected happened. As my living space became more clear, my mind became more clear. The more I focused on the joyful things around me, the more joy I felt.
The more joy I felt, the more joy I began attracting into my life.
Did you ever have friends who could cook or paint or play the piano or decorate better than anyone... but they didn’t think it was a big deal? They couldn’t imagine that someone would ever pay themto do what they do so well.
It reminds me of a woman named Vivian Maier. She was a reclusive Chicago nanny. Throughout the 1950s, 60s and 70s, Vivian spent most of her free time taking photographs. She loved to snap candid shots of people in the streets with an old Rolleiflex camera – the kind with the viewfinder you look down into.
Vivian knew her photos were good.But she never really showed them toanyone. She put them in boxes by the thousands and stacked them in a storage locker. When she stopped paying the monthly rent, the company auctioned them off.
That could have been the end of the story. But a historian named John Maloof bought some of the boxes and eventually posted some of the photos on Flickr. Vivian’s work went viral. They even shot a documentary about her that was nominated for an Oscar®. Vivian Maier is now acknowledged to be … well… agenius.
It’s like the great spiritual teacher Wayne Dyer once said: “Don’t die with your music still inside you.” … your music, your photos, your painting, your writing, your sewing, your cooking, your baking, your woodworking, your gardening, your knitting, your embroidery, your quilting… and on it goes.
Do you really want to be another Vivian Maier?
Step away from the storage locker. Let it out. Let us see!
If there’s one thing I know about Earthlings, it’s that they love to laugh. How many times have you caught yourself howling at an old re-run of “I Love Lucy”? Lucy and Ethel at the chocolate factory… Lucy stomping grapes in Italy… the list goes on. But making people laugh wasn’t the only thing Lucille Ball was terrific at. She understood one of the great principles of life on planet Earth: she knew how to love herself. Yup. Love herself. Turns out Ricky wasn’t the only one who loved Lucy. Lucyloved Lucy!
“I have an everyday religion that works for me. Love yourself first, and everything else falls into line.” – Lucille Ball.
Great quote, eh? It’s on my fridge door. Imagine loving yourself. So simple. So profound. And so… well… uncommon, right? How consistently do you treat yourself with kindness? How often do you really love you?
Yet loving ourselves is the basis of all Self-care. We need to feed our bodies with nourishing foods, feed our minds with nourishing thoughts, and feed our souls with inspiration.
The question is, do we actually do that day in and day out? Heck no! We get caught up in the stories we tell ourselves: “We aren’t worthy, we don’t have time, we don’t deserve it.”
Dear Earthlings: What a load of crap.
Yogic philosophy talks about a principle known as “Ahimsa”. It’s a Sanskrit word that means “non-violence against other living beings”… people, animals, insects… and … you guessed it… ourselves!
Not loving ourselves is actually against yogic law. Hey, wouldn’t it be great if we could hand out tickets???
Feeling stressed? Welcome to life. Personally, I think the world is wired to encourage stress so that lots of different companies can make lots and lots of money.
Think about it.
What do we Earthlings do when we’re feeling stressed? We turn to wine, beer, liquor, marijuana, fast food, processed food, expensive dinners out, expensive vacations or a session of retail therapy. Many of us do these things because we don’t have the tools we need to manage our stress. It’s that simple. We turn to something outside of ourselves instead of looking inside, where all the power lies.
Breaking free is simple. And best of all, it’s free.
Close your eyes and breathe. Focus onyour breath going in and out of your nostrils. Imagine your thoughts are tied to the strings of balloons. Let them float away. You don’t need them anymore.
Do this for two minutes a day. Anywhere. Lying in bed, in the shower, on the toilet (really!), in line at the grocery store, sitting on your front porch in the morning, anywhere.
It’s a re-boot for your brain that lets you approach your day from a place of calm instead of a place of overwhelm.
There are 1440 minutes in a day. Can you devote 2 of themto staying on your surfboard as you ride the wave of life? 2?
The next time you go to the Dollar Store, take a minute to notice what I call the “Wall of Sugar”: bags of candies hanging from little silver hooks, and boxes of chocolate bars sitting in tidy sugary rows. Not to mention the Betty Crocker icing, Pop Tarts and cookies you’ll find there, too. It all looks so pretty. But let’s call it what it is: socially acceptable crack cocaine. Cheap sugar wrapped in shiny paper; the ultimate wolf in sheep’s clothing.
The more we’re hooked, the more we buy… and that’s the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, they like it – uh-huh, uh-huh.
While the multi-nationals rake in billions in profits (some sources suggest the worldwide sugar industry will be worth 100 billion dollars by 2022), we humans pay the tragic price with skyrocketing rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. The sugar barons are killing us. Killing us. And what’s worse – we’re letting them.
Of all the things Earthlings do, this has got to be one of the weirdest. We allow big business to hook us on an addictive substance, poison our bodies and make us sick. Oh, and then we go back for more. How messed up is that? Answer: incredibly.
Time to wake up, fellow rebels! We don’t have to be slaves to sugar. You heard me. The solution is simple: just stop buying it.Yup. With those four simple words, we can storm the barricades and be free!!! Where’s the cast of Les Miserables when you need them? Oh yeah. Right here. 😀
