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10 Big Signs That You Need To Quiet Your Mind And Dump Your Mental Clutter

By on February 17, 2016
Solitude forweb

By Dana Claudat

I believed that my life was relatively calm until I came to the countryside of Nicaragua and heard only birds chirping. I thought there was peace in my life until I experienced absolute environmental peace.

It’s funny because my life is so privileged in so many ways- I create my schedule, there are so many amazing things in my creative life, so many people, so much love- that I have no reason to pressure myself but my own habits I didn’t realize I still had… until I landed on Friday to hear the noise in my own head so vividly as it fought me to keep itself going.

Given that I talk so much about crafting dream lives and living with only what you love, it was this horrific realization that would make me quite the hypocrite, but I think without real calm I couldn’t see my own mental and physical clutter to release.  Staring down my own noise and letting it go, albeit reluctantly, I now see how I can be of greater service and how I can create with more gratitude.

It’s not something I think, it’s something I now feel and know to be true.

Big difference.

Do you have ways of living and habits that you think define you, even if they are a lot of pressure to maintain? Do you have things that keep repeating themselves- habits, problems, obstacles, even clutter- that you can’t seem to ever let go so you’ve taken them on as a part of “how things are”?

Today, here are some of the more blatant and more subtle ways I see I’ve created my own clutter and made my own life far more difficult than it needs to be.  In fact, it’s made some things nearly impossible.

All in the mind. All reflected in space.

Here are ten ways to know if your obstacles may be your own creation (they are!)…along with some ideas to let them go to experience incredible connection to life and the kind of inspiration, stability and confidence that moves mountains.

Do you need to quiet your mind and dump your mental clutter?

1. Are you an overachiever who can shelf everything in life in order to achieve great things in one area of life? I have had a lifelong belief that without a feeling of pressure I wouldn’t create things that were great, and this to the exclusion of everything from a social life to a sense of wellbeing inside.  As a kid in school this strategy seemed to be my special secret to rocketing ahead of the pack, and now it’s my own curse. I see the diminishing returns of holding tight to thought patterns that I thought were built to keep me striving but really have kept my life smaller.

I’m so much more creative as the noise settles to eating guavas and papayas and swimming in lagoons.

2. Do you find problems that aren’t really there?  We all collect evidence to support ideas we hold tight about “how things are” or “how things should be.”  When you’re convinced things should be a certain way, they will be… and you’ll always be “right” but you are creating that every day.

3. Do you focus on what’s wrong rather than what’s right? A corollary of #2.  If you are quick to see what’s wrong, you’re likely making your life small.  I have done it…bigtime. If you are very good at fault-finding, you’re likely missing out on what’s working.  If athletes only focused on their flaws and not their strengths, they’d likely feel defeated and without confidence to play their strongest.  Every weakness would be magnified.  When your mind goes to negatives, you’ll see many of them.  Play to your strengths and grow more of what’s right.

4. Are you really creating what you want… or are you stuck thinking about it?  Wildly creative people think less and make much more.  Simple.  If you’re thinking, you aren’t creating. Those thoughts could be your demise.

5. Do you justify a lot of irrational fears? It’s a big one.  The more rational you are about your fear, the more it will stick around and define your life.

6. Are you convinced -even secretly- that you can’t do or have more or better than you already have?  It’s a big one.  The only way I’ve found to really let this one go is to stare it in the face and create anyway.

7. Do you smile all the time for no reason? If I’m not smiling all the time for no reason, something is very wrong.  Quiet your mind. The present moment feels fantastic, but you have to show up for it!

8. Are you unable to let go of arguments and traumas after they happen? (And can you see how you might be causing them?) Oh so vital: can you let things go, or do you hold onto them so that they build a great big wall around you to prevent any further things from even going wrong, ever? (this doesn’t work, by the way… but it’s a big one I see all the time.)

9. Do you need to constantly remind yourself how you haven’t succeeded yet in order to stay motivated? Negative reinforcement sucks. How about trying this:  See how you have succeeded.  See what you have changed.  See how far you’ve come.

10. Are you putting pressure on the people around you to feel the pressure you feel? If you are, you’ll experience a terrible sense of guilt mixed with strife that is unending.  Please apologize.  Please stop.  Please feed the love in your life with more love.  We lift each other up or tear each other apart, and you don’t want to cause harm to others based on your own inability to see the greatness in the world at the moment.

Of course, the giant sign of all of this mental mess is clutter. You might have clutter you can’t let go of… or stuff you promise yourself you’ll get rid of that sits, year after year, untouched.  Clutter in your space reflects the clutter in your mind.  Until your mind is clear and present for a large portion of the time, you have more clutter to release.

I thought I was done, but there’s another level to go.  I see the space changes I’ll make the minute I touch down in Los Angeles, but for another week, I am swimming in lagoons and revelling in hammocks.

Every year for New Years and Spring Cleaning, I run a camp to declutter homes and lives.  The Catalyst Camp. As I’m here in Nicaragua my first round of Catalyst Campers for 2016 are celebrating huge victories in clearing their own clutter and noise.  I don’t say this flippantly: you are all my teachers.  I know that the work that I do works wonders, but it works only when you dare to do it, and in this Camp I watch huge groups of people brave their own obstacles, determined to get to the other side.

They do it.

Dream jobs appear.  Freedom emerges.  Gifts seem to fall from the sky.  Love replaces arguments. Spaces become so shining that more than one Camper has opened cupboards as they walk past just to smile at all the gorgeous organization now stored inside.  That same order and calm is reflected in lives.

We start again in March and you can get on the waiting list to watch the free video series that will have you clearing even the most stubborn clutter right HERE in just a few minutes.

Until then, get some real true silence.  If you’ve never been able to meditate and quiet your mind, try doing it by getting out in simplicity and Nature. Parks, beaches, snowy mountains… go, go, go.  Or just quiet your house and unplug and feel yourself sinking in to a new level of relaxation.

It’s all waiting for you: this big spacious freedom from stuff that keeps repeating itself, from feeling your life is smaller or more difficult than it should be… it’s all waiting.

Get quiet and be free.

Sending you lots of love from the countryside of Nicaragua!

xoxo Dana

 

danaDana Claudat is a designer, Pyramid School feng shui master and founder of the holistic & artistic lifestyle blog The Tao of Dana (www.fengshuidana.com).    A Stanford-educated Art Historian with nearly a decade of experience in design, feng shui, research and writing about the ways that changing spaces can change lives, Dana has fused art, science and feng shui into her own style of expansive design.

In addition to Mind Body Green as an expert for many years, Dana has been a Guest Curator for Saatchi Online and her work has been featured in Glamour, Lonny, Huffington Post, Blake Lively’s Preserve and many more global media outlets.

Based in Los Angeles, her design and feng shui clients include Hollywood A-List creators and vibrant entrepreneurs, as well as artists and creatives around the world seeking more creativity, clarity, love and empowerment in their homes- and their lives.

You can learn more about working with Dana on your own expansive design-  from anywhere you are in the world- here (http://www.fengshuidana.com/online-consultations/) .

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