Back in 1996, I did a one year personal development training with Scott Washington. One of the greatest gifts I received in that training was how to transform my life by making a powerful choice – one that will evoke change not only in my own life, but also in the world around me.
Scott always likened it to a child looking at a puppy in a pet store window.
“You want to have those same feelings about your choice,” he’d say. “Always word your choice in the positive (ie. as something you do want, not as something you don’t want). And you’ll know you have the right choice when you feel that same excited ecstasy for that choice that you would feel as a child wanting that puppy in the window.”
It’s funny how wisdom gets forgotten, and we need to be reminded. That’s what has happened for me.
I like to reflect on my life, to understand where I’m growing and transforming, and where I’ve ground to a standstill.
Those areas of standstill or stagnation are like a thorn in our shoe. They niggle away subconsciously, causing a discomfort that if not addressed, can over time become “the norm”. If this continues, we become so desensitised to the discomfort that we can almost pretend it’s not there. That is, until something wakes us up, and we’re ready to shine a light on it.
I’ve recently had one of these “thorns” come into focus in my life, around the topic of space.
My life is filled to the brim, until there is no space for me. Even though I carefully plan my work schedule 3 months ahead, the unexpected always seems to jump into my calendar. Sometimes I say “no” to these opportunities, but many times the unexpected is something that I choose to say “yes” to, either because it aligns with my dreams and will help me to flourish in some way, or because it enables me to help someone or something else.
For years, I thought that my life was on track, and the only issue was that I need more friendship and self-care time in my week, ie. time outside of my primary business. So I set about creating dedicated time each week to catch up with friends and to enjoy a massage, walks on the beach, volunteer wildlife work, and to start my day with intention using my “miracle morning” 7 Oil Ritual.
I also implemented deliberate wind down time of an evening, turning my phone to airplane mode so the outer world can’t intrude, and enjoying a good book or movie or a hot bath, thus ensuring I get quality sleep to recharge my batteries.
But despite being very deliberate with my self-care, something’s always been missing.
I’ve created a better balance between my work time and my self-care time, yet there’s still been no “empty” time.
In fact, there are far more items on my plate than I can possibly achieve in a week, so it’s this “idle, doing-nothing” time that gets squeezed into non-existence.
But it’s not only my time that is cluttered with too much “doing”. My personal space is equally cluttered.
When Mum passed away almost 2 years ago, I spent 4 months travelling back and forth to Brisbane for 2 days each week to clear her home.
Mum was a hoarder, and there was very little empty space in her home. It was a clutter of boxes and paperwork. Papers were piled high on every hard surface (table, benchtop, even the kitchen hotplates), and when she ran out of space she threw a sheet over the top of it, and started another pile on top of the sheet.
There was no order to her clutter. It was a random jumble of magazines, notes to herself, family history, newspaper clippings she collected to show her children. In amongst this disordered chaos were shining gems.
As I sorted through Mum’s “stuff”, it showed me what was important to her. She kept both the relevant and the irrelevant. And as I discovered the gems that were peppered through the chaos, I put those items into boxes to take home with me.
My plan was a brilliant one. In my spare time, I would sort through these gems and file them or scan them or toss them or pass them on to someone who would treasure them. There are about 50 boxes in total, so I estimated it would take me about 2 months full time to do this task in a leisurely fashion.
And herein lies the problem. For two years in a row I’ve taken sufficient time off over Xmas to complete this task, yet it’s never been touched. And with my office and second bedroom cluttered with these boxes, all the rest of my life has spilled into my living room and kitchen.
As I look around my home, I am haunted by the ghost of my Mother, and see in my own home a pale shadow of the clutter I was greeted with in her home.
Back in May this year, something changed.
I was helping out at an entrepreneur’s event and had the opportunity to do a powerful process with the other crew members. We gathered into groups of 8, and we started by setting a personal intention – something that would be powerful and transformative in our life.
What I wrote out was “I choose to clear the clutter in my home”. But as I wrote that statement, I asked myself the question of why I’ve been avoiding this task. It’s been on my priority list for almost 2 years, yet I’ve made not even the smallest dint into it.
And in that moment, the answer came to me like a bullet through my heart. I realised that in clearing out Mum’s “things”, a part of me feels that I’m clearing her out of my life.
In that moment I was brought face to face again with how much I miss her. I’m holding onto her clutter as a way of holding onto her.
This exercise we were embarking on (and which the intention was part of) is called the “arrow break”. As the next step, we were each given an arrow with a blunt metal end. We were asked to put the metal end in our throat notch, right around where the thyroid is.
One “support” person stands opposite with a big glove on their hand, and the feathered end of the arrow is pressed into their palm. The person with the arrow in their throat then states out loud the choice they’ve just made, and walks purposefully into the arrow.
If their commitment is strong, the arrow will snap. If their commitment is weak and they are too hesitant about it, the arrow won’t even bend, and instead will press deeper and deeper into their throat.
Well, I was the latter. In my mind I was saying “I choose to let go of the clutter and of my Mum”, but I could feel the grief welling up. My head said “yes”, but my heart said “no”.
Without that strong resolve, each time I attempted the arrow-break it simply dug deeper and deeper into my throat until my throat was well and truly bruised (and remained tender for days to come).
“Artemis, you don’t have to do this,” one of my fellow crew members said. “This exercise is optional”. And having been aware that my thyroid is not happy right now, and feeling that I was harming myself and my thyroid by doing this exercise, I decided to say “no”.
It’s one of the rare times in my life that I’ve opted out of something courageous. But it felt equally important to say “yes” to me, to protect myself from harm.
Once everyone else in the room (all 34 of them) had completed the exercise, the lead facilitator asked if there was anyone who hadn’t done it. I put my hand up, and acknowledged that I’d not done it.
“Would you like to do it with the support of all of us?” he asked.
My reply was honest. “I’d like to talk to all of you about what I’m feeling around this exercise,” I said….and so I did. And as I shared and cried, I realised that I had made the wrong choice for me in that moment. I’m not ready to let my Mum go, but I am ready to let the clutter go.
Once I got clear on that and revised my intention, he invited me to do the arrow break exercise again.
“How can we support you, Artemis?” he asked. And I knew my answer.
“Please send me love,” I replied.
So as I put the arrow into my throat, I allowed myself to become fully present with myself. I acknowledged my fear that the arrow wouldn’t break, and that I would harm my body. I acknowledged my willingness to let go of the clutter in my home. And I allowed myself to feel and acknowledge the love that was being poured onto me in that moment.
I let go of all fear of the outcome. I had no idea whether the arrow would break, and I allowed myself to become ok with whatever the outcome was to be. Then I reconnected with my desire to let go of the clutter in my life and I walked forward….and the arrow broke!
The whole room broke into a huge cheer, and I found myself at the centre of a massive group hug. And at the end of the hug, one of the other facilitators (a woman) came up to me and hugged me. She whispered in my ear, and although I couldn’t hear any of what she said, it carried the love of a mother whispering to her child.
In that moment, I realised that the thing that is missing in my life is nurturing. I’m very good at “doing” self-care and at appreciating the many facets of kindness and beauty within myself, but I’ve not learned to bring that motherly love and tenderness to my own inner child, and to truly and deeply love and nurture her.
There is indeed a difference between self-care and self-nurturing. Self care for me comes from the outside in, whereas self-nurturing comes from the inside out. I was doing one well, but neglecting the other.
A few weeks later, I was talking to a friend and mentor. I was expressing to him my realisation that my world is cluttered both in terms of time (being full to the brim) and space (being full of unsorted piles of paperwork and Mum “things”).
“We all have an addiction that keeps us trapped on this Planet,” he said to me. “When we free ourself from our addictions, that’s when we can move on and off this Planet at Will.”
“Is this my addiction?” I asked him. And I didn’t actually need an answer. Of all the things in my life, I can clearly see this is my Achilles heel – an addiction to filling every bit of space in my life and in so doing, an avoidance of emptiness.
“How do I solve this?” I said to him. “I’ve tried so many ways of tackling it, but it always feels like a chore, like I’m pushing shit uphill. I create time to clear clutter, then I just distract on other things, or let other important priorities fill that space….or I get a little way into tidying up, but it’s just not a joy to do.”
Then I set about telling him all the people I’m helping, and the great work I’m doing that I couldn’t possibly say no to, ie. all my excuses for filling my life to the brim.
I laugh as I write this, because we always have a justification for our addictions. But the key is to see them as they are, and to realise that the justifications are only our way of hanging on.
“How do you solve it?” he said. “You focus on what you want, rather than what you don’t want”.
And suddenly Scott Washington’s teachings leaped into my mind. Here I was, focussing on the clutter in my home and my life. And every time I focus on the clutter, I get more despondent, more frustrated, more judgmental of myself, and more irritated by the clutter.
But I’ve been focussing on the wrong thing. I’ve made the mistake of focussing on what I don’t want.
Don’t you love it when the penny drops and wisdom lands like an arrow hitting a bullseye?
That’s what happened to me at that moment. I realised that it’s not that I “don’t want clutter”. It’s that I want spaciousness.
As I contemplated this “ah ha” moment, I could feel the shift it created in me. Where clearing clutter is a chore to me, the thought of having more “spaciousness” in my life is my puppy in the window, it’s my fluffy duck. It creates excitement. And as I focus on this, two things happen.
Firstly, instead of being irritated by the clutter around me, I notice simple ways to create a patch of space. It might be one little thing I can put away. And I find myself inspired and motivated to put that one thing away, to create that little bit more spaciousness in my life.
After all, putting one little thing away doesn’t take much time. It’s like the analogy of eating the elephant. No one can eat an elephant in one mouthful – it needs to be eaten one bite at a time.
It’s that one bite, done multiple times, which creates space.
By changing my focus, instead of looking at the clutter as a mountain that feels so overwhelming to even start to climb, it enables me to take those small bites of the elephant. And each time I create just one more patch of space I feel encouraged, knowing I’m creating that bit more space towards my goal of spaciousness.
Secondly, I’ve realised that in order to create space, by necessity that means I need to let go of things I no longer need. So I’ve found myself at times in a joyful frenzy of deciding what “things” I no longer need (eg. clothes, shoes), and taking armfuls of pre-loved clothing down to the local donation store.
What a magical reminder this has been!
I am now turning my focus on spaciousness into a daily mindfulness practice. “What can I do today to create more space?”….and this applies both to time and clutter.
When we focus on what we do want instead of what we don’t want, that’s when we create true paradigm shifts in our life.
