Hello my friends! Yes it’s been months, and yes, I had my baby back in July and am still pretty much in survival mode so I’m writing this late at night between feeds whilst my little man has KO’d on the couch next to me. I really should fill you in on the whole birth story…noted. Will do that in the next one.
For now, there’s no better time to start something new than Spring! My absolute favourite season (followed closely by Autumn). Winter’s depressing AF and the last month of Summer makes me super agitated. Although the fact that I don’t have AC is probably a contributing factor.
On my podcast, ‘Can I Get A Refill?’ I released an episode on my top tips to Spring clean your life. I thought I’d share them with you.
I love to do a Spring clean. It’s the season of new beginnings and there’s no better way to welcome the new, than clearing out the old. I mean you could do this at the start of every season if you wish. Some people recommend doing it once a month, but that sounds like an absolute chore to me. Shan’t be doin’ that.
I like to look at multiple areas of my life, decide what is no longer serving me, and release it with love and gratitude (don’t let me lose you, it’s not woo-woo, it’s smart).
Everything has energy, including you. And energy attracts ‘like’ energy. Hanging onto anything that is no longer serving you, creates stagnant energy. And you can’t be your most fabulous, successful and abundant self with stagnant energy.
Give these tips a go and feel free to share this article or my podcast episode (click here) with your friends. The better their energy, the better your energy too.
- Start by decluttering your space: such as clearing out unwanted items in your wardrobe, throwing out expired food from the back of the cupboard or the fridge, and going through your bathroom cabinet and throwing out crumbling pink eye shadow palettes and sunscreen that expired in 2011. Your space can also include your car or your desk at your workplace.
When it comes to your wardrobe, if you haven’t worn it in 18 months, you ain’t gonna wear it. Stop clinging to items from your past you think you “should” fit back into. Your clothes should fit you, not the other way around.
If I’ve only worn an item of clothing once or twice (or God forbid it still has the tag on) I like to sell it on Depop or eBay. I thank it for the memories and release it with love to the next person to create memories in it. Once sold (I’ve made some good cash on there) I wrap up the item in tissue paper, put in a little love note for the recipient and add any sachets of protein powder or whatever I have in the cupboard. It’s good karma for someone to receive such a happy package and I’m telling you now, I pride myself on my 100% satisfaction rating on both sites.
And OK, I know I said no woo woo, but after decluttering my whole space of any unwanted items, I like to smudge the whole house with white sage to clear out the negative energy, then later that day, I go around with palo santo to bring in the good energy. But to each their own.
- Declutter your wallet to allow fresh funds to flow in. This was first brought to my attention by the Manifestation Babe, Kathrin Zenkina. You wouldn’t believe the things I had in my wallet; old receipts that you couldn’t even read, loyalty cards for businesses no longer in operation and keys to a workplace I hadn’t worked at for years! Clearing out my wallet and keeping only what’s needed, creates space for more funds to roll in. I also like to keep some cash in there (preferably larger bills) to remind myself that I’m wealthy and abundant.
- Do a deep clean of your technology such as screenshots in your phone, old apps you no longer use, old files on your laptop desktop, and action and file away emails in your inbox.
If you’re sitting on the couch, watching a comfort movie you’ve seen 17 times and scrolling through your phone, get rid of the screenshots you sent your ex in 2018. Or if you’re like me and take 10 shots of one pose to get the best angle, delete the 9 that didn’t work. Your phone will feel lighter (energetically speaking) and you won’t need to buy extra data to store all your pics.
- Go through your streaming services and see if you really need all of them. Honestly, so many movies are repeated on multiple platforms, just keep the necessary (I don’t love the movies on Stan, but I’ll be damned if I can’t live with regular access to Will & Grace, Charmed & Buffy The Vampire Slayer). And look at what apps you have that you may be paying a subscription for and forgot about. Keep only what you use.
- Do a Social Media refresh: have a look at the pages you follow and decide if the content is inspiring you. Some of the fitness pages I loved following 5 years ago may not be bringing me the same joy today whilst my body is recovering from carrying and birthing a human. It’s no shade on anyone living their fabulous lives, but I need to be in control of the content I consume, and if it doesn’t light me up inside, or if it makes me feel bad about myself, I need to limit or remove my access to it.
- Take inventory of your current relationships. This is something I talk about in nearly every episode of my podcast. Sometimes in life, you outgrow the people around you or they outgrow you. The friends you had in your twenties may not be the friends that make sense in your life in your thirties and forties. The most important thing to look at is how you feel after spending time with them. Do they add to your life? Or are they energy vampires? If you have toxic relationships, decide if you still need to be in them. If they’re family members that you still want in your life but need a breather, try having a discussion with them about how you feel, or try limiting the time you spend with them. Boundaries are not only healthy, they are necessary for us all.
- Have a look at your current diet and decide if this reflects the diet of your ideal future self. Is your kitchen full of packaged food items with ingredients you can’t even pronounce? Could you be incorporating more wholefoods into your diet? Do you need a check-up and blood test at the Doctor to see if you’re deficient in anything?
- Assess your routine & schedule and decide if everything is part of the life you desire or just in there out of habit.
We’re changing all the time, so perhaps your schedule needs to reflect that. And for the love of God, don’t overbook your days, weeks or months. Have days blanked out in your diary for play. Adults just don’t play enough. We hustle or get shitfaced. We need to lie on the grass and make shapes out of clouds a lot more.
- Finally: Spring Clean your mind & thought patterns.
I wanted to end with a bang and I’d have to say that this is the MOST IMPORTANT point! Author Price Pritchett, in a podcast interview with Lewis Howes (whom I like to think of as my brother from another mother) asked what you think is more important: adding positive thoughts? Or removing negative? The answer, according to Pritchett, is removing the negative. You could spend your days meditating, exercising, not going on social media, eating organic wholefoods etc, but if you smoked a pack a day, you would still be very high risk of developing lung or throat cancer. If I’m living my best life doing everything right but am having an ongoing fight with one person in my life, I still feel unwell. My sleep is still affected. My concentration is not there. No one likes the uncomfortable, I get it. But if something in your life is off, you need to address it. If your mind is focussing on lack rather than gratitude, you will NOT be successful. No one ever got healthy by studying illness and no one ever got rich by studying poverty. You need to address the bad, deal with it and focus on the good. When your mind slips into old thought patterns and starts going over dead & buried issues or panicking over something that may never happen, you need to catch yourself and bring it back to a positive place. Meditation, mindfulness and a daily practice of gratitude is a great way to solve this.
That’s it my friends. Go forth and Spring clean the crap out of your lives. I need to go and spring clean the nappy bin full of baby shit. Wish me luck!