How To Clean Up Your Life

I don’t know about you guys, but nothing makes me want to clean up every aspect of my life more than coronavirus. Everything feels dirty and susceptible to disease, even if I just lysoled my whole life, including my actual self like I lysol sprayed my hands once… not kidding.

Spring cleaning, and washing away the germs, and all bad things away is an absolute must in my household this season.

But of course, me being me, I am looking at, “cleaning up your life” from an all-encompassing view. How can I clean up my physical environment, my mental environment, and my inner environment, aka my gut. Because if you think about it, this virus didn’t just affect our physical bodies, but it affected our homes by not leaving them and our minds from being both stressed and scared.

It all needs a refresh and a cleanout. So let’s get to it.

Let’s start with the easiest, and the one we will get immediate satisfaction from:

Cleaning up your environment. 

Whenever I am stressed or feel out of balance, if I clean or organize my life, I instantly feel better. Last weekend, I was feeling off and uneasy, and I just started slowly cleaning the kitchen, and then the next thing you know I am on my hands and knees with a magic eraser washing my walls.

I looked like a total psycho, but my God it felt great, so let’s start there and get that immediate satisfaction.

Below are some of the things that I am doing with my spring cleaning this year.

• Make a list of each room and what you want to clean.  For me, some of that included removing everything from the inside and under the fridge, magic erasing my walls, moving furniture and cleaning under the couch, tables, dressers, etc. Like get DEEP into that cleaning because a) it’s probably needed, and b) it will feel so freaking good after.
• Marie Kondo your life. I wrote a whole blog about my Marie Kondo experience, and I highly advise you check it out. But what I ultimately learned from this wonderful little lady is that less is more. Do a purge and get rid of what you don’t use and of what doesn’t bring you joy.
• Organize your closets and drawers, in as many rooms as you can. This one goes hand in hand with Marie Kondo-ing your life. But if you aren’t into Marie, just organizing your drawers, closets, and cabinets. You will find things that you thought you lost, and realize just how many pens you have. Plus, people sleep better when their closet is clean, don’t know why, but it works.

Then we will move onto the second easiest:

Clean up the food you eat.

This is another easy area of control. Even though you would think being home would make you eat healthy, I found myself wanting to bake cookies and consume the “comfort foods” simply because I was home and had the time. Having this refresh is a great way to reboot the system and clean out the comforting foods and stick to the fresh healthy ones.

Below are some of the things that I do when I want to do a bit of a refresh with my eating.

• Purge the bad stuff.  I don’t want to waste food, but the cookies I made last Sunday and the Mac and Cheese that are sitting in my fridge, those have got to go. Take an inventory of your cabinets and fridge and see what you can give the toss. Extra candy, an opened bag of chips. Get rid of it so you are not tempted later.
• Eat mostly “whole foods”. “Whole” foods are foods in their purest form. For example, eating a real potato vs. mashed potatoes from a box. My general rule of thumb here is to not eat anything that comes pre-packaged. The only “packaged” foods I will eat are Ezekiel bread, rice, bean pasta, and cauliflower crust pizza (lol). Besides that, I am mostly eating REAL vegetables, fruits, and frozen fishes.
• Drink all the water.  I can’t stress this enough. Drink ALL of the water, it helps flush out all the bad stuff and so much more. Give yourself a goal every day and try to follow it.

Now I am leaving the most difficult task for the end.

Cleaning up your mind. 

This is such a loaded and complex “clean up” for a couple of reasons. To start, most likely we have been really afraid, nervous, or frustrated the past couple of weeks with the coronavirus, so we need to work through and sort out those feelings. That doesn’t include the negative self-talk and limiting beliefs many of us have. These are things I work on daily. They are thoughts we all are faced with, and it doesn’t get fixed overnight. It doesn’t for me at least.

When I am trying to clean up and clean out my insides, I have to very deliberately work on it every day. Below are some of the things that I do to maintain my mental health and keep positive thoughts.

• The practice of gratitude.  Nothing can cure the blues, fear, or anxiety better than a little bit of gratitude. You are focusing and shifting your focus from a lack mindset to an abundant one. I write what I am grateful for every morning and night, and I always make it different and specific to the day I just had.
• Read and listen to positive happy things only.  I am a BIG fan of dark twisted movies and books. They keep me super engaged and on my seat. However, this may not be the time for it since I tend to soak up the feelings. Focus on anything with a happy ending.
• Positive Affirmations.  When I am down or stressed, I am a huge fan of working in some positive affirmations. For example, if I get into a stressful situation at work and have no clue how to get around it, I just repeat to myself, “I can do this”, “I can do this”, “I can do this”. Then eventually I am right, and I can overcome the difficult situation. I will say positive nice things to myself over and over and over again until I feel better, and eventually, I always do, I start believing myself.

As a kid, I used to hate when spring cleaning would come around. Not this year. This year I am welcoming the Clorox, kale, and positive affirmations with open arms. Let’s get this corona nasty-ness behind us and focus on a very clean future! =]