Cleaning Out the Old

“Krishna insisted on outer cleanliness and inner cleansing. Clean clothes and clean minds are an ideal combination.” ~ Sri Guru Granth Sahib


Yesterday it was cleaning time at my house. Not just routine cleaning, mind you, but deep, gut-the-house-and-start-anew type of cleaning. My kids have by now probably disowned me as a mother on charges of slavery of minors, but I am quite satisfied with the results and close to being done.

The crazy compulsion began the other day, when I thought about the benefits of starting the new year on clean slate. I paid all my bills the day before, went to the bank and to the grocery store, and mentally prepared for the Herculean task ahead. It’s almost crazy how my house feels small when I look for storage space or I bump into one of the kids every time I turn, but when it’s time to seriously clean, it suddenly feels like a mansion ready to swallow me alive.

After multiple cups of motivating morning coffee, I slipped into my drill sergeant clothes and yelled the kids out of their beds. Before they could complain, I dropped the supplies and their lists in front of their bedrooms, and ran up to get started on the upper floors. My goal was to focus on each room and begin by cleaning out cabinets, drawers and closets before I detail-cleaned the rooms themselves.

By the time I was done with the first two rooms I had three large bags of garbage…where on earth was all that stuff hiding before?? It is quite amazing how much we accumulate over the years, and how invisible it becomes to us once it has been there for a while, most of it hidden out of sight in drawers and closets. Getting rid of it was a bitter-sweet experience. Some of those things were tied to nice moments in the past, so I toyed with them for a little while, undecided if I should keep them or let them go. Some of the objects I picked up didn’t have any particular meaning, and I found it mind-boggling that I had even kept them for so long.

When all was said and done – almost done, I should say, since the kitchen is still unchecked on the list – I had fifteen large bags of trash and five bags of good items to take to Goodwill. The house felt much lighter and ready to welcome the dynamic energy of the New Year, and I felt just as light. We often hold on to what we no longer need, without thinking how much the extra weight holds us back from moving forward. Whether we remain attached to something because it is connected to a pleasant memory or to a painful one, or even if it is something that we stored for no particular reason, at some point it is time to let it go; no matter how important it was in the past, it has no consciousness in the present or future.

Everything has a season. Once it’s passed, it is time to open the doors to something new.

No Longer Afraid

Many of us probably remember when, as children, we believed monsters were lurking in the darkness of our closet, or lay hidden under our bed, patiently waiting to seize us as soon as our parents left the room. Although we were told they weren’t real, in our minds we could picture them clearly: huge and threatening, their eager, yellow, slimy fangs glimmering in the shadows, ready to swallow us in one single bite.

As adults we still fear the monsters lurking in the unknown and the forgotten, and often picture them much mightier than they really are. The monsters we fear as adults lurk behind the curtains of important decisions, or in the chambers of the mind we have chosen to lock away after being emotionally wounded. The two are quite different from one another.

The monsters we fear when we find ourselves at an important crossroad in our lives are birthed by the apprehension we feel when facing uncertainty. Most of us experience anxiety when not sure of what will unfold; we tend to expect the worst as a defense mechanism; by doing so, we are already braced for disaster before taking the turn and don’t feel as concerned with being attacked by unforeseen events. In the majority of cases, the apprehension we feel is unfounded and mostly feeds on insecurities. In some situation, we feel as if we are facing a daunting task which will drain us of vital energy; once we get started with the project – and get swept into the flow of things – the work gets done and we realize it wasn’t too bad after all.

The other type of monsters we need to face, at times, are the ones we have kept locked away in the attic of our mind, those which caused us great pain in the past and we tried to forget about, the very same ones which haunt our dreams and taint our daily life. This kind of monster is the scariest to face. After being locked away for so long, we have forgotten what it truly looks like, and our imagination paints it much bigger and much more threatening. Truth is, after being locked away for several years, the monster has weakened, and the emotional charge which we attached to it when it was free and able to harm us has depleted with time. After so much time away from it, we have also become stronger and more able to defeat it, so we no longer need to fear it as the mighty giant it used to be.

Once exposed to the light of a conscious confrontation, it will likely appear for what it truly is: an old, residual fragment of the original monster, void of energy and greatly undernourished because of the new choices we have made for ourselves. By keeping it tucked away, we have assumed that its power would never lessen, and have saved it in our mind’s eye as being as big as it was when we locked it away. We have chosen to keep it alive out of sheer fear, and fed it on occasion with our anxiety and doubts.

At some point, it is time for the monsters to be slain. It is time to bring them out and face them in the light of day; only then we will see that the fear of the monster is much larger than the monster itself.

One More Shot at New Year's Resolution

“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it - but all that had gone before.” ~ Jacob Riis


Once again, we are preparing to usher in a new year. In the midst of a flurry of traditions and celebrations, many are working on their list of resolutions. The list most often includes lifestyle improvements such as quitting smoking or drinking, healthier eating habits and weight loss.

Making a list is an easy thing; getting started with the best of intentions is the next easy thing; then, when all the easy stuff has run its course, the hard part begins: sticking with our resolutions. After the original steam has evaporated, the long-term benefits of the choice we made are still floating somewhere at the edges of the mind, but they suddenly don’t seem so important any more, when compared with the immediate struggles we are facing on the journey toward our destination. Eight times out of ten, New Year resolutions die in their infancy.

Many approach their resolutions with determination, but if they trip and fall even once, they often feel that the battle is lost for one more year, and they are ready to give it up until the next January first. Imagine if babies gave up trying to walk after they fell once or even a handful of times, and they didn’t try again until they turned a year older. With each fall, their brains record the experience and work relentlessly to avoid the same obstacles; they might require several tries, and several bumps, but eventually they learn to coordinate their movements in such a way that they fall less and less. Their success does not depend on the last time they stood up and took three steps without falling, but on the countless times before, when they took one step and fell down.

We might have tried the same resolution more times than we can count on the fingers of two hands, but each time we make an attempt at conquering our goal our chances of success are greater. Surely, we might fall again, but we could also be ready to finally walk alone. And if we do fail again, it’s good to know that it wasn’t in vain.

Falling is not an excuse for giving up on trying, but an opportunity to learn what didn’t work, so we’ll have more chances to succeed when we stand up and give it another shot.