One of the reasons we have clutter in our lives is because it's hard to know what we want. For most of our lives people tell us what we want. But, it's usually what they want.
We're indoctrinated to fulfill the needs of others. It can actually seem wrong to ask, "What do I love and enjoy? What don't I want?" We end up thinking that our happiness is dependent on others' needs.
I remember being a kid in school and failing at math. My math teacher told me, "I'm disappointed in you." I felt the wind taken out of my soul. I wanted to do better not so that I could learn something that would be useful in my life, I wanted to be better so that she would like me again.
What helps break this spell of making others' needs a priority is discovering that not taking care of ourselves makes us miserable. It's like losing emotional oxygen. A primary and essential part of our lives is gone.
As we start to shed the things that don't serve us, we see that nothing horrible happens to us. We don't lose the imaginary acceptance of others. I say imaginary because it's a concept we kept alive by our old behavior. We felt we needed the acceptance to get the love we needed. But as we begin to take care of ourselves, the power of others is a mirage that fades away.
Taking care of the world is an impossible and exhausting job. But taking care of ourselves is doable and simple.
It starts by taking a look at the things in our environment and asking of each thing, "Do I love this?" We don't love something because someone else tells us we should, we love something because it makes us come alive.
This re-establishes our connection with ourselves, which is our primary relationship. From this healthy place, we end up interacting better with others because we can think clearly and work together.
My girlfriend and I often talk about how when we take care of ourselves, we take care of the relationship. This idea of prioritizing our relationship with ourselves is what made me want to write my second book.
Because I think this is an essential idea, I'm launching a series of webinars with the goal of helping you let go of clutter in all areas of your life so you can reconnect with yourself and others.
Please join me this Saturday, July 21st at 12 noon CDT. Each webinar costs $10 and lasts for one hour. The registration link is to the right. Once you pay via PayPal, you will receive an email within 24 hours that provides the link to the webcast. The webcast is sponsored by SpreeCast.com. You will need to join SpreeCast (it's free) to interact with me and others in our webinar on Saturday.