Episode Transcript
We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships, we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Ann O'Hare, and this is The Spiritual American. Hello, everyone. Welcome to The Spiritual American. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare, and I'm your host. Today, we will be talking about deep cleansing my life. This sounds like a big topic, but we're going to take it step by step. Before we get started, please like share and subscribe. As you know, this helps us bring this content to many, many more people. Also consider sharing with your friends and family to help them as well. And I started mentioning also commenting, please add your comments. Because that also helps the algorithm and plus this way we can start a community talking about these issues and seeing how we can maybe assist each other as well. So today we're talking about deep cleansing my life. And when I was thinking about this, the first thing, first word that came to mind was simplicity. Have you ever gone to a hotel? You know, when you go into a hotel room, let's say you go to a nice hotel, right? good quality and you walk into the lobby and everything is kind of neat and in place and the floor is clean and you have columns or a desk and there's something that's kind of supportive about that orderliness, right? Then you get your key and you go up to the room and you walk in and everything's clean and the sheets are nice and everything's, put away and it's very minimalistic. There's not much in the room. but you have everything that you need. That's kind of a nice analogy to the principle. Deep cleansing your life means that we're going to simplify. We're going to try to remove things that aren't necessary and focus on things that are important or necessary. And you can do this in all areas. Actually, this could be, this topic could be a workshop all on its own. But I'm going to touch on a few, I'm going to try to give a principle, and then I'm going to touch on a few areas where you might be able to implement this idea. And the reason why I call it a deep cleanse is on one sense, it's about simplification. And in another sense, it's also about having it match. The way you feel is good. So I feel happy with my home. I feel happy with my body. I feel happy with my clothes, I feel happy with my 'cause. If we have too much of something, or not enough of something, or it's not clean, or it's not orderly or whatever, I'm going to say that generally speaking, we're probably not happy with it. We're much happier when things are orderly and working and clean and proper and you know, things like that. So simplify. So the first thing to do with simplification is to identify areas where I'm having excess or where I'm uncomfortable or unhappy or feeling frustrated, feeling burned out, things like that. One example I could say is the way I used to have relationships with friends. This was one area where I had to simplify. So, I would have friends, but when I had a friend, I would be on the phone with them all hours of the day, all hours of the night. I would constantly be giving them all my attention and I didn't really take care of myself. And if you've been watching these episodes, we were talking about boundaries, right? So if you could, you notice how some of these episodes are starting to overlap, right? So we're talking in this case about simplification. So one thing that I need to do is identify the areas where I have too much. We, we had a student one time who she was in her eighties, elderly lady. And we were talking about having people being dependent on us. Like, you know, I was talking about the friends and I used to get friends and have them dependent on me. And then I used to talk to them at all hours and there was no boundaries and whatever. And I was, it was kind of running me into the ground because it was too much. Right. So I asked her, she goes, Oh, I do that too. I get, how many people do you have? Like that? She was about eight. So that's a lot. That's a lot of people to have such a over extended kind of relationship with. So one thing to do is notice the areas where there's excess or where I'm overextended or where there's too much. It can also be physical surroundings. Like I gave the example of the hotel room, I cannot emphasize enough how much physical surroundings actually impact us. And everyone has a threshold for this. So I can't say, you know, this is what it should be, or this is what it shouldn't be. I would say, look to yourself and say, are you happy with. The cleanliness level, the, the, the orderliness is everything put away. Like you, how happy are you maybe give yourself like a grade, like, okay., if 10 is that I'm perfectly satisfied and it's exactly where I want it. Maybe my living room is about a six or maybe my bedroom or my closet is about a five or something. And one of the things I wrote here is. take a look with mercy and understanding because you're not looking around so that you can blame yourself for letting things get so out of control. You're actually looking so that you can get a sense of where it is I can simplify. Where can I do that cleanse? Where can I start removing some of the excess things? I remember hearing in Buddhism, I think it was in Buddhism, the idea that whatever you have, that's what you have to take care of. And I'm going to say that from a spiritual perspective, anything that's in excess, even if it's physical surroundings, is impacting your mind, is impacting your mind. And here's an example. If you're in a room with five people, let's say you're in a room that's maybe this, the size of a typical living room, let's say that you could have like a, like a cocktail party or something, maybe fit 40 people in the living room maybe. And you have five people in that living room and five people feels a certain way, right? Now let's say you had a hundred people in that living room, same space, but you now have a hundred people in there. So now it's going to feel different. So I'm suggesting that it's helpful for us. to look and see in which areas I'm feeling crowded or it feels like too much or it's not at my level of comfort. The next thing to think of is is to start small. I know there are people out there that, and I've had friends like this, where even the thought of looking at clutter or trying to change something is very scary. And I think that we get into routines and we get into habits and relationships and, we just like the routine and we keep doing it the same way. And then to change it, something resists. Remember in one of the episodes we were talking about, if you try to change something, there's resistance, right? So that's why we have to have an attitude of self care and mercy in this. Start small. Like for instance, maybe I want to organize my dresser drawers. I mean, it sounds so. like insignificant and maybe you have much bigger things to deal with. But let's say, okay, I'm going to commit that I'm going to keep my laundry, my clothing and my drawers. I'm going to keep them always put away. Even just that I'm telling you, if you do that, you're going to feel something different. You're going to feel the self respect is going to start coming up and you're going to feel happier. I put here, have courage, right? Have courage and start small and have courage. Like take one step to go against all the old patterns, create a safe zone. We on this channel, we're talking about meditation, right? Or spiritual practice. Meditation is the, is the foundation of spiritual practice, but having some time for yourself every day and creating a safe space in your home. That's just for meditation. That's just for you. Whether you're sitting with a cup of coffee and you're listening to a meditation, there's meditations in the description below, by the way, the release your wings meditations, I highly recommend them. They're short and they're very easy to use. You put on a meditation, you're sitting in the morning and it's just your time. That is the foundation for building up this kind of self respect and this kind of energy needed to face and change some of these areas of excess. Whether it's debt with money, whether it's clutter in the home, whether it's that I'm not taking care of my body, There's so many areas where we can do, let's say a deep cleanse or a transformation where we could improve and make it simple and clean and, and supportive to me and my family, right? Clean means matching my feelings and it feels good to me. So, like I said before, everybody has a kind of. gauge as to what their threshold is for certain things. Like for instance, one thing you could do is just make sure all the dishes are done before you go to sleep. I mean, many of us have these little things, these little, what do you call it? Like standards, that we keep, that we, arbitrarily set up a standard like, okay, every night the dishwasher has to get run before you go to sleep. It's not that we're trying to get like obsessive compulsive, like we have so many things, but what we want to do is we want to create enough discipline so that the environment feels good, create enough discipline with my communications with others or with myself boundaries that I feel good in relationships. One of the things that I did for myself too is spend much more time by myself. Sounds weird, right? It really helped me a lot. One of the things that I was struggling with was in relationships. I was very, like I shared before, like a lot of people pleasing, a lot of over talking, a lot of trying to get people to like me or whatever it was in my heart. I was doing that, which is very odd in a sense, because in the world, in a worldly sense, I was very accomplished. Very educated and so forth, but in relationships, I would become like very dependent and so forth. So what helped me was to spend some time on my own and what that did two things. One, it kept me out of the situation where I would feel that, but also it gave me a chance to get to know myself independently of those situations. If the house being cluttered is your problem. you may want to consider going spending time in a friend's house that's very clean, or maybe check in with a friend, which is one of the things I wrote here, talk to a friend that's good at that thing. So let's say you have a thing with boundaries with people, talk to a friend who's good with boundaries or we were talking about meditation or getting in touch with the, you know, a Brahma Kumaris, meditation center or getting in line with with like minded people and then you could talk to them about these things like I'm working on this well what have you done with this. It really helps to be in a group where you feel safe and you're like minded people and you can try to work out some of these things. But what is the result when I start deep cleansing my life and I start simplifying my life? What is the result? And I'm going to say a couple of things. Number one, your mind is going to get, your mind is, I'm going to say your mind is going to get quiet, but more than quiet, you're going to start feeling contentment. That sounds nice, right? How nice to imagine that I could feel content, content with myself, content with my home, content with my family, content with my relationships, right? So the mind begins to feel contentment. Contentment means I don't need anything. Everything's exactly the way I need it to be, to feel happy and good, right? Feel safe and stable. The second thing that happens when you start simplifying is that you have less thinking. So you feel content and then you have less thinking because. there's less, you're taking like that Buddhist thing where the more you have, the more you have to take care of the, the, when you remove some of these things, you don't have to think about them anymore. I mean, it's common sense. And in spirituality, we're really looking about having a transformational experience in the mind, right? And also in the self respect, I would say also. If I'm proud of my home and proud of myself and proud of my clothes and proud of my house and proud of my job and proud of my, then I have self respect. I have confidence. We can do these things. I would say, just have the courage to look around and see which areas of my life is it too much? And then see if I can take a little one step. Maybe I said, like I said, talk to a friend. see what they did to get this cleaned up or take one little step to try to simplify. Some of these things are not easy. I, again, I would say start with something small, but one thing that I've noticed is that you realize that you don't need a lot of the things that you thought you did. And if you are meditating, we start to realize that me feeling good inside becomes more important than the other things that I was focusing on. And as I begin to be more important, I start to have courage. Because you need courage to overcome some of these habits. So I'll give another example and then we'll end this, this episode. So one other example was with family members. And again, with family, it's super close, right? So I would say we can, maybe we grew up with a certain expectations and certain things that we're supposed to be doing, but maybe I don't feel comfortable with that. It's okay for you to figure out where you feel comfortable and do that. That's okay. We can still fulfill the responsibilities of our relationships in such a way that we don't have to feel overwhelmed or overextended or feel like it's too much. We can pull it back. My experience is that I have been able to do that. I've shared this before on the podcast, but I have been able to focus on what's essential to the relationship and then work on my self care so that I'm able to take care of myself and fulfill the relationship. Like my dad is retired and my mom passed away three years ago and I'm the main person that's helping my dad. So he was sick last week and of course I made myself available and spoke to him. like that, but generally I'm still having my life. I'm still, I don't, it doesn't feel overwhelming. Sometimes it has to be managed in terms of availability or whatever, but I'm happy to do it. You know, I love my father. I'm going to take care of my dad. So there's a way that you can balance your self care with other care. The other example is the house. Like I really like the house to be clean. And so I really try, but I'm not, you know, OCD about it or obsessive compulsive about it, or I'm not abusive to the other people in the home, but I do set certain standards and there's not that much stuff in the house. I feel so much better when there's not that many items in the house. It's very simple. There's not that much stuff in here. So I really like that. My closet hardly has anything in it because I feel better. I have what I need. But I don't have, you know, boxes and boxes of stuff. And so I really do think that that helps our mind and helps us feel better about ourselves if we don't have that much, that many things also in our mind, in our home, in our relationships and so forth. So we'll end it there. But I hope this is kind of like a little exploration in maybe you can take for your homework this week. You can say, let me take a look and see where can I clean, clean it up a little bit. Home Diet. exercise, family, friends, work. Where am I overextended money and where can I start bringing it back in? Where can I simplify? You can also sell things that you're not using. I mean, there's, there's plenty of things to be done once you decide that you want to, you know, simplify and clean, clean, clean house, so to speak. I gave away things. We, I gave away furniture. We gave away all kinds of things because we didn't need it. So again, think about that this week and every little, every little time that you move in that direction, you are definitely going to feel a relief. And I'm going to say, look forward to that feeling of contentment because that's a wonderful feeling. You see my face changing as I'm saying it, it's a wonderful feeling when your surroundings and your situations are matching your level of comfort and happiness. So I'll leave it there. Remember our slogan is heal, empower, and serve. And again, service is as I continue to get better and heal and get better, everyone else around me gets better too. So until next time, take care. You
