Simplifying Your Life

Funny how the memory works… mine anyway. Recently, I promised you a summary of the two workshops I offered at the Body, Mind & Spirit retreat (Nov. 7-9).  As I started composing my post on Simplifying Your Life it in my head, something seemed very familiar.  I’m not talking about the fact that I had recently taught this material, but that the writing it all down was something I’d done before  That’s when I remembered that I had already summarized this workshop in the article “Living Simply by Simply Loving” for the Think Different Feel Different website last April.  That website is now offline, and so I’ve reproduced it in a future post – click here.

Clearing the Mind: Memory

I may be good at learning all my students’ names on the first day of class and retaining them for the term, but I’ve never been known for my long term memory. There’s no need for concern.  It’s always been that way. In this sense, I guess I’ve always been good at de-cluttering the mind from what it no longer needed to make room for the new. After all, I’ve lived in so many places and met so many people – there’s only so much storage space. Even in my preteens I would tell folks that, having moved around a lot due to my father’s career in the Armed Forces, I had to make room in my memory filing cabinet for all the new people and experiences.  I guess in that way, I’m pretty good at living in the Here and Now.

There are advantages. My ex, for example, qualified the nature of my memory as a blessing.  He was also amazed that I could watch a movie I had seen with him a year or two before and be just as surprised, scared, emotional, etc. at all the same scenes.  Now he could quote movie dialogues years later, so the contrast was remarkable.

Clearing the Monkey Mind:

Alas, clearing the mind from all the busy-ness, nagging concerns, or other spiraling thoughts, however, is something I have yet to fully master.  I’m so much better at it than decades ago, but I’m still growing in this regard.  Interestingly, that’s the one part of simplifying our lives that I didn’t address much in this year’s workshop. Luckily, others did, and I truly benefited from their reminders.

The Answer to Everything: Unconditional Love

As you’ll read in the article though, the bottom line to de-cluttering – be it physical, emotional, financial, or time-based – is still unconditional love.  The more I learn to love myself, others, and the mysteries of life, the less my mind and life will be cluttered and the more I will be at peace.

 Love, peace, joy, health, wealth, happiness and freedom –
those are my wishes for you and the true gifts of simplifying your lives.