Spring Clean Your Soul

10 Ways to Spring Clean Your Soul
By Taryn Galewind
Let Go of Things That No Longer Serve
Spring is a time of rebirth and renewal. Clean breezes billow through your curtains as purifying sunlight washes walls and floors, lifting your mood and energizing you. You grab a broom, a dust cloth, and organic cleansers to spiff up your home, your sanctuary. Great—but attend to spiritual spring cleaning, too. Recognize what doesn’t serve you anymore, and let go.

How do you decide what no longer serves a positive function? Consider some soulful spring cleaning exercises.
1. Renew your senses to enhance your perceptions. Listen to beautiful music or meditations. Fill a personal space with colorful cut flowers. Assemble delightfully tactile objects—a feather, silk, exotic lotion. Sit in a quiet spot and handle them, fully sensing textures, fully enjoying contours. Savor gourmet food or beverage. Sample the scents of premier essential oils.

2. Dust off your relationships. Analyze relationships that are causing stress. Determine, with your intuition or with professional help, whether you can repair issues of concern. If so, renew your commitment and clean up old baggage. If it becomes apparent repairs are not possible, muster up strength to let go. No excuses.

3. Kill the weeds in your spiritual garden. Analyze your own attitudes and behaviors. Want to grow in spirit? Pull out negative thoughts and discard. Pluck out pettiness, cultivate generosity, grow a positive outlook. Take a good look at how you see your world and be sure you allow yourself to grow spiritually strong.

4. Take out the trash. Look carefully at what activities occupy your time. Are they worthwhile? Do you or others receive strength from what you do, or do your waste time? Do you burden yourself with too much senseless activity? Pare down your schedule, making time to nurture yourself.

5. A new broom sweeps clean. Open your heart, mind, and spirit; use a psychic broom to sweep out guilt, resentment, criticism, and intolerance. Promise yourself a rebirth of blessed and golden thoughts toward yourself and toward others.

6. Remodel your physical well being. Consider the things you put into your body—the entity that houses your spirit. Allow no poisons in. Smoke. Alcohol. Chemicals. Discover the extreme pleasure of choosing natural, pure, organic foods. You’ll find sensuous tastes, pleasing textures, and a new feeling of wellness.

7. Air out grievances. If there are long-standing issues between you and another person, meditate on a solution. Then, approach that person with love, warmth, and honesty. Share the solution. Mend fences. Let go of the grievance. I promise you will feel renewed.

8. Recognize your capabilities. Instead of putting pressure on yourself to excel at everything, let go of those expectations that cannot be met. Strive for your personal best in that which is in tune with your talents, and let others shine where you can’t. Healthy self-esteem comes from valuing your skills and recognizing your weaknesses.

9. Forgive yourself and others. Make peace with the past and seek joy in the future. Forgive and let go of personal failures, social disappointments, transgressions by others, or any other shortcomings. Let go and move on.

10. Cast away fear. Reach inside yourself for the strength to live each day to its fullest. You can set aside your fears and experience all the world and the universe have to offer. Clear the cobwebs of old habits and be open to new people and experiences. How else can you grow and learn?

We are here a short while, and then we move on. Airing out our spirit’s house allows us to embrace so much that is here for our enrichment. If you embrace the wonder and beauty of spring and make yourself a part of the timeless renewal, your world will shine a little brighter and your soul will flourish.