If you want to clean house, you first have to see the dirt. – Louise Hay
Feel the Heal
Healing’s only important if you feel there’s something to heal. Can’t help you if you don’t see your own dirt. Mine took the form of a low-level ache; a knowing I was meant for something more and life was meant to be lived in joy. I started cleaning house a couple decades ago, and here’s why you need to take a look for your own dirt too.
It’s important to understand; if you enjoy living in a fresh, clean, open, energetically motivating space, you’ll always have to clean house. It isn’t a goal or a destination; it’s a lifestyle. And yes, I’m talking about both your external and internal environments.
What’s up, you don’t see any dirt?
Life going so well you wake up without an alarm every morning, raring to start your day; joy-infused moments throughout? Excellent – you’ve been cleaning house all along. Life does not quite feel like that most days? Okay, no problem, you just have some cleaning to do. And it all starts with seeing the dirt.
You see your dirt by practicing awareness, both in mind and body. Getting good at feeling is how you’ll start to learn the language of your soul and see your dirt. Everything in the grumpy, angry, discontent, meh, negative, pessimistic, difficult, tight, depressed, etc. category can be classified as some dirt. Time to clean it up.
Being aware of the dirt is the first and probably most important step, right? Because as Ms. Hay says, you can’t clean what you don’t see (or feel in this case). You have to start waking up to what you don’t see/feel. You have to start waking up to the low-level ache of resentment you’ve been living with and calling normal.
It’s easy to be blind to the dirt when we’ve practiced conditioning ourselves to think that “meh” is normal for decades. But breathe dirt for too long and you’ll start to choke. Maybe even suffocate. Let’s not let it get that far, shall we?
Today, give yourself permission to feel everything.
Does any of it feel like dirt? Do you remember how it feels to enjoy ease, laughter, fun, passion or even ecstasy? No? Okay then, it’s time to start cleaning house so you can get back to the joy. You were born for it for goodness sake.
Start by getting still and giving yourself a chance to feel what you feel without judgment. Using meditation combined with therapeutic writing is an amazing way to see your dirt. Breathe and be for a bit. No rules. Just find some quiet moments in the day and practice being in them without doing or thinking anything else. And then try writing about how you feel. See what comes.
When we stop; actually stand still for a moment and notice what we’re feeling thinking and doing, we have a chance to observe ourselves. And it’s in the middle of this observing that we’ll notice how things feel. Joy has a feeling in the body. And so does fear and resentment. Feel the difference? It’s okay if you don’t at first – it takes some practice.
Imagine a time of great joy. How did that feel in your body? Make a list of words that describe it. Now realize when your body talks to you in this way, it’s communicating that things are clean, free and easy. You can do the same for a crappy time in your life. That had a feeling too. Most likely you’d use words like tight, heavy, compressed, or painful to describe what you were feeling then. Go ahead and make a longer list of those feelings too. You’re starting to learn the language of your soul and intuition; your body’s way of telling you if something’s good, or if there’s too much dirt and you need a little cleaning.
My dirt felt like mild chest pain at first. I did a lot of healing, exploring, self-reflecting. I still wasn’t seeing some pretty big chunks of dirt clogging up my pipes until I started feeling a knot in my throat and more chest pain. Damn, I thought, I’m going to have a heart attack. And I started following the request of my soul to clean up in a bigger way. I asked for a divorce.
The dirt might be small or it might be big.
We tend to procrastinate about the big dirt, putting off those projects for a long time, but it’s the big stuff that’ll create the most freedom. The big stuff will transform your life if you’re ready to clean house on it.
Are you beginning to understand what’s there for you to heal? Can you see any dirt? It doesn’t matter what stage of life you’re in or how much dirt you have, there’s always a time to begin cleaning house, and that time’s now. The journey of cleaning house is rewarding. It’ll not only give you room to be, breathe and play, but it’ll create an energetic flow that enhances your creativity, your relationships, your business and your life.
Time to get cleaning.
– Laura
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Laura Di Franco, MPT is an intuitive writing strategist, holistic physical therapist, published author, poet and third-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do with over two decades of experience in healing. She teaches transformational tools and powerful strategy for nourishing and inspiring your fiercely alive whole self. Learn more about Laura on her website.
