CHOICES SHAPE YOUR FUTURE
By Judith Ashton
One recent bright, warm and sunny day, I lay out on my lawn soaking the heat into my bones. I really needed it after 60 days of rain. It was wonderful to feel the light and warmth on my body. I listened to the birds and watched them with twig-filled beaks and nest building materials getting ready to construct their new homes. They were working hard with the renewed energy that Spring brings in its wake.
After all the darkness of winter, the cold and the rain, it’s pure joy to feel a sense of renewal, freshness and regeneration. Everything is waking up after the long sleep of winter. The sap is rising and ever- faithful Mother Nature once again magics forth new shoots, buds and pale green leaves. All this miraculous awakening mysteriously occurs without any human interference. It is beauty. It is happiness. It is joy. We need to stop and look and experience the awe Creation deserves. It’s truly a miracle unfolding before our eyes and in our busy-ness we often fail to see and take it for granted.
In the dark months, my windows appear clean; in brighter light, their dirt becomes visible. They have some smears and a lot of tiny dots which I am convinced are the footprints of flies. The local flies have been traipsing all over my window panes with very dirty feet and it has taken a lot of elbow grease to remove their traces.
Now that the windows are sparkling, shiny and clean, my view out onto the world has a clearer vision and my thoughts turn to how light affects our pineal gland. Daylight inhibits the pineal gland from producing melatonin which is “the sleep hormone”. Darkness stimulates it. The pineal helps us establish our daily rhythms of sleep, temperature and mood. The more there’s light, the more we feel energised and awake, and there’s more spring in our steps.
In springtime we start to look forward with our intentions. Like the birds we can start to renew our spaces and spring clean.
Every spring, my grandmother would take the furniture outdoors into the light, she’d beat her carpets, wash the curtains and dust, mop, clean and polish all the surfaces. She’d shake out her summer clothes and stow away her woolly jumpers in her drawers which smelled of moth balls! I can smell the memory!
Everything would be freshly repositioned in her house; the windows would always be open and there was a freshness in the air. She was literally clearing out the old energy of the year gone by and each year would be a new beginning.
Spring is an opportunity to declutter and to lighten the amount of stuff that we’ve accumulated. Marie Kondo, the queen of organising, says everything needs a home and a home needs to be tidy. Discipline is freedom. If we know where things are, we save time and energy looking for them. She says, keep only things that are useful or bring you joy.
Spring cleaning is not only a physical labour but also about giving us more mental space. Space for intuition, space for our dreams, our creativity and our intentions. It can be a time for a vision board or making resolutions and new habits.
We could all do with a bit of inner cleansing. I’m not talking here necessarily about a few dietary adjustments, which might be a good idea…but about mental hygiene.
What’s mental hygiene? It’s a new term for the daily activities and habits we can cultivate to enhance our overall well-being such as: mindfulness, journalling and gratitude practices which help us build resilience, empathy, compassion and foster a positive outlook on life. Out with bad habits and in with new ones!
Meditation allows us to watch the endless stream of our meandering thoughts, and this allows us to observe them rather than identify with them. Meditation creates more discernment and choice in our lives as opposed to our being constantly reactive and emotional. It brings more balance, inner peace, ease and less drama!
In these uncertain times we need to be wide awake and more enlightened as we navigate so much chaos. We need to shine our light on each other. As Marianne Williamson says, “It is our light, not our darkness that we fear, as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
