When you look around your living space, how do you feel?
Are there areas of your space that you enjoy spending time in? Areas that provide you stress?
Over the past several months, I’ve been cluttered and congested internally. My living space has also been cluttered. I have felt all out of sorts.
I typically prefer my space to have minimal “stuff.” In 2020, I sold my condo and nearly everything in it, and I felt free and light. I was going through major life changes at the time, and the decision to unload most material attachments was driven by uncertainty, feeling trapped, financial anxiety, and, admittedly, concerns that I may die as I was navigating a serious illness that was exacerbated by the stress. Frankly, I didn’t want anyone to be burdened by my belongings shall I have died.
I did not expect the outcome of the decision to offload most of my materialist goods, especially the home that I loved, on my wellness. I thought I would be full of grief and disappointment in myself for selling my condo less than a year from when I bought it and giving up “the American Dream” of home ownership. While I did grieve, I mostly felt FREE.
As I lightened my load and moved to a smaller apartment down the street, I felt like I could breathe, again. It was the beginning of major life shifts, and at the time, I needed something drastic as I was on the verge of mind, body, and soul collapse.
Facing risk of death due to the consequences of malnourishment while feeling hollow and lost, I needed significant changes in my life, but I had lost hope and trust in a medical system for my condition- the same system which I also have dedicated my life’s work to date, a complicated realization. After months of searching for a path and options, I signed up for Martha Beck’s Wayfinder Life Coach training (even while being made fun for pursuing life coach training), motivated by the desire to heal myself. I was attracted to the idea of creating a life that is true to my authentic self after resonating with her book The Way of Integrity.
When I encountered Martha Beck’s Living Space exercise as a coaching tool, grounded in her philosophy that our outside environments reflect our inside environments and vice versa, I reflected on how minimizing my clutter helped provide clarity in my mind, body, and soul, and I saw how the tool played out in my own life.
I have felt over the years the clutter in my environment wax and wane, always reflecting my insides and vice versa. As a scientist — proof that this tool is SPOT ON!
So, after feeling the immense satisfaction of decluttering once again and rearranging the furniture in my current apartment (a completely different one from the initial apartment discussed that is across the nation following those big life shifts- a topic for another post) to open up space, organize my thoughts, and allow my mind, body, and soul the opportunity to expand, I felt inspired to offer you the same opportunity to explore how this exercise may help you to improve areas in your life that are less than satisfactory.
Exercise:
Bring awareness to your living environment — what do you notice? How do you feel? Are there areas that you gravitate toward? Areas that contribute to stress?
For the areas of least satisfaction, how would you like to feel? What would it take to get you there?
What’s one small change you can make to your living environment to bring you closer to your desire state of being?
Set an intention and execute: Make the change!
Reflect on how you feel as you implement the changes in your external environment to align with how you desire to feel inside- What do you notice? What shifts do you observe?
I invite you to come back here in a few days, weeks, and months to reflect on how your internal and external environments impact one another — I’d love to hear!
If you’re interested to learn more about Martha Beck’s books and Wayfinder Life Coach training, learn more here:
Martha Beck, PhD: https://marthabeck.com/
Life Coach Training: https://marthabeck.com/life-coach-training/
If you’d like to work together, I invite you to e-mail me your goals and to discuss more on our fit to partner together! I help high achievers like you take back their lives and create a fulfilling, sustainable way of being- detached from societal pressures that lead us astray from what matters most!
E-mail: jillianrigertcoaching@gmail.com.
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