This year marks twenty years that my husband and I have lived in our current home. Over the past two decades we have accumulated a lot of stuff – both precious treasures and our fair share of junk. We decided this spring would be a great time to go through and decide what should stay and what could be donated or simply pitched. I had a bit of resistance to beginning this task, but as the project progressed, I was really starting to get into it.

In the past, I had some trouble parting with items that I once loved. I often convinced myself I might have a use for it sometime in the future, or simply felt unprepared to make any decision at all – so back in the closet it went. But this time around something was different. I actually made decisions with a fair amount of ease. When I was parting with items I once held in fond regard, I felt a surge of gratitude with an added excitement that once donated, someone else might come to enjoy this item as much as I did.

When it was all said and done, we had amassed an enormous pile of items for donation and the recycling bin. Our closets, shelves and drawers were spacious and transformed. What was an amazing and unexpected twist was that my mind felt spacious and transformed too. There was some hidden alchemy inexplicably held in the process of letting go of the old and leaving space for the new. I felt lighter, fresher, inspired and excited in ways I can’t quite articulate. I experienced a surge of creativity combined with mental clarity that was both invigorating and yet peacefully calming.

I’ve thought a lot about how to account for this dramatic result and it seems to speak to the level of mental burden we are unconsciously experiencing by holding on too tightly, both to items/things and the emotions that they trigger. Each little moment of gratitude and farewell sendoff I gave each item was essentially an energetic clearing. I didn’t think of it that way at the time, but the results clearly indicated that was indeed what had happened. It was the magical combination of my readiness to let go of the past both tangibly (in the form of the actual physical items) and mentally (a clear decision to say goodbye without angst or regret and release my attachment).

As a result, I experienced the full emotional release that comes when we let the past stay in the past and stop dragging it kicking and screaming into the present. What that leaves is the freshness of the present moment – pure, unadulterated and able to be whatever it is meant to be. And the present moment is always where creativity and inspiration collide. It is the birthplace of all growth, success and peace of mind. So, here’s to spring cleaning, not only can we transform our physical living space, but more importantly, our inner living space!