Beyond Spring Cleaning: Living Lighter

i know spring has sprung and for many of us that means a spring cleaning i'm kate mcintyre and today in haiti are present we go beyond spring cleaning de cluttering and living lighter cindy weber is a life coach and an author here in lawrence welcome sandy well thank you for having the carrots my honor to be fair i can barely find time to do regular spring cleaning that you're telling me we need to do more than that what exactly do you mean by living a lighter life where i need to de clutter anyway you know most of us if we don't once in a while things get overwhelming and that can be in lots of different areas of our life it can be physical clutter logistics over homes or offices or garages or cars i mean you name it any physical space we have a field clearing out once a while they can begin to take over and you know emotionally we can get cluttered up to and will address that you know as we go along here that a lot of us have too much on our

minds things going on too long and then it causes trouble in our relationships and our lives so watergate excuses to de clutter really you know it's funny that you started out talking about the cotton your car because just this morning i gave my husband right into work we don't normally the very first thing we had to do was clear up offensive mccullers which was leveled at newspapers shoes all kinds of other things he has done and he said you know i said this is why i shouldn't drive you to work and he said it's funny that you had that reaction that her light years that's why i should clean out my car and i i love that of the great story and so honest and so you know your listeners are relating to right now i know because we all have places that and being are dumping grounds and sometimes their cart around so fast in our culture that you know our car is kind of an extension

of our home and along the way so my car my purse my desk here i work my kids encounter there are so many areas of my life that i probably need to just take a little time and de clutter how did you become interested in this idea that we need to de clutter not just our physical spaces but our whole lives well i think at the time that i am i wrote the book about it actually and back in two thousand and four i was myself feeling overwhelmed and my children are young and i was not i didn't have is much wiggle room to sort through my life and filter through my life is marriage and being a relatively new mother i had new concerns and new insecurities and and as more demands on myself and so i've i found myself kind of game getting overwhelmed are consumed with arm stuff physical stuff and my mind to you know mental stuff emotional stuff and just i

recognized my stress levels are rising and i knew that i needed to do something man i've been a counselor for many many years my whole professional life and i heard this over and over and over in my office to you know people come in and just over mountain one where another another an end you know it's time to clean out the closets the literal clouds it's an in the closet of our lives you know the relationships our minds in all those things so it's a person who was a prince our journey as well as professional thought let's talk about some of the different ways that we can and clutter our lives physically and our physical surroundings our bodies themselves in what we do we need to de clutter in that portion of our lives well i'm in terms of just think of any space physical space that is yours down he does maybe your desk at work this could be your car this could be your home armed your personal any air pockets man a lot of men have carried things in their pockets regularly

this could be the three thousand e mails so on your computer and there's all kinds of areas of our lives where we just keep stacking entire scene entirely new and protein and we often have a junk drawer in our kitchen or people have attics and closets rises storage spaces twenty five percent of americans actually own storage space outside of there home ownership property twenty five percent many cypress ends and another twenty five percent can get their cars in their garages as their staff in the garage is in the place where the vehicles are supposed to guide many of oviedo he now you know so i think people you know start one of two places but the physical de cluttering either start what easiest so you'll feel good quickly like you'll see results quickly or the area that just

feels worse to you like what's consuming you the most and you feel like you just you know like every time you pass that rim you feel crazy so get in there and go after it because whatever's going to free you up and mostly mentally and reduce your stress would be the place to start and i don't think it's do everything at once he had to start in one corner or one drawer or for one space and job and ask yourself do i want this need this or use this and if you don't want it you don't need it you use it it's got to go there's no reason to keep it off so this is maybe an extension of that rule that they talk about when you're cleaning out your closets your wardrobe that have you haven't worn out for what is that a year earlier eras liza get rid of it yet less it's like if the men have a tuxedo you know they do bring out once every two years to go to the ball or whatever you know into a charitable event or something but yes

your regular clothes year more than any year if you have ten different sizes of clothing in your closet which many women do especially because their wages yet get keith the sizes that are two or three sizes that you're most likely to be an interior they're asked their people out they're desperate for clothing for one thing so you know we can repurpose many many things in our homes and so forth which is giving also which is a whole nother principle of de cluttering it's beautiful so you're saying that skinny pair of jeans that fit for ten years ago that someday i hope to build a fit in again just letting go i am saying that i've been there i've done that i've held high and let god and yeah yeah it feels really good to let go when it is saying it's it's amazing the results that you'll feel not just you'll be pleased with how things work when you've dialed things down you know take them down to what you're actually using him wanting so it'll be visually pleasing

when you're done but you're also feel like this weight like invisible bricks on most are lifted up off your shoulders it's it's magical actually what about that fear that i get rid of the clutter in my home in my closet and then the next week i say oh that sweater you i got rid of it well a lot of reasons people do clever and in extreme cases you know we have hoarders which there's television shows about borders and these are the people who have one narrow six inch pass through their house literally have even garbage sack to the ceiling so that's an extreme example but courting comes from anxiety and fear and stress and the need to hold on because of fear of letting go so it's very natural for people who are not hoarders but let things accumulate that there is fear around really seem i mean here we live in america and we live in middle america if we'd if we got rid of a

sweater and then a week later we wish we had it there's you three million sweaters we can go out and get if we really think we got to have a sweater and we can tell if i'm i'm pretty much like the other sweater you know i'm not asking you to get rid of your arms and your leather jacket from high school if it holds you know sentimental value and you can replace it all that we can talk about that that's called memory clutter what does the hall others form of clutter that most of us have quite a lot of self you know your parents have deceased and you've cleaned out their home and you keep you know a lot of their things cause you think oh that's the rocking chair my mom rocked me and when i was a baby and there's dad's uniform that he wore or when you were ten there's therefore team photo of arms and their high school diploma as and you know i mean the list goes online and a lot of them have what we have feel a sentimental value but pretty soon if you have your stuff your kids is staff whether they're

gone are still growing up your parents staff email and then you have your memory claire which is your high school awards the trophies though the crowns have been the cream ben green cards from your entire life your art projects permitted to read a dear i mean you know if like wow and do we ever look at those things ever right madoff at bay but what to do you have stuff i mean as you're saying that i'm thinking in my closet right now i have my grandfather's letter sweater from the university of iowa played football in the nineteen twenties and no idea what to do with that i've never worn and it smells so strongly of mothballs eleven if i did wander where nobody would want me to wear it but what do you do with that kind of thing there was just a great article i saw in the internet just the other day about it no one wants

your parents stuff that there's all of this stuff that accumulated in our lives like your mom's china anise your grandfather's letters water and nobody wants it so why so what we do now you know we can keep some banks if we really feel attached items that really hold deep sentimental value for us it's okay to keep think there's nothing wrong with out that if your physical spaces consumed if you're stressed out about it if it's overwhelming new or causing mold or you know like syria's problems than it's importing year of things if you don't think anybody can use something think very carefully about that google and make sure no one can use it what about a theater department and a community theater they might use a letter jacket from high school from ages ago maybe they could arm maybe that jacket would be better than no coat for someone living on the street i mean you just never know that there was always you know re

purposing the materials or there is that thing called a trash can taste that trash cans on fire is in alpha roast marshmallows over grandpa's jacket i don't know i mean that's our enemy because disrespectful i'm just you know i'm amy it's really it's free to get rid of things like that's really ok if you're ready to let him go i inherited a rocking chair that belonged to my grandmother that she had rocked all three of her children my dad and his two sisters and when they were babies now i will tell you it's an old came rocker it is not comfortable it's quite small you know i like to say people are smaller than i and i don't know that that's necessarily the case that is not particularly comfortable i got rid of that chair but i feel really funny about doing so then the you know here was this chair that

behead you know nurses a generation that and i was just taken it off to good well for some stranger to major purchases yeah so we want to you know check our beliefs about something a first super uncomfortable or your grief guilt is coming up when you're really seen something that you read something ask yourself what you believe in not that c you might've thought yourself with the chair how could i get rid of this when you have my family tree roots rock band ever on its own or is it disrespectful of my grandmother that i'm letting this go and really challenge those beliefs in your hat because likely they're either not true at all or it doesn't matter anymore so it's it's great that that was your family rocking chair but if you and no one in the family one set and has a strong attachment to it why isn't it ok that somebody else can rub their babies than in now or it be a cool chair and somebody is room that they flop over the quilt their grandma made or you know whatever it's next purpose or life

can be and so if you check your beliefs and re frame i'm a little bit you might be able to let things go without guilt their physical selves and in what way we need to de clutter some of the ideas that we have about about our bodies and let some of that go oh boy yeah this is a huge issue because most of us especially women don't think ties to pick ourselves about our bodies right there is there's extra weight or there is scarring or there is haqqani or there's you know the ad other agents signs that extra chin what ever maybe you have to fill out that it's been aching for a few months and we're tolerating that that's another kind of clutter anything that's kind of linger remain and not taking care of that is causing us stress is something that could be released and taken care of

so and if he hadn't gotten a tooth fixed that's been nine at you and telling you for weeks and weeks that it needs to be attended to a form of de cluttering is get yourself to the dentist and get it fixed if you have an illness or paint that you can identify and every time you fill your thinking what is wrong with me that's another issue that can be addressed and be a form of cleaning cleaning the the things in your life that are not as they should be in your book living lighter in every way you have an exercise for readers to do to really get them thinking about their physical bodies and indian well we we can set up the clutter some of the anxiety that we might have them about our cells can you walk us through that with us yeah i really recommend because we're so so judgment of ourselves about our bodies and often focusing on what we don't think it's perfect

that i recommend people look at and consider what ten things they really love and appreciate about their bodies can yeah that's a lion well is it i mean let's think about that for a minute i mean most of us not everybody on earth that most of us have eyes that sea ears that hear a mouth that speaks and knows that smells hands that can touch speech that can walk i mean you know i'm right we're halfway there you know but how often do you stop and appreciate the fact that you can do all those things that your body can get you from point a to point b i'm and that kind of thing and what about our brain i mean our heart that keeps pumping we don't have to say cocaine hard to keep working hard you will have to do that they are just working twenty four seven on our behalf all i do all the time but we don't think about it because it's just automatic so if we stop and me really think wow this body of mine is a miracle if the

most perfect machine on earth then we don't have to be so you know critical of the little mutton topped the minivan when men are carrying that they you can grab and they think that's you know tragic or maybe you know age spots blemishes scars from a new army arrived by you know fifty years ago whatever arm you know whenever it as birdman who don't have the the chest that they want their ads that they want or aren't you just anything that people criticize themselves or sell it so i'd like to focus on the positive first and think about that gets drained from that foundation and moved to the rest through that approach i love in this exercise you do ask your readers to come up with ten things that they like about their bodies and to get attention using like a bit of a stretch

living dead it really makes you think about what what what works what you've got going for you and then you led us to only five things that i knew were not so comfortable about our bodies because i got to say i could easily come up come up with ten things i liked it i could easily come up with twenty things that i don't like wow and it feel about yourself when you do that pretty terrible actually yeah so i doubt declaring in any area of your life is about really honing in what's most important right and so that's why i asked it only find five things perhaps about your body that you struggle wear fur feel concerned about i'm more dissatisfied with because i really part of being able to declare him simplify lives says to really prioritize what's what really actually as important that make sense so what you do with that then when

you've got your list of five things that they're not so happy with this person that's right well again i would choose i would go ok can i change this i'm at most things we can there are ways of the world change almost any i mean heck we can change our eye color contact lenses weekend you know we can have surgery to change our shapes literally own you know there's that there's lots of ways to change things that people may know invests whatever it might take so you ask yourself what's of those five can i change these things what would it take to change these things what's most important to me to change if i could only pick a wine what would be most important or what is the easiest for me to begin changing and maybe my blood pressure is now i want to be what can i do to day that starts to turn out in the direction that i want to go with that you know maybe it can go for thirty minute walk maybe i can eat fewer are high calorie foods today are worried that whatever the doctors instructed or maybe the fed at the

time with that the doctor the nutritionists to figure that out whenever that i would look at it like that to start to sort through even those five and go what's most important to me that i began here also with the body when it's a what's life threatening versus not you know if there's anything like that on on your last time then yes dudley start their coffee fleeced out that high blood pressure is probably more important to address those save the liver spots on her handsome yeah exactly so prioritizing again very important whenever we're declaring anything west what's really needing attention now really interesting things that you address in your book living lighter in every way is the need for some of us to de clutter socially right ok so i won you don't exist are immensely in your mind and going through the people in your life that you are with the most often or who feel like they're the most important people in your life and most people probably are thinking they live with him over their

closest family members are maybe their closest co workers closest friends maybe their neighbors want people to go a church with perhaps or are in other clubs or organizations with and think about those relationships and what lines if you had to put a positive mark buy that person's name on a peacekeeper or a negative mark lake which mark would you put by every person's name so let's i know you're mary kay and i'm hoping that by your husband's name you would put up what's right for that are the relationship in your life you feel supported europe seem arm he's comforting to you know you have a whole history together right that's very positive however we are maybe have that family member or two or ten or number person who every time around them you feel he did to gray dead or little the pasts maybe they're good judgment or family member that always have someone to say about everybody or who

never filters their mouth at all and talks about people poorly all the time or maybe have a negative nellie in your life any time where around these less than positive people relationships we call those toxic relationship the toxicity of the relationship can be maybe it's just annoying to be around negative nellie you not at the thanksgiving table or it could be you know my mother never stops judging me about any decision i make ever and i'm sixty years although she still all you know to me like i'm tana mean i love de cluttering socially that fiscal year friendship circles are writing to you asking yourself with voice memos time with and what effect is actually have money are these relationships weighing me down or lifting me up amelie there's research assistance i can quote the exact research that says we become

like the five people we spend the most time left so you get to pay you know what kind of person you know that they want everyone to gravitate toward people who are like who you would like to be who you are or who you see yourself being because if you hang around others see you're more likely to come take on their characteristics they have high influence on each other well that's a really how are full and very powerful thought that not only big you were having an influence on the people your route as well of them having an influence on you and there's a you know everything is energy and so there's a lot of energy around human beings and it comes at everything from our non verbal star verbal communication arm to how we perceive the world and to how we show up in a room it affects people so you wanna be choosy about where you spend

time with those relationships those people are people that you really have to spend time with whether it's a family member or a neighbor or someone who was important in your life or your realizing is maybe not a great influence on your mental wellbeing there's there are things you can do and most people are in this situation i mean most people can relate to that of course because we're not going to ditch everybody you know in our lives we love our people too and reality says i still need to go to work even if i don't happen to like that coworker in the next cubicle or well or whatever and i'm going to go to the family dinners even though that and her uncle's going to be there that always seems to have you know whatever so what we do about that number one is what a what i do when i'm heading to somewhere where i know there's a relationship that i find toxic are personally fine toxic that i love and i'm gonna spend time and i prepare myself

mentally i say to myself ok you're about to go spend time with this person and she usually shows up this way this is i can expect i can count on her to be negative judgments all credit call you know or whatever and so what i do for me to be really calm and so one of the things i tell myself as every time she says something negative i'm gonna think the opposite in my hand i'm gonna think something positive or i'm going to tell myself that i'm going to get more peaceful all with every ounce of negativity she throws into those energy and i do that literally and it's it's interesting it's it's if you really mentally prepare yourself you can trick yourself into not being affected much at all by people's behavior that you don't like another thing that was suggested to me a jack canfield training once years ago dad was just that her group is that you place an invisible steel to arrive yourself that maybe you put your hands in front of your face

and your body before your entry around where you're expecting some toxicity and pretend that it's their and this is something you can see the rule and that people can see you through that they can't see you nothing can absorb into like it enables not being spun says you can't penetrate yeah penetrate answer i guess i say to people don't be a spy and you know bring yourself out which is sealed up and fabric walid they're it's not you know bricks and mortar that nobody can get through or c around or get sealed but it's more it's something that they're negative thoughts can just bounce soft love and that you don't have to take it on just pretend that when somebody saying something you don't like or using language you don't you're not comfortable where's their whatever you to say yourself over just bounced off my shield and not taken that antarctica matter and assists a little psychological protection i am when you're in the presence of someone you're not comfortable worth it's an

invisible superpower yetta got here putting out that only you know is their big kinney as long as you believe it's there and it can serve you a candidate well i dare you to try it it's cool i'll try it in my life really good places to try it for everybody at the family reunion any large groups you know or difficult means you know the difficult thing board meetings or whatever of people's word kurd you notice there's lots of places for for the shield i switched gears a little bed one of the other areas you talk about de cluttering is in our financial lives of doing that a lot of people's solution to financial promises to ignore them you know i can't tell you how many people i've worked with over the years have literally when a bill comes in the mail we all note to bill and they throw in the majority don't even open they don't even open that you don't open it it doesn't exist exactly there yet deep down people now when they're in

trouble when they're getting buried alive by there their debts or just any kind of financial letter for nasa can come in many forms it can be death insurmountable debt you know what feels like an insurmountable that's it can be and you know i on so much stuff i have so many accounts and so many banks are so many institutions i don't even know what i have that's claire if you don't know every dime you have is or who's in charge of it for you if you're not your duty to de clutter and so it can come in all kinds of forms today the first thing is awareness so i would sit down and write down every account every expands every form of income and just get it on paper in front of you to see what the reality is you know how many crab cards we have store cards you know everywhere you go now you get a store card you know on the endeavor

twentieth barry cards so i would lay it all out unfriendly on paper it occurs to me that would have a hard things about doing that today is that we live in a world of electronic vine until transactions and that unlike when i was a young woman and you let your bank statement and you had your credit card statement and that was pretty much the only finances i had to go through drought it's now a lot of that is done electronically you might have all kinds of multiple atm debit cards checking accounts and you might not actually ever be looking at a statement you might just be sort of looking by boeing and online and think ok about that alex line or a right so there's a couple things i want to say about that just because we've turned electronic doesn't mean the statements don't exist they're there and you can find them on your bank's website or whatever financial institutions were playing call when you ask them where it is because everything is available everything years and years of it is

available they can help you find and you to look line by line by line by line so even though we don't have a physical pick were paper or financial world as much anymore doesn't mean it isn't there it's all there but the electronic world makes it easier to ignore it is monday for some people makes it easier to spend right because every place you take the credit card you know i got out of mcdonald's they take a credit card you go to gas station they'll take a debit card you know and again it becomes really easy to spend money without realizing how much money are spending yes one of the best financial activities to find out where your out is for once solid month to keep a journal of literally every time piece band i mean fifty cents for its stamped cents and mom's birthday card to her whatever postage costs now today you know i went to starbucks again and had the whatever latte again on my way to work for four dollars and fifty cents to the house payment with fifteen hundred dollars to the car

payments five hundred dollars to the utility bill this month was do you know seventy five dollars to all i decided i just had to have that scarf so i spent you know twenty six dollars on that to i went out for pizza beer and everything and thought literally write everything down and then at the end of the month at the total loss you will be shocked most people will be shocked they will be far more than they thought they spent because many people spend unconsciously and if you have enough money it's something you know it doesn't really matter if you're saving what you want to be saving for your future for emergencies or whatever it's ok i'm in biology at what god's airbags made it a lot but most people i mean there's a lot of people in america and they're in deep deep debt and down if they took a really close look they could easily see where the money's going you know and the beauty of it too is you can see where you can cut expenses when you're trying to turn the situation around when you go on for me in writing it so really really easy to start seeing where corners can be

cut to turn around to feel better in your book living lighter in every way he will talk about living lighters spiritually yeah i mean well i don't want to get into some deep dark religious debate because you know i like all as i have at my own perspective of things and but there's many many perspectives out there and so some people believe that they do have the cornerstone on all things religious and spiritual and you know i respect people who are strong in their beliefs and they live them out i think that is beautiful and can release irv service well on the other hand there's a lot of you know discussions conflicts and within covered church congregations for example or between countries all based on what we all know to be true but we have different troops

everybody's sure they know everything and so especially a living reminder to me is kind of estella senior own belief system yes faith system yes if it's organized religion based fine if it's not fine and living out your beliefs honestly and truthfully at the same time at least some will go room to at least accept other people who might not practice exactly what you believe or how you practice those beliefs you are listening to a k pr presence on kansas public radio i'm j mcintyre today on kbr presence beyond spring cleaning living and declared her life if you missed last week's kbr presents a conversation on race in sports and politics in america which supports sociologist dr harry edwards it's now archive on our website go to kbr that hey you dot edu look under news and then k

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witmer city i've heard you say bake you are the expert of your life exactly well you know i live in concert a coach for all of my career and so often i am with people one hour a week and they view me as an expert and i am an expert in counseling and coach remain you know communication all things wrapped around those professions however i'm only with that person one hour a week but they're with themselves and i'm with myself and you're with yourself twenty four seven and we come with all of our years of memories experiences and perspectives and so i do verrilli encourage people to realize that they are the expert in their own lives and that they know themselves truly believe there's like an intuitive wisdom that we all hold the pianist to and if we just quiet ourselves and really get in touch with that we can really we can really find answers to everything that

is perplexing to us so i'm being extreme own life is challenging people to be relieved really aware and truthful and honest about who they are and how they're shown up in their world and what's working and what's that and what needs to change whatever that might be from their perspective for most people what's the biggest obstacle that they have two lightning their life to de clutter in their life i think fear is a theory powerful mr shannon believes that we put an r had you know like you mentioned earlier leak you were you felt kind of concerned about getting rid of the jacket and they brought out some light on how she said fear but it brought up something native for you to think about releasing man or or in the rocking chair and i asked to check your beliefs about a peek as hollow if we feel uncomfortable with letting go of anything releasing anything there is a belief behind

it and that triggers the motion of fear like what if this happens and what if that happens to a lot of our colts or is about is focus seen preparing us for everything like you know we have insurance for the car and his seven x we have insurance for the house in case it burns we have health insurance in case we hardly need surgery we have om retirement plans in case he lived to be a hundred we have we're always looking ahead for what could possibly go wrong so it's very natural for us to also lakeview keynote anything that is uncomfortable that represents change with fear like well if i get rid of all these clothes what if i'm sorry that i did next week or next month or you know anything like that so i

really think fear is them is big bear that we learned a lot but actually if you if we have a used here is an acronym fda are its fantasized experiences appearing real wait say that again fantasized experiences appearing real what does that mean it means fear isn't real it doesn't exist but the things you fear they don't its test i mean way back when and human beings would have maybe a tiger come running after than andrea mays the idea that with that with life that every well we have life threatening to have that happen on a fairly regular basis yes that spirit that's real right answer yes i know scary things happen the other night we had a storm and yes you know religiously could've gone out a tornado can hit a house so fearful things i'm not saying things don't happen that just

feeling the emotion of fear before something tappan doesn't make it real it's like watching a horror movie in the theater you watch the movie right and you get scared right to get nervous week tents that we like my gas or cover iran might indeed leave the theater because i don't want to feel more money in the first place right that we create we become engrossed in what's going on and it's not real it's a movie and that's what a lot of this year is that comes up with the de cluttering in our lives it's like oh what if there's somebody's fat and what if there's some of that i think oh my gosh we can what if ourselves to death we'll never do anything we want but if that's all we ever do so we have to find the true value and the real police behind what we really really want in our environment and then create that what area of people's lives do you generally find that they have the hardest time

letting go and de cluttering i would say in our society in american society financially it it's says huge it's huge the physical the staff and the money are huge and the other thing i think that's we haven't even really addressed yet that is huge is emotional clutter lot of martial clutter out they're unresolved issues and relationships are people living with shame and guilt democrats that they haven't let go of worrying worry is another thing that fear that does not leave ninety five percent of what we worry about never happens ever like when i was raising small children every time i stepped on an airplane i thought well just hasn't crashed because i wanna raise my children and i'm an optimist cases i mean you're young i am i'm susan sharon i'm feeling glad that i have not even half full of

the overflowing all the time but i would i would step on a plane think oh please don't please delay thing happening i never wanted to run the think that this trap with more important and they were you know if i would were to die well yes plain scraps that one in but a million or one that i don't know how many flights that you know we might hear about a plane crash once ear so it it can happen it can that worrying about every time i stepped on a plane how did that serve me and my life it didn't keep me off the plane like you're talking to somebody who's old world class warrior all kinds of things that mayor happened that the odds of that happening were slammed to begin with you how do you begin to la let go of all that worried well i would turn to faith a lot i would say ian cry if i would approach life more from a place of trust thing

concern all time trust i trust are gonna get there safely i trust the pilot knows what he's doing i trust if there's a problem we'll fix it land safely i trust that there's a plan for my life that's that's bigger than meets someone some inner something is bigger than me isn't charge and my you know my life is is being overseen and its own at all ok whatever ill effects can be ok so most of our worries fears are not rational they're not national and they're possible that restaurants so i really sort it out live i'd be just challenging enough with yourself to reason drew them more and leventhal sunday we talked about sort of de cluttering your life physically what gets in the way of living a lighter life emotionally

well several things do but i i really believe that one of the biggest is not letting go of past hurts conflict and forgiving people ourselves are things that we've done and they've done or we've said or they said they're not done is justice i'm horrible disease out there of hanging on to paint and in and painful memories and relationships and it is so damaging it's like we cannot move on if we're hanging on and so i really encourage people to forgive even even the most horrendous of things that happen really will feel so much better if we can forgive and move on why is that such an important part of love living a freer life well i think it's twofold when we haven't for a given we've definitely not forgotten so it's on our minds it's in our hearts we carry around our time and

then actually even though we think will feel better with revenge full thoughts or resentful thoughts or judging someone's or whatever has happened we actually don't feel bad or there's no evidence anywhere that anyone can find anywhere in any scientific psychological or spiritual study that says hanging on helps or feels good in any way at all so it feels bad field that time that you and i just keep thinking i'm mad at you and i treat you like a mad at you or even in my thoughts and stewing about you cousin matthew i'm hurting me more and i'm not actually directly hurting you nearly as much has hurt yourself yeah so why is it that we kind of want to hold onto those balloons i don't know i want you know i think it is maybe people would say they want to i think it's a protection i think we have the illusion that if we hang on to past hurts

that car and we don't forgive someone that they aren't cables hurting us again but that's an illusion because the situation still her innocence because riding into it so it's that were deceiving ourselves and whenever you deceive yourself then you're hurting yourself even more because you're not living in truth it's not authentic and if anything is that comment on an even deeper layer of gas we come from lots we all come from live and so whenever we are doing anything or thinking anything that is unloved mean we aren't being authentic actually been so far off track every time if you're having trouble forgiving someone or forgiving yourself or something done in your past with a with the first up two to moving beyond that forgiveness well i i think it's very important to adopt the belief

that we are really are always doing the best we can at the time we really are let's say you can't forgive an ex spouse or a payment for something from when you were growing up or you know your college roommate way that whoever it is whatever it was they were doing their best at the time even if it wasn't great it was the best they knew how from their own experiences an awareness of themselves at the time so if you can start to see say that to yourself about yourself like hey i did the best i could at that time with the awareness i have the understanding the experience i had i did my best at that time now fifteen years later i have more experience it more awareness and more options i do if i had to do it over a do it differently but at that time i did the best i could sit starring there is very important and then realizing if you can ask yourself how is that serving me to hang on to this issue how does this serve me and

i don't know how the past have by serbs anyone says he can challenge that and go yeah what good is what good am i doing by deciding i'm never gonna let this go i'm just going to hang onto it forever in a surcharge self out of it a little bad plus what could you be doing instead you know with that time and the energy and the emotional charge of not forgiving in hanging on and not letting go if you replaced it with joy filled activities or find humorous thoughts or behavior or even rafting compare to that is a huge improvement so that's where i would start to great advice and he thinks well i hope it'll be helpful to your listeners sunday i started out this hour saying it's springtime it's a great time to do spring cleaning in your life again every

area of your life what about this time of year that makes us wants you start afresh why it's very cyclical i think it's very whether based actually a new winter for us in the midwest we kind of arm it's dark thirty it's colder we kind of and hunker down last fall and rye and we even we tend to put on more weight over the winter physical way and i we stay home or were not active in so if things just it's funny how we just hang on to more during that time and then it's kind of freeing psychologically physically everything we could open the doors and open the windows and lighter longer there's more time there's more activity going on and then we start to realize what am i doing with all this extra this and that and the other end and it's it's easier to get rid of

stuff in the spring because we you know we can call it a way the air we can have windows open when we're in in places the house maybe don't smell so good because we have images and i think there's just a sense of new beginnings you know it started the new year but then when springtime some we see the grass turned cream and we see the flowers blooming in the buds on the trees it's like a sense of oh we're starting to know were starting fresh and so what better way to start fresh them really identify again around our lives well we really want and removing everything that we dont want so someone's listening to this and thinking yes i want to de clutter of my life i wanted to lighten my load i don't really know where to start what one thing would you say start here well i think the number one question to ask ourselves when we're looking at life and considering decline any of these areas we've talked about is what do i really want like with capital letters

really hearty a l l y were going really only once in my life you know what i striving for the kathmandu you know what we want them we know what we don't want do you want a life of worry no probably not because primary race the top and baseless right to get millions of people live in that worries space it's very common very common especially for women especially from up up up what do you really want to do you want the debt you have do you want all the things you have yemen where things you have the more things you need to ensure the more things you need to clean the more things you need to move around them were things you need to find a place for them where it's just exhausting so i would say the number one question to ask first is what do i really want and then if you see identify easily many areas in your life most people most americans can that they wanted

change then again i would ask yourself one of two things what can i do quickly easily that will give me some feeling of success and like i see results faster i feel glad it which motivates me to do more and or what is like critical when he's a change or like things are gonna really plummet for me like maybe it's the high blood pressure you know i'm thinking about our bodies someone needs to change or maybe it's on you know we have another baby coming and no place to put this baby because we've stacked everywhere and you know we really need to make room for this little person that's coming in to the world or whatever whatever is most urgent or easiest i'd start there and then you'll feel good agnew what's success quickly which motivated move on to the next area where you on a tackle i'm visiting with life coach cindy weber on ways you can de clutter your life cindi i've never met a life coach before what exactly does a life coach do anyway

he would make you a life coach can be hired for all kinds of reasons most people higher life coach to help with work life balance coaches are also hired in professional say bain's to work with corporate teams maybe to increase retention or increase productivity increase income for a company top teams work together better individuals hire coaches for free anything far i want to lose weight to i wanna get you know get my finances in order to improve my relationship with my teenage years to i mean anything in here your life are either looking to move from where you are to where you'd rather be in some area of your life is a really good reason to hire a coach and i like to bring in my counseling expertise into the coaching setting it is a lot of counseling techniques while encouraging people to scan coaching is more focused on where we're at right now in the present

and moving into the future that we want to create where as therapy often is something's happened in the past so i'm not happy right now and i need to heal it fixates get over it something like that so i bring a lot of therapy techniques with the coaching skills tell people move forward in their lives and so i just really love i just i've lived my whole prayer how many notes bahrain and it meant supporting people as they make changes in their lives and it's my purpose my passion and a look forward to getting to know more people feel good cindy thank you so much for coming in to keep your this afternoon well thank you for having me it's been a great honor i've been visiting with life coach cindy witmer of lawrence sees the other of living a lighter life and goodnight africa dues on the web at cindy the witmer dot com and j mak entire k pr presents is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas

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