Move Things to Move You
One minute spent moving things around can teach us a lot about our homes and our selves
The art of dwelling happily in the present moment is the practice most needed in our time.
—Thich Nhat Hanh
One of the best teachers I know who can help us get really good at simplifying is not a person. It’s a place. A place that is always there for us regardless of how we treat it:
our home.
And when we slow down and bring compassionate awareness to our tending of this place, that’s when some real magic starts to happen.
Take, for example, the simple task of moving things around. It could be rearranging the books in your bookcase, changing the position of your utensils, or placing your coat hangers facing out instead of in to begin identifying the clothes you don't wear from the ones you do. You can even take a line out of Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and ask yourself, “Does this object spark joy?” It’s a great way to give your possessions a new lease on life (and you too, by extension).
You never know where your practice might lead. It could give you the urge to purge, or nudge you to look into some little dark corner of your life, as some students share here:
“I had been thinking that I really wasn’t feeling any changes coming from [my small changes]. But then out of the blue I have this overwhelming need to get rid of this desk made from an old sewing machine that my father had restored.”
“I changed ONE thing in my kitchen (moved the knives to a more useable spot), and next thing I knew I was emptying my spice cabinet, throwing out spices I have had forever, and reorganizing and making ROOM. That led me to another cabinet, and my husband even joined me for a bit (reaching high shelves and carrying heavy things), and in a few hours we’d rearranged the whole kitchen, cleaning as we went.”
“Yesterday I did some more tidying up of my filing cabinet. But when I came to the fat folder of “marriage—divorce,” I quickly shut the drawer again. Today I feel curious about this. I wonder what is in the folder. Is it time to clear up some old issues with compassionate awareness?”
In my experience, even just one minute spent moving things around can tell us a lot—not just about our home spaces, but ourselves. It also does wonders to move energy that has been stuck for a while, which can create an opening that wasn’t there before. It may not amount to much at first, but if you repeat the task every day, over time you effectively create more shifts, and more openings, that start to amount to something; something tangible you can feel and see.
Like more clarity. And inspiration. And light.. 1
Ahhh 🏡
Simplifying Challenge
What you’ve just read comes from “Move Things to Move You,” Chapter 12 of A Year for You — the book we are using to cultivate spaciousness.
It’s not too late to join us in this ongoing journey.
The extra inspirations below — with weekly nudges from me and access to this clearing community — is being made available to all paid subscribers.
Learn more about the“Spacious Way to a Lighter You” clearing series HERE.
Move Things to Move You
