"The Chaos of Cleaning Out"
Winter energy is a great time to settle in and let our creative brain come to life in a different way than in warm-weather energy. Winter is also a great time for cleaning out, but cleaning out can seem a chaotic process at first site.
For my creative mind to be at its best, I need clean and clear space. To get to that clean and clear space, it generally requires us to create some chaos at first by cleaning out - deciding what to keep and what needs to be replacement or let go.
Brian and I spent the past weekend putting up (removable) wallpaper - it's really amazing how this small touch can bring a cozier feeling in even a small space and can make our brains feel more alive. Putting up the wallpaper required us to move everything out and it was a picture of chaos with all of our stuff in the middle of our space. We were tripping over everything and finding it almost impossible to move around. How could we have this much stuff? What a crazy amount of dust!
With the first movement of furniture though, I could feel my creative energy starting to come to life.
When we start to redecorate our space, that usually calls for some cleaning out and some decision-making. The truth is, that the act of cleaning out can seem to be chaos - it's disorganized and it's dirty until we start to clean in the corners and get all of the pieces into place as we redecorate. We ask ourselves, "What will I keep? What will I let go of? What will I re-purpose?" All of this process IS the creative process. Without any of these pieces of the process, the entire creative process wouldn't happen.
Deciding to redecorate and clean out our homes is much the same process as when we decide to clean out (de-clutter) our minds and bodies. When we start, it feels heavy and may seem chaotic and impossible to navigate. We may not know where to begin - everything will seem a total mess that will never be able to get put back together. As we start to move out the old "pieces", clean and maybe order new pieces to help in organizing things, everything will start to find their new order and newer creative space will open up for the next step in our process.
Doing any type of improvement project is a great exercise for any couple to go through. We learned a lot about each other during this process. We each have different ways of doing things for our brains to feel "settled" and each of us is better at one part of the process than the other. It's been a great experience doing this together and getting to know more about each other even after 24 years together. Here's to the energy of Winter-time!
-- Lisa Pratt, December 2019
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