Mental Minimalism: 4 Steps To Declutter Your Mind

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“Today is your day to let go of things that no longer serve you.” Katrina Mayer

We tend to think of clutter as the physical stuff lying around in our homes, but clutter can be thought of anything that limits that distracts you and limits the flow of energy. A lot of times, we have a lot of clutter that we hold onto in our minds. In fact, we have about 60,000 thoughts every single day. No wonder why we feel overwhelmed and lost in our heads! When our minds are clear, we allow energy to flow. Rather than feel clouded, we can allow ourselves to feel at peace. Outlined below is my four-step exercise for decluttering the mind.

SEE ALSO: 10 Suggestions For A Happy Life

Step 1: Relaxing the mind and body

Grab a pen and a piece of paper and set it near you. Get yourself in a meditative position or whatever is most comfortable for you. Take a few deep breaths and begin to feel any sensations within the body.

Step 2: Becoming aware of the mind

Allow yourself to become aware of anything and everything that pops into your head. Don’t try and resist the thoughts. A helpful prompt for this is to say “I allow myself to think and feel whatever comes into my experience.” Next, simply watch what happens.

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Step 3: Identifying what’s going on in your mind

After you’ve taken a few minutes to simply sit and watch. What were you thinking of? Were there any reoccurring thoughts you had? Try to identify the thoughts you had by recording it in a journal.

Step 4: Categorizing your thoughts

My favorite way to do this is to make a mind map and record the major thought themes. For instance, I might notice that a few of my thoughts include “what will I make for dinner,” “I want to work out today,” “I don’t want to go to work tomorrow,” “I need to get my car inspected,” “I need to bring this file to work tomorrow,” and “does the RMV take appointments?”

Without writing down each and every one of my thoughts I might notice that I have a few clear clusters of thoughts, those related to work and career, those related to health and wellness, and those related to my car.

By categorizing our thoughts, we gain insight as to what we’re commonly thinking of rather than feeling overwhelmed by the multiple random thoughts in our mind. Now I know that I am a.) thinking about work b.) thinking about health and c.) thinking about my car. Within each thought category, I can now take any clear actionable steps that need to be done. You can experiment with your own ways of grouping your thoughts together. The nature of your thoughts might also change depending on the day and will differ between people. The important thing is that you don’t give your thoughts the power to rule you, rather you can feel at peace regardless of your thoughts.