Cleaning & Organizing Clears Your Mind

Get into an upward spiral to improve your life through cleaning

I have multiple ways to make money. I enjoy a variety of interests so that suits me in that way. I took a week of paid vacation last week. Leading up to that vacation I had one to-do planned, I wanted to paint my bedroom. I wasn’t sure if I’d write here or not during the rest of my time off. I figured I needed a rest, so I might not write.

I woke up at 4 in the morning (just excited or anxious about the day, I suppose) and decided to get ready. I drank a little green tea for the caffeine boost and took to taking everything out of my room. I cleaned the walls and ceiling, prepped the walls (filling holes), prepped the floor, and painted. I have to say listening to my mix of music from iTunes all day long was a mood booster in itself.

There are multiple reasons why cleaning your room out is helpful to your mindset. First, your room being messy is a reflection of what is going on in your mind and “vibration.” I know Jordan Peterson has mentioned something very similar without those terms, but I can’t find that particular video any longer. If you know of it, please leave a comment with it. But I did find this video from him concerning why it’s so important to clean your room:

When you perceive obstacles to getting what you want, you should be “upset” by the same amount of effort that it would take to get rid of that obstacle. Another reason why cleaning is so important is that when we don’t know how much effort it will take to clear obstacles in our lives, we do not know how upset to be and can be overly upset to the point of freezing or freaking out. That is semi-normal out in the world, but shouldn’t be a common-place thing in your own home.

A lot of people have desires but they do not know how much effort or even what effort it would take to get to those desires, so we feel as if they are unattainable goals. The reason I bring this up is that after cleaning the room, and then putting everything back in, I decided to clean and organize other areas of the house. That’s probably due in part to me seeing that I was capable of doing it in one room. I knew I also had the time (a whole week off).

After moving everything back into my newly painted room, it felt as if I had moved into a whole new house. That’s a great feeling in itself, full of excitement and promise. I was very particular about where I put my things when moving back in, and I also threw old things away and even sold something on eBay.

Jordan talks about how when decorating, you want to think about the tasks that need to be done and make it as easy as possible to do those tasks. I found his video this morning, but I realize now that I had that as my plan when I was reorganizing everything. You simply want to make it as easy as possible to get done what you need to get done. The more complicated it is, the more overwhelmed you will feel even if it won’t take that much effort to make the task easy.

I have been feeling overwhelmed. I take on a lot. I also felt like I was working my vacation away. I have back pain and wanted to relax on vacation to come back to work feeling better.

But I also realize what is going on inside of my mind, that feeling of being overwhelmed) can be causing some of the pain. I knew, intellectually, that cleaning and organizing would help me to feel better internally over time, and that would help me feel better physically a while later. I knew that organizing was a good investment. I even purchased a bunch of organizing tools which I normally wouldn’t have.

There is a major feeling of relief when things that you need or desire are easy to get to. Over time that mental relief will turn into physical relief. I believe that. I also believe that it’s been an internal process of organizing my thoughts (mentally) about trauma over the past few months to get me to the point where I would make the decision to paint and clean my room, and then the rest of the house, (physically) in the first place.

The mental state and physical state affect each other in an endless loop. My internal processes led me to be physically ready to take action, and my physical action of organizing will lead to me mentally feeling clean and clear.

I didn’t get everything organized, that would take a very long time. I was more focused on the things I use and need more frequently than others that I only deal with once in a while. Cleaning one area of your house or room over time can dramatically lift your mood. When your mood is lifted you will actually feel like doing more to improve your life because of the loop get into, spiraling upward.

On the flip side, if someone is making a mess of their home or their city, it demoralizes and frightens them more. You can feel as if you’re being dragged into a downward spiral. This may help you to better understand why people do that or how they end up there. But, you personally don’t want to be in that downward spiral, so, as Jordan Peterson says, clean your room.