Order: I organize my life to carry out my purpose. (Rise Into Your Power, Unity Books)

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions anymore, but I do set goals for the year. This year mine was to do a deep clean of my home and purge some of the “too much stuff” that was cluttering it. I had been making progress working on one closet, room, or cabinet on a weekly basis. I was amassing quite a pile of items that I considered better than a Goodwill donation.

About a month ago, a neighbor mentioned she wanted to have a yard sale. Great! Now I had a means to move the no longer needed items out of the house. I told her I could help out and would have some items I could contribute.

I looked around for other things to add and realized there were some areas, such as the garage, where we were just “storing” stuff, items neither Mike nor I needed, wanted nor could remember why we had them in the first place. Why do we have 10 inflatable rafts for the pool? We had at least 40 keys we couldn’t match to a lock!

I kicked it into high gear. At the end of two weeks I now had too much to take over to my neighbor’s sale and told her I was going to have one on my own the day before, then I could bring what didn’t sell to hers.

This past weekend was our sale. The items that didn’t sell were immediately boxed up and taken to be donated to a thrift store. It feels good to know items that were just collecting dust were now back in circulation. I actually have some empty spaces that were once packed to overflowing. I have a sense of calmness rather than feeling encumbered.

It just so happens that for today’s date, May 22, in 365 Days of Inspiration: Joyous Living Journal by Petra Weldes and Christian Sorensen, the title is “Out with the Old and In with the New”. The reflection for the day is: Look around your house. Is there something that is outdated that you would like to replace? Look at your life and see if there are some old patterns you are dragging forward into your behaviors that it’s time to dump.

I just completed clearing out my physical house of outdated items. Now it’s time to do a spiritual housecleaning. How much happier and lighter I will feel to release some of the emotional “stuff” I’ve been carrying around that is no longer needed. I will clear out old thoughts that have been being stored and make space in my mind for new thoughts that serve me now and allow me to grow, not stay stuck in old patterns. I’ll make room for Spirit to fill me with inspiration and purpose.

In the new order of thought, we are likely to fall into as great an error as in the old thought, unless we go much deeper than thinking of God as merely Principle. GOD IS MORE THAN LAW OR PRINCIPLE. God is the Infinite Spirit. Ernest Holmes, SCIENCE OF MIND page 365.4

–Janet Salese