But, what about all the emotional clutter that resides in your mind?
Emotional clutter is truly invisible; not readily recognizable like the papers and magazines that pile up.
It may come from past childhood experiences or trauma, worries about the future, or simply the day-to-day chaos of life. This clutter keeps you from embracing the present moment and performing in those moments.
It's not easy to keep your mind clean. Research suggests that the average mind tends to wander about 50 percent of the time and has about 75,000 thoughts in the course of the day. There are so many distractions and choices to make in modern-day lives, so it's important to filter out those thoughts. How many are accurate and relevant? How many are just old toxic thoughts or a result of your brain on autopilot?
Donald Altman, LPC, author of Clearing Emotional Clutter: Mindfulness Practices for Letting Go of What's Blocking Your Fulfillment and Transformation, has coined the term "inner Facebooking," which is a metaphor for how we make mental posts in our mind. Notice these mental posts and how they make you feel.
Where you place your attention and the thoughts you have can actually rewire your brain. This is something you can do in just a few minutes a day.
Donald also encourages what he calls fidelity to the moment or faithfulness to one moment. This involves uni-tasking instead of multitasking. Wash your dishes just to wash them, not to get that task out of the way. Notice how the water feels on your skin, the artistry of the plates. When you're on a walk, just walk. Embrace the scenery.
Listen in as Donald explains how you can start to rewire your brain and embrace the beauty of the present moment.
Donald Altman is the author of Clearing Emotional Clutter and several other books about mindfulness.