I love Spring cleaning. It’s the perfect time of year to get rid of the old stuff and make space for all the new shopping that I already KNOW I’m going to do haha.
We all typically know how to spring clean our homes, right? The best way that I do it is to focus on one room at a time. I start by going through everything in that room, separating the trash from what’s useful, cleaning all of the baseboards, floors, walls and more. Finally, I reorganize everything again as I set it in its final place. Spring cleaning our homes has become easier over the years and there are so many downloadable checklists from the internet that you can easily use to help you.
But just like our homes need a deep cleaning, so also do our minds, bodies and souls. I call this my “360 Cleanse” as it covers the 360 degrees surrounding our existence. These are things that also need to go through a cleansing so that we can walk into this new season of life feeling fresh and restored. Here are a few tips that I’ve learned over the years as it relates to these areas:
Mind/Heart
Most of our battles lie within our minds. This is where we store our emotional scars, hurt from past relationships, insecurities about ourselves and so forth. One way in which we can clean out those negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones is to come up with daily affirmations for ourselves. Here are a few that are my favorite:
- I am enough.
- I am a Queen.
- Even my flaws are beautiful.
- I was created fearfully and wonderfully by God – flaws and all.
- That relationship doesn’t define me – I am defined by who I am in Christ.
- I CAN do anything I put my mind on.
I think you will find that as you start to tell yourself positive affirmations those negative thoughts will start to fade and you will see that you have a little more pep in your step. Your confidence in yourself and your abilities will continue to grow and you will enter this season a new person!
Body
This is an area that many people don’t think about. I’ve shared this with you all before – I am an accountant. Specifically, I’m an auditor. Between January through about mid-April every year is what we call in the public accounting industry our “busy season”. It’s a time where we are working 80+ hour work weeks, working 7 days a week, have no time for family, friends or significant others, neglect our housework and eat out ALL THE TIME! I’ve eaten out so much over the past few months, it’s ridiculous! And where I used to workout at least 3x a week, I had only been working out maybe 3x a month!
So Spring is a great season to reset. It’s a good time to detox your body of all of the impurities that you ate over the Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year’s breaks or in my case, during busy season. It’s also a good time to reset your body and get it back into “workout mode” because it’s still early enough for you to see some real changes in your body come summertime. Summertime fine is what I always say. So put down those chips and cookies, grab you a healthy smoothie (strawberry banana is my fav!) and give your body a good cleanse!
Soul/Spirit
Now this is my favorite spring cleaning of them all. According to anewseason.net, there are 4 steps to take to spring clean your soul:
- Search out hard to reach areas and surrender all.
- Scrub out sin-stained surfaces and receive God’s grace.
- Clear out unnecessary items, creating time for Christ.
- Donate an abundance of love and faith to those in need.
When I read these, I thought these were the perfect recipe to clean my soul during this season. One of the things that I’ve done is added some more spiritual reading to my life. If you follow me on social media, you’ll know that I just started reading The Wait by Megan Good and Devon Franklin and it has been one of the most powerful books for me on my spiritual journey. Additionally, I’ve been doing a little more to make time for Christ. I’ve been convicted in this area as I have been spending more time doing everything else (social media, blogging, hanging out with friends, etc) than I have in my word so I know I can do better!
During this season, it’s also good to self-reflect on your walk with God. Afterall, a cluttered spirit allows little to no room for God to move in your life. (Read more about that here).
Therefore, consider what areas you need to surrender wholly to him? What areas of sin are you still struggling with or that you feel compelled to stop doing (perhaps God is calling you to a life of celibacy/abstinence)? How can you make more time for God so that HE is the priority? Finally, how can you let the love of Christ shine in you as a reflection of HIM into the lives of others?
OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW!!! Happy Spring to you all!
OnlyLadyV 