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How To Clear Your Love Clutter
by Rev. Laurie Sue Brockway |
"I’m gonna wash that man right outta my hair … and send him on his way."
--from South Pacific
Want to find new romance … a soul mate … the love of your life? The first step to finding the right partner is becoming the right partner, and the first step to transforming ourselves and getting ready for love is by getting rid of anything – and sometimes, anyone – who stands in your way of becoming all you can be in a relationship.
In opening to soulful love, we are required to take personal responsibility for putting our lives in order for a relationship. It requires preparing body, mind and being, as well as literally creating the space for love to enter. You have to be committed to bringing order into your life on ALL LEVELS -- physical, psychic, emotional, financial, and spiritual.
So get ready to roll up your sleeves and get to work. Your mission is to ditch the things that will get in your way of being able to be fully present with a new beloved.
To accomplish this, you must go down to the basement of old relationship baggage and then poke around the attic of broken-heartedness of the past. You have to look at the places – physical, emotional, spiritual – that still keep you tethered to the past.
Why cleaning love clutter is important
It may seem contrary to clean up love clutter, yet also embrace the concept that soul mate love has its own schedule and the journey is filled with great mysteries and questions – that it can be necessarily rushed. But embedded in this journey must be the trust that somehow, when the time is right and you are ready, you will know that true love will appear. It’s just that if you have too much love junk from the past in your life, you may not be able to recognize true love when it comes to your door.
For example, if you house is filled with mementos and reminders of lovers past and/or love gone awry, it is very difficult to focus on a fresh start in a positive relationship with someone new. You may not even be aware of the subtle influence it exerts in your love life if you live with constant reminders of love’s disappointments, pains, or even overt reminders of love’s better days. For example, you may have loved your first husband or wife, and shared great passion in the king-sized brass bed from your first marriage that you got in the divorce, but do you realize that every time you lay down at night you are still sleeping with you ex. Energetically, spiritually and subconsciously that person is lying right beside you. And they will hop in the bed with you and any new person you bring to it.
Similarly, there are certain clutter patterns around the house that interfere with your love life. Feng Shui expert and Soulful living columnist, Nancilee Wydra, writes in her book, Look Before You Love, that a cluttered closet can keep love at bay … or too much "stuff" in what would be considered the "love corner’ of your house can also wreak havoc on romance. I think you get the point.
You may not want to throw out all your furniture or get rid of valuable items, but you can sell things that no longer serve you, rearrange things that can be moved around and put others away into storage for safe keeping. Even just getting reminders out of daily site will help lots in your mission to un-clutter your love life.
As you engage in the process of clearing away love clutter, keep in mind that nothing that came before was a waste or a failure. Everything you have done up until this moment in time has been preparing you for your true love. Every relationship that didn’t work, and every heartbreak you’ve known or felt responsible for, is part of the building blocks to true love. Rather than harboring any regrets over romance past, congratulate yourself for surviving love’s battlefield and for still being willing to open your heart!
Gently Release the Past
To begin the process of gentle release and letting go, identify that which stands in the way of letting soul love in. This includes unsuitable relationships and unsuitable ties to old flames (you know the ones!). Let yourself mourn what you must leave behind -- an important process, even if you are leaving a very alive lover! -- And then you can move on. Make a list if you must. Or just clarify in your mind what you know is detrimental to a healthy love life.
There is a very specific spiritual law that states, "Nature abhors a vacuum." Get rid of something and something new can come in. All of the worlds religions have specific ways to release the old -- from body, mind and spirit -- and there is a reason for this: If your life is too cluttered or filled up with "stuff", if your house is messy or your mind is disorganized, if you are not honoring your body or your spirit, it very hard to feel connected to your own divine nature and therefore it is difficult to create a life of your choosing.
When your life is messy or brimming with extra baggage or exs, the people and situations that show up in your life often mirror it. You may have done much work to heal your heart and home and life, but if you are still occasionally being intimate with an old love that is so not right for you, it can hold up your whole process of finding your soul mate. This is because people stay linked to us, energetically, even if they are not physically around us much. And, because like attracts like. So if you are sleeping with your ex even just once a year, or are unresolved in that relationship, the person who shows up in your life with romance in mind will often also have ties to others that make him or her not quite ready, or simply unavailable, for true soul love!
This is the time to at least start to rethink your romantic game plan and slowly work your way toward transforming -- or releasing the relationships that are not soulful or right for you any longer.
I find that the best bet for a fresh start is to make symbolic gestures in the physical realm and then work your way into a more playful and esoteric arena of positive thoughts and affirmations and creating things that evoke a sense of possibility for a great relationship. Clearing the decks of dreck and disarray will help you create a healthy foundation for your life. And then, a healthy foundation in your life will help you create the space for your soul mate to come in. These things take time. Be gentle with yourself but start somewhere!
How to Wash That Man or Woman Out of Your Heart
You might want to consider asking a like-minded friend to buddy-up with you on this process, and create a system of mutual support. Or have a number of friends come over for a big house cleaning party or even a dinner party for moral support. If you are a loner, then dig in and have fun. But if you work better with the support of others, don’t be afraid to reach out. And for each good clean-up deed, reward yourself – with a nice meal, a warm bubble bath, and time out to go to movie.
Try some of these "Love Clutter Clearing" tips:
- Start with one drawer … then a closet … next a whole room. Rampage through your physical space, one step at a time, as a symbolic gesture of cleaning up your life and making room for love. Take a big black garbage bag -- or 10! --And dump things. Give anything you don’t need any more to the Garbage Goddess or to charity.
- Let go of memorabilia from old, failed relationships. This includes anything that ties you inappropriately to the past, or to a love affair that is long over. Naturally you want to save anything that is valuable or sacred, but pack it up and place it in storage -- at least for now. You should not be looking at pictures of your old loves on the mantle, or stuff that reminds you of them, while trying to get ready for the new.
- Make cleaning up your life fun. Play music, such as "I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta Hair," and dance around as you ditch the old and make room for the new.
- Write an elimination list -- thoughts, items, relationships, "things" you know are in the way of your soulful love success. Things you choose to release or transform for the highest good.
- When you are ready to let these things go, do a simple release ritual -- burn, flush or bury the list. It will alert your subconscious mind – and the gods and goddesses – that you mean business.
Of course, the next steps after release are to clarify what you seek in a relationship. But once you have cleared away some of the debris of old relationships that would otherwise be standing in your way, you are getting closer to being ready for your soul mate. Somehow, in the universal scheme of things, I believe that it will help you meet that person half way. Letting go of the old will bring you closer to the love you desire. The intention to make one’s life more magnificent is the greatest way to attract a soul mate.
You can get more wonderful tips on clearing love clutter, getting ready for love and attracting your soul mate in Rev. Laurie Sue’s new book, A Goddess Is A Girl’s Best Friend: A Divine Guide To Finding Love, Success and Happiness (due out from Perigee Books, December 2002) as well as her new e-mail course (described below).
© Copyright 2002 Reverend Laurie Sue Brockway All Rights Reserved.
Reverend Laurie Sue Brockway is an author, teacher and contemporary clergy person who specializes in matters of the heart and soul. As an ordained interfaith minister and non-denominational wedding officiant, it is her honor to regularly marry couples in love.
Prior to becoming a minister she enjoyed a successful and colorful 20 years in media as a widely published journalist, editor and author of several books on relationships and romance—as well as being a noted spokesperson on those topics. She was editor-in-chief of two national magazines and several regional publications, and her articles have been published around the world and in many newspapers and national magazines, such as the NY Daily News, The Washington Post, Women’s News, New Woman, Ladies’ Home Journal and Child. She evolved years of specialized reporting in the field of male-female relationship dynamics into a more spiritual pursuit that led her to train to be an interfaith minister, and then establish her wedding ministry along with a number of popular relationship enhancement programs. Her wedding ministry is based in New York.
She is also dedicated to bringing about a deeper awareness and understanding of the Divine Feminine. As a graduate of The New Seminary in NYC, the world’s premier seminary for interfaith ministers, she was educated and trained in the tenants, spiritual practice and worship of many faiths. She became a specialist in the feminine aspects of God in all the world’s religions. Today, she is widely recognized as a minister, teacher and scribe specializing in women’s spirituality and The Divine Feminine from an interfaith and all-inclusive perspective. She is on the board of directors of World Light Fellowship, heading up their Feminine Faces of God programs, and is Founder of Our Mother’s House.
Long devoted to helping women access the "Goddess Within," she is currently working on two books that bring the wisdom of ancient archetypes to modern women. Her newest book, A Goddess Is a Girl's Best Friend, is due out from Perigee Books in December 2002.
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