Take Out the Trash

I read this phrase, "take out the trash", recently in a movie review and thought how much trash is in each of our lives. We look around our home or office and say, hey, there's no trash here. We organize, we declutter, we simplify...no trash here. And we do keep our homes and cars clean, our lawns nice, but that's not all that needs to be cleaned up. We take better care of our homes and cars than we do ourselves and our spirits, especially when it comes to trash!

What is trash?

Trash is negative thoughts and negative images hanging around in our ever-busy minds. Often put there by 100% voluntary consumption of violent TV, movies and books.

Trash is beating up on ourselves for all sorts of real and imagined faults. We're often kinder to strangers than we are to ourselves.

Trash is filling our lives with meaningless, even harmful, distractions that make us dull and lazy. Ruts and giving up begin here.

Trash is living small, staying in the box you grew up with even when it doesn't serve your best interests any more. Only a tree should stay stuck in the same place its entire life.

Trash is living with things that you dislike or even hate. You get to choose.

Trash is settling for less than you desire, less than you deserve.

Trash is sitting on the couch watching TV or playing computer games for endless hours when you could be exercising or meditating or living your passion or even playing with your spouse or children.

Trash is eating more fat and sugar in a day than a family of ten needs.

Trash is polluting your body and mind, killing your spirit with alcohol and other addictions.

Trash is hanging out with friends and family who run you down, take advantage of you, don't listen and validate and believe in you.

Trash is looking in the mirror and saying anything besides "I love you and you're beautiful/handsome."

Trash is going to a job you hate year after year, living in fear, not allowing yourself room to breathe and grow.

Trash is any attitude, belief or value that doesn't serve your highest and best interests.

You take out the trash in your house every day or every other day. You take it to the curb every week or so. You clean up your lawn once a week or every two weeks. Your car gets cleaned every week (okay, every two months!).

But how often do you clean out the trash in your most treasured possessions: Your mind and your body, your Self? How many years or even decades have you been living with trash? Can you feel it? Can you see all that trash piling up around you, holding you back, holding you down? Is it time to take out the trash?

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Copyright 2007, Mary Anne Fields and Life Unfolds. All rights reserved.