Think you should be decluttering? Just pause a sec

Spring is open season for experts on decluttering. The internet is crowded with articles about the hideous psychological mess you are in if your house is untidy.

So should you just take a deep breath and cleanse your soul with the help of a dozen black bin bags?

Well you could, but you'd be missing out.

Here’s a way to make the whole thing a lot more light-hearted, with the bonus that you’ll be practising mindfulness ...

A curious thing happens to messiness when we let our judgements drop and open up to seeing it differently.

On the face of it, clutter isn’t a lovely thing.

It’s not like a perfect rose, or a breathtaking screenshot from Our Amazing Planet complete with majestic music.

It’s more like a beautiful messy pile of golden autumn leaves.

Yes, someone is probably going to have to sweep them up at some point.

But we don’t get annoyed and say, ‘C’mon, Mother Nature, fancy letting that lot pile up. What procrastination and laziness is this?’

We look at the glorious melée of colours and shapes, brightness and shadows. Maybe we stop and appreciate this precious moment in the cycle of nature. Or it just makes us go dreamy for a minute.

We can enjoy a moment like this any time, with an unintended, temporary still-life in our own home.

If you happen to come upon your bed unmade, pause a moment. Look at the rumpledness with your second pair of eyes. See the sunlight from the window creating curvy shade in the folds.

And there in one of the folds is a lone pink and white fluffy sock, the one that stayed behind when the others went off dutifully to the laundry. Like a pink-tinged daisy that pops up on the lawn, supposedly out of place but joyous.

One minute the scene is a messy unmade bed with a sock that shouldn’t be there. Next it’s an ephemeral delight that warms up a little corner of your soul.

This is beginner’s mind. When you let go of what you think something is, you let in infinite possibilities. Who knows what you’ll find - beauty, meaning, insight, a message from your dreaming nature. Just for a moment, open to the mystery.

As if this wasn’t joy enough, it’s not a big stretch to see how the practice of beginner’s mind can flow into not getting annoyed with all kinds of things in life that aren’t as they’re supposed to be.

If you’d like to be among like-minded people who meditate and practise mindfulness together, we’d love to have you join us. Read about classes and retreats here.