A different kind of Spring cleaning!
“Spring is like a moody dinner guest. They arrive once a year and we tend to forgive their moodiness because of how charming they are.“
I read this on an instagram account I follow and it made me smile. So cheeky and spot on!
Come Spring and a few days of sunshine, we think of Spring cleaning right? There are debates over where and how this tradition was born…
One version traces the history of Spring cleaning to the first celebrations of Passover — a Jewish Spring time festival which celebrates the escape of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt, over 3000 years ago. To prepare for Passover the Torah says, remove any leaven (yeast used to make bread) from the house. Practicing Jews would therefore, thoroughly clean the entire home and that is how Spring cleaning became a thing.
Another version traces the practice back to farming communities emptying barns and granaries before the arrival of the new crops.
Doesn’t really matter what it’s origins are, what I like about the tradition of Spring cleaning is that it nudges you to declutter and let go of anything that is taking up unwanted space — in your home, your body or your mind.
This month I let go of something that was taking up space not in my home but in my inbox: the 8406 unopened emails!
You see, the first 10 mails in my inbox every morning are free subscriptions and news: The BBC, The New York Times, Le Monde, Linkedin, Amazon…you get the picture! By the time I'm done with my morning Yoga practice and ready to face the world, too many of them have piled up in my inbox. I’m too overwhelmed to open any! That is how I ended up with precisely 8406 unopened emails!
So last week I decided to say bye to my FOMO and unsubscribed from newsletters I won’t read and services I haven’t used in a while. A lot got slayed. The BBC stayed! I’m happy to enter a debate about BBC versus NY Times, versus… but that is a separate conversation.
Other than the BBC, the subscriptions that stayed have this in common: they are teaching me something with humility and playfulness.
Here is one for example…
Cutting Chai stories : Jayati is a copy writing coach. Her work is all about helping young entrepreneurs make their writing engaging! She sends a weekly email with one writing tip.
Her mail last week started with “There is 18 miles of fishing wire tied to poles around Manhattan and most people never notice it. They are too busy walking around living their lives and even if they happen to look up, these are hard to spot.” Jayati goes on to tell us the story behind the almost invisible fishing wire in the Manhattan skies and ties the story to her writing tip of the week.
Of course her tips are valuable and easy to implement. What I like about her mails is that she keeps it real. She talks about her own writer’s blocks, tango dancing, raising toddlers…
Jayati’s writing drives the point that an expert is just an advanced student, sharing their knowledge as they continue to learn and grow — a philosophy that I try to adopt in my own Yoga teaching.
For now, Spring cleaning to me was about making choices and cleaning up my inbox. Doing this has lightened the overwhelm every morning. I feel more in control of what takes up space in my inbox and in my mind.
What does Spring cleaning look like for you this year? What are you creating space for in your home or in your mind?
Have a clean and colourful week!
Love,
Gayatri
I am a Yoga teacher, Ayurvedic Nutrition and Holistic Health Coach. Healthy Hedonism is me making the ancestral wisdom relevant to your busy lives.
More about me and my work here https://www.gayatridevi.co/