Mental and Emotional Spring Cleaning

Spring is a time of renewal, of starting fresh. A time of looking back to move forward in some qualitatively new directions. Yet too many people take their emotional old, no longer useful “clothes” with them into summer, fall, and the next winter like last year’s parka and snow pants.

At least once a season, I go through my closets. I sort my clothes, shoes, belts and handbags into a pile to give away, a pile to take to consignment, and a pile I want to keep. You’ve guessed it. The pile that I either consign or give away is stuff that I have to face the truth about: I simply am never going to wear the stuff. Either I’ve outgrown it, (drat!), or I no longer need it or like it.
I always feel lighter, less encumbered somehow, when I have completed this arduous task, having procrastinated on it long enough.

So it is with mental and emotional spring cleaning. And yet, too few people do this. They continue to take their emotional winter clothes with them year after year, in the form of outworn defenses and no-longer-useful thought processes.
For example, people who are stuck in their lives likely are at an impasse because of a trauma that hasn’t been resolved. Or an early decision they have made as a result of an experience that they have promised themselves never to repeat. This is the best self-protection that children can come up with because they are capable only of concrete reasoning.

According to the great Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget, children aren’t capable of abstract reasoning until they are in their mid-teens. Concrete reasoning means that children are not capable of questioning their thoughts. They just unquestioningly think them. So if a child concludes that Mom and Dad got a divorce because s/he was a bad girl or bad boy, they carry that with them on an unconscious level until they are helped to raise that early decision to the level of consciousness. Then they can make a new, decision that is less damaging to their growth and development. This is a graphic example of an early decision run amuck and then corrected – spring cleaning at its best.

What lurks in the cob webs of your mind that needs to be brushed away? What hides in the dark corners that need to be faced and put to rest so you are no longer held back? What baggage is in your trunk of unhappy memories? Finding and putting these archaic experiences is essential. Otherwise, they will continue to haunt you and overshadow your ability to live the life. Then you will continue living someone else’s life, not your own.

In May, I am offering two opportunities to help you “spring clean.” The first will be on an acreage in Ocala, FL, on May 15th and 16th. The second will be held in Minneapolis, MN, at the lovely 1893 Nicollet Island Inn, on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River on May 22nd and 23rd. At each of these events, I will guide your mental and emotional spring cleaning.

For more information, visit my web site, www.drbetherickson.com. Click on Services and then Group Consultations on the left. This will allow you to access a video where I explain about the Florida Consultation Group and read specific details. The Minneapolis group will be a mirror image of the experience in Florida.

And of course, call my toll free number, 888-546-1580

Dr. Beth