If you're familiar with my books and online courses you probably know that my work largely focuses on a system of clearing (homes, heads, and hearts) that has very
little to do with the intellect. While my resources offer plenty of practical tips, tools, and how-tos to charm the rational part of our brain (that is so eager to "fix" and "do something"), the process of clearing itself is more sensory and intuitive by nature.
This brings us to "sensing" – the third step in our journey together. It is time to turn up the light even more and dust off six tools that are massively important in our work with reducing overwhelm: our senses.
In other words, it's time to come to our senses.
Welcome to the Overwhelm Solution, Part 3 of a free 6-part series on reducing overwhelm. If you're getting this from a friend and would like to sign up for the full series,
CLICK HERE.
What is Sensing?
With our five primary senses – of smell, taste, touch, hearing, seeing – and the sixth sense of inner-knowing, sensing is the ability to tune into and process information from our environment and our world.
Sensing also allows us to connect with the language of the heart. By tuning into our senses we can tap, and more readily trust, the clear intelligence that comes through it.
The sensory muscles that come built into all of us humans are not only terrific pathways for experiencing more of that yummy light and beauty that abounds "out there." They are also an exceptional resource for processing and releasing more of the darkness and discord we all carry within.
Coming to Our Senses
Years ago when I first started out on this journey of addressing clutter in my own home, I noticed something very interesting: Clearing made me feel really crappy.
An hour of moving stuff around did not immediately make me feel better, or lighter or clearer, or whatever it was that I was hoping to feel. Instead I felt worse!
My feet were always killing me... I felt congested, gummy, sticky, thirsty, more foggy-headed, and even nauseous sometimes. For a long time, I could barely get through one drawer, or a shelf of books before I wanted to bolt in the opposite direction and crawl into bed and stay there. It felt so friggin' hard, and overwhelming.
At the time, there was nothing cluing me in that what I was experiencing was a type of energetic detoxing of old patterning, and if I could just hang in there, be alert to everything I was feeling, and let go of attachment to the outcome, things would start to lift and shift for good.
The Happening Place
After all these years of studying the nature of clutter and our relationship to it, here's what I've learned about clearing: When the focus is on fixing a problem and being attached to the outcome, we completely miss the happening place – the place where all the goodies are...
the only place, in fact, where we can make a difference and clear for good. It is called the present moment.
I'll say that again more simply: we can only clear for good when we're in the present moment.
Being in the present moment means entering that sometimes scary zone called feeling: Feeling the overwhelm, the resistance, the guilt, the shame, the shoulds, the foggy-headedness, the aching feet, the unpleasant guckiness that is impossible to even describe – all those sensations that are encoded in our stress and stuff as stuck energy.
You see, ultimately it is not about the overwhelm (nor the insane piles, the clothes that don't fit, an overflowing email inbox, or the crazy neighbor who won't turn his music down). Nor, is it about the end result. It is the level of attention, and presence, and compassion you bring to these issues that changes the game.
Why More Feeling
To the degree that we are not attached to a particular outcome, clearing the Spacious Way can deliver results at lightening speeds. And in no small way, it is thanks to our six senses that all this is possible.
Powered by the heart, sensing shows us where we are stuck and where we are open; what sparks joy and what doesn't. Sensing helps us sniff out problems, helps us see our way to more creative solutions, helps us feel to heal.
Practice 3 – Sensing
Today's invitation is to tune up your senses by tuning into your world. The practice is two-fold:
- Re-read this lesson and notice sensations in your body as you do so. For example, how's your breathing? Your hands, are they hot, cold, tingly, prickly, clammy, open, clenched...? Are you feeling impatient, rushing or skimming through this step to get it over with? Notice (with all six senses) what rushing feels like?
- Tune in. Take some time every day to tune into your world. It might help to use your smartphone to photograph, videotape, or do an audio recording of a detail in your world that catches your eye, surprises you, or illuminates you in some way. Notice if, and how, your world is trying to get your attention, and what it’s trying to tell you. If you get no big revelations, don’t worry. Use this exercise
to practice beginner’s mind and see what happens.
Photo and text by Stephanie Bennett Vogt
Portions of this material are excerpted from A Year for You, Hierophant Publishing, 2019
Copyright © All Rights Reserved
