This time of year, I get a little mad. As in loony, zealous, dotty, wacky. I start to feel the rising itch to shed all the heavy winter layers, of which there are always many. And it usually seems to happen overnight.

One day: Complete calm.
Next day: Utter madness.

I start clearing out the freezer, dusting the back reaches of the floorboards, half-jogging through my afternoon “walk,” laundering sweaters for storage, moving a bunch of dirt around outside in preparation for planting. The nutty part comes in when I try to do some of all of this in just one day’s time. A few days in a row.

Sound familiar at all?

Those days when you simply must shake loose every molecule of stagnation in your body by dancing in the living room or wiping down every single surface in your kitchen so that it’s gleaming, ready for raw spring onions and bright green snap peas? (Oh dear, the loony-ness is seeping through again.)

Well.

All of this is in service to our theme for this month, which is Clearing Out. I could call it Spring Cleaning, but you might live somewhere where you’re heading into Winter, or where the temps are already summer-humid by 8:00am.

So let’s call this our Clearing Out month.

And while yes, there is likely to be some actual, physical cleaning that ends up happening in your external landscape, my primary focus is going to be on internal material that’s ready to be reviewed and cleared so that we can make way for new revelations in the upcoming months.

WE’LL START BY REVIEWING WHAT I CALL LAST SEASON’S ACCUMULATIONS. TAKING AN HONEST, EXACTING INVENTORY OF WHAT WE’VE ACCUMULATED OVER THE LAST FEW MONTHS IN OUR BODY AND PSYCHE.

It’s really not much different than opening a cupboard to clear it out. You take inventory, decide what needs to stay and what needs to go (while hopefully giving the shelves a good dust-down before the re-load). Same thing with our intangible content, though it might take a bit more focus and time to move through the process.

Here’s how it works for me:

I open to a full spread in my journal and write down everything that comes to mind from the last few months. Projects accomplished, wastes of time, old habits getting in the way, new habits begun. Body aches, body breakthroughs, terror dreams, revelatory dreams. Hurts, healings, gains, losses. Basically, writing down everything that carries emotional juice with it. The whole cupboard, unloaded.

One I get that part done, I sit with it for at least a week and allow it to start naturally organizing itself.

Instead of making a mental exercise of breaking things into “yes” and “no” piles, I move into the intuitive realms, looking at the pages multiple times every day and tapping into what feels complete and what wants to come forward with me. It becomes a non-cognitive dialogue with what I’ve inventoried.

MY HEART SPEAKS, MY BODY SPEAKS. I ASK MY MIND TO REST.

What eventually emerges is a series of “X’s” and “O’s” (I happen to “X out” my no’s and circle my yes’s). It becomes a little piece of art, where the light of my yes’s come forward and the no’s recede into the shadows.

I’ve had clients do this with paint and markers to bring it to life. Some use toothy, poster-board-sized art paper and others keep it small and tidy on just one un-lined journal page. There is no right or wrong. It’s about finding a process that feels engaging for you.

What comes next is activation. I’ll speak to that in another piece.

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For now, here’s the invitation for the next week+:

Taking Inventory and Intuitively Sorting
List out your Last Season’s Accumulations. Get them down in writing so that they move out of the nebulous realm. When you feel complete, take plenty of time to let those accumulations speak to you over the course of a full week. Listen for what wants to be given time and attention and what is ready to be released. When you start over-thinking and getting lost in a mind spiral, step away until you can come back with a clear mind and allow your intuitive body to guide your process.