Mind Cleaning

In January, I had a massive reduction of my time spent on social media and, in particular, my phone. While I have all the random contraptions available to me–laptop, iPad, and desktop computer–I spend most of my screen time on my phone. I felt, with the new year, that I deeply needed a cleansing of sorts. You can read about how that went in this past blog post. But in general, it was a success. I found that with the distance from these quick modes of entertainment and gratification, I was forced to use my creative mind more. I wrote, read, drew, and created so much more.

In February, I reintroduced the various modes of digital entertainment and there went my productivity. I don’t know if my lack of creativity was directly caused by the reintroduction of social media and digital entertainment, but all creativity seemed to cease. I didn’t finish reading a single book. I didn’t create any art. I nearly stopped baking bread. Perhaps I was too focused on making decorations for my son’s birthday (that’s a form of creativity but one driven by a deadline). Perhaps I was hitting my standard winter depression (it’s always worst in January, February, or both. The days were certainly dreary with more snow and rain and cloudy skies than sunny. When it was sunny, it was often too cold or muddy to really go out and enjoy the weather. I stayed inside, I didn’t get dressed unless I had to leave the house. The term lazy comes to mind.

As we approach the end of February nothing has truly changed and I doubt it will. I have developed deep insomnia–something that I’ve felt on occasion since having my son but have seen increase exponentially since February began. I miss sleep like I miss a lover, and with my little one turning one, it also seemed to be the appropriate time to have a cold meaning he welcomed his second year with frequent wake ups and a runny nose.

Going on social media was becoming a chore with the presidential election revving up and everyone declaring their opinion. They’re allowed to their opinion, of course, but I began seeing different platforms to be like a cesspool of the worst sides of everyone. I felt anxious, frustrated, tired, and uninspired.

With this in mind, I’ve decided to switch things up again in March, much like January. March has often been a time for spring cleaning of the physical sense. We finally see a day warm enough to open the windows and freshen the air of our house, our spring decorations come out from storage (all of one, a flowered wreath that hangs from our door). Fresh flowers are kept above our TV, asparagus becomes a frequent visitor of our dinners, and the floors are cleaned nearly daily from the mud that’s brought in. We switch out the flannel sheets for our summer ones and tuck away our thick throws for lighter ones.

But I thought, as I was disappointed by another day of finding no inspiration to draw and a wrinkle of my nose at some opinion from a former friend, why couldn’t I do spring cleaning of my mind as well?

So I set out to see what I was desiring and what was causing me stress and how to grasp what I wanted and dispel what I disliked.

In March I will…

• Cut back on time spent on Facebook significantly (preferably only frequenting the site to check events locally or ask questions to the local mother’s group)
• Unsubscribe to any email I get where my initial reaction is to delete without reading (I get so much spam email! I’ve gotten into the habit of just deleting them but why? Why not just unsubscribe?)
• Review and remove those I follow who I no longer am inspired by on Instagram (this is something I have begun doing frequently month by month. For a very long time I followed a number of people out of a sense of necessity because I had followed them for years but these bloggers don’t know who I am, they won’t care if I vanish from their following)
• Reduce my time spent on Instagram (applying time limit)
• Begin a daily meditation practice (I did this regularly when I was a teen and always found it beneficial)
• Continue daily physical therapy workouts (I’ve seen such an improvement in my physicality since beginning physical therapy!)
• Clean house! Open the windows (if the weather gets warm enough) and air it out, wash all the bedding, rotate the mattress, clean out my son’s and my nightstands, clean out my craft section, organizing my yarn and fabric, organizing our living room closet for better storage
• Perfect a skincare routine (because why not? I’m of the age where night serums are in and partying is out. I’m just accepting this)
• Fill the house with fresh flowers weekly
• Continue to budget and spend wisely

I hope that with these steps I will see an uptick in creativity. I hope I’ll notice myself finding inspiration, that my anxiety will lessen, and that I will read or write or draw more frequently. Perhaps even my insomnia will break. I hope, despite the brief post full of nothing quite exciting to report, I’ll be able to report back in a month or so with great findings. But there it is, dear hearts. Let’s see this through.