To Clean Your House You Must First See the Dirt

Your house is your body, mind and spirit.  As you take care of yourself, you nourish your body with healthy food and drink, rest and exercise. You also groom your body on a daily basis to keep it clean.

Do you remember your mom telling you as a young person “Don’t forget to wash behind your ears”? She was reminding you to scrub those areas that you don’t really think about or see for that matter. If you never washed behind your ears the dirt would build up and become very unpleasant.

Your mind and spirit are part of your body. They need to rest, be nourished, exercised and groomed.  The thoughts that constantly repeat in your head, those that remind you that you ‘messed up yet again’ or ‘you are not smart enough to handle this job’, is the dirt that needs to be seen and acknowledged before you can get rid of them and their negative effects on you.

“What you resist persists”. This famous quote by the late Swiss Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist Carl G. Jung means basically the same as the title of this blog. What you resist seeing and acknowledging will continue to be present in your life.  If you are constantly plagued by negative thoughts and experiences, take a look at the ‘dirt’ in your thoughts that you are resisting to acknowledge.  An example of this may be that you believe you will not be able to survive on your own. These fear-based thoughts keep you in a place of disempowerment. In turn, you may choose to remain in an abusive relationship because your fear is greater than the abuse you experience.

To move forward and out of that abusive relationship or other non-serving experiences, you must be willing to see the ‘dirt’, your negative thoughts around the fear, acknowledge that you have these fears, and then make a decision about whether you want to change it.

You can only change what you acknowledge.

10 Steps to see the dirt and clean it up:

1. Notice how your life is going in general.
2. Ask yourself if you like your life.
3. Ask what would you like to change about your life.
4. Reflect on your patterns around the thing you most would like to change.
5. Ask yourself, how are these patterns serving you?
6. Ask, what are my deep inner fears around this?
7. Notice the fear and thoughts that come up.
8. Give it a name. For example, I’m afraid that I won’t find a job that will pay all the bills.
9. Acknowledge this fear. Sit in it for a while.
10. Face your fear and do it anyway.

My Dirt and how I overcame it:

One of my fears is speaking to large groups. I was at a workshop a few years ago with over 150 people. I watched others go up to the microphone to speak all weekend and kept thinking to my self, “I’m so scared but I must do it”.

It took me the entire weekend to muster up the courage. At the last hour, I forced myself to do it as time was running out. I went up to the microphone and blurted something out. I have no idea what I said! My heart was racing; All I could hear was my own heartbeat in my ears. That’s all I was aware of.  As I sat down I thought about what words came out of my mouth. They did not make sense. My inner critic immediately took over and berated me for my stupidity. But once I settled down, I realized that I managed to face my fear and did it anyway.  I felt so proud of myself that it didn’t really matter what I said.

What ‘Dirt’ have you mustered up the courage yourself to finally see?

How did you acknowledge the ‘Dirt’ and purposely overcome it? How did it feel?

If you would like some help “Seeing your dirt to clean your house”, contact Therapy With Carol now.