Spring Cleaning Your Home If the thought of giving your home a deep clean inspires you to head for the mall instead, consider this: EEG studies show that clutter and dirty, dingy spaces trigger a beta brainwave frequency along with feelings of overwhelm and stress, even depression. It constricts your energy. These same studies also show that brain wave states immediately slow from beta to alpha when you enter a clean, orderly room. Better yet, this shift begins as soon as you begin cleaning and sprucing up your space. Why does this matter? Alpha is the state of light hypnosis and meditation. It is the brain state that allows you to be at your best. It is the state of intuition and ‘being in the flow’. As your brain waves slow to alpha, you get more ‘aha’ moments, you get lost in the moment, and are more creative. With mind and body more relaxed, your energy is more expansive, your body heals, and you are more likely to operate in abundance and prosperity mode. While you are upgrading your space: Keep the health of your body and environment in mind while you are cleaning.  Reuse and recycle as possible. Stick to nontoxic cleaning products. Mainstream cleaning products are a major source of toxins that you breathe in and absorb through your skin. You can do a great deal of cleaning with white vinegar, baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, borax and rubbing alcohol along with a little elbow grease. Hydrogen peroxide is an excellent disinfectant. Small bowls of baking soda scented with essential oils placed around your home naturally freshen the air. Rubbing alcohol cleans chrome fixtures, granite countertops, and will remove permanent marker and adhesive from nonporous surfaces.  If making your own cleaners isn’t your cup of tea, find nontoxic products at your local health food store, and even in department and grocery stores. Do also take this opportunity to brighten and renew your home’s energy flow. Paint a wall in your favorite color. Put flowering plants at your doorway. And here is one of my favorites because I love it when science validates ancient practices – apply Feng Shui principles to your space. Your brain shifts to alpha in rooms with good energy flow. Spring Cleaning Your Body While you are giving your home a makeover, do the same for your body. You can do a short-term cleanse, which will be of some value, but better to make a few shifts that help you stay healthier for a lifetime. Make a habit of eating wholesome real foods, including lots of greens. They will help you detoxify in two ways. You reduce the amount of poison going into your body while providing the nutrients and vitality needed to release stored toxins. Here are a few other pointers:

• As possible, limit water and toothpaste laced with toxic fluoride. Fluoride in our water is no longer pharmaceutical grade. It has been shown to contribute to neurological problems, osteoarthritis and heart disease over time.
• Avoid toxins in your food supply. Minimizing processed food will go a long way in protecting you.
• Wash non-organic produce with a vegetable wash. A tablespoon each of lemon juice and baking soda in a few inches of water will help you scrub the petroleum off your waxed produce.
• Purchase bromide-free bread. Better yet, forget modern wheat products. Eat sprouted Ezekiel bread or breads made with wholesome grains.
• Choose real salt with its rich supply of minerals over refined, bleached, chemical-laden white table salt.

What you put on your body is just as important as what you put into it. It is easy to make some permanent, significant changes with no ‘force of habit’ issues fighting you.

• Use shampoo that is free of endocrine disrupting sodium lauryl sulfate.
• Natural deodorant with tea tree is a good substitute for pore blocking aluminum based anti-perspirants. You know those yucky yellow pit stains? They are from the aluminum, not from your body!
• Non-toxic detergent does a great job cleaning your clothes, minus the chemicals that get transferred to your skin and our water supply.
• Instead of chemically fragranced dryer sheets, add a few teaspoons of white vinegar to your wash to soften clothes. Throw a washcloth scented with a few drops of your favorite essential oil in the dryer if you want fragrance.

Spring Cleaning Your Mind Giving your mind a spring cleaning is just as important as cleaning up your physical and body environments. If feelings of happiness and abundance elude you, it is likely that you have old limiting beliefs running the programs in your subconscious mind. Just like the piles of clutter and old stuff tucked away in boxes, your subconscious mind stores and runs outdated belief files. These programs cause you to act and react in ways that do not serve your highest good and your current dreams. If you find yourself asking why you can’t stick to your healthy eating plan, why you say awful things to loved ones and ruminate on old hurts, or sabotage your chances for health and success, look no further than your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind is not trying to hurt you. Just the opposite. It is trying to protect you from future hurts and new situations that might be ‘dangerous’. The problem is, it looks at everything new as a potential risk to your safety. That can keep you in a pretty small box! Fortunately, you can clean out some of your old beliefs and spruce up your belief system with new programs that better serve you. Techniques such as EFT, hypnosis, the Sedona method and other emotional release techniques can help. Here’s a tip for getting started. Using judgment-free awareness and absolute self-acceptance, make a list of all the negative memories you can think of. Add to this list all the degrading statements you tell yourself as well as all the things you tell yourself in order to avoid action and transformation. While you’re cleaning your mental house, don’t overlook applying a dose of good old forgiveness for yourself and others. It will cleanse your mental field of misperceptions, and stagnant energy. It will cleanse your physical field of stress toxins being dumped into your system as you ruminate on old hurts. Remember the saying, “To hold a grudge is to drink a little poison each day and expect the other person to die.” You suffer most when you nurse old wounds. When you do forgive, add one more step. Look for the lesson and any good that came out of the experience. This will transform what was once constrictive and health-damaging into an experience that will expand your awareness and your light. Action step: Before you even turn this page, write down three ways you are going to spring clean and improve the energy flow in your home, body and mind. Then, as soon as you can, do it!  Click here for more about cleansing your mind, body, and spirit. (Source for EEG information: Learning Strategies)]]>