This text is part of my ongoing reflection on self-awareness, emotional patterns, and conscious growth.
For the longest time my glass was half empty. I felt like I was doomed from childhood and it would never get better. For some reason I figured that it was all my fate. I guess it came from an unsafe haven during my childhood years. We were fairly poor and love was inconsistent in our household and this situation made me journey into my mind.
I spent the first thirty years of my life listening to every voice and every thought entering my mind and most of it was plain ugly, even about the people I loved. So much poison was running through my mind on a daily basis. It caused depressions here and there, but people never really noticed. I was nicknamed “the sunshine of the house” due to this mask I was wearing, pretending to be cheerful all the time, all the while listening to these dark voices in my mind. I must say, I was great at hiding this true state of my mind.
But it became darker and darker as the years went by, up unto a point where I could no longer dim the venom. At my lowest point I decided to call a doctor and, no surprises there, I was depressed.
It started a whole process involving medication and therapy, but the best part is that it immediately altered my way of thinking. Before this time, I didn’t know that there was something wrong with me, I didn’t know that there was something I could change in order for me to feel and think differently.
When this veil was lifted I was offered so many new insights. Before, I felt like I was fighting against thin air. But now, I could understand my personality within a broader framework. There were symptoms and I could adapt myself one step at a time to become more aligned with life. It felt so liberating and empowering and for the first time in my life I felt like there was an option to be in control of my mindset.
It was plain obvious, I was a mess. My life was a mess.
And it was in dire need of a makeover.
It was during these early days that I began to ponder new possibilities and it was also during these days that my best friend gifted me with a book by Marie Kondo. It turns out my best friend knew exactly what I needed and she waited for the right moment to hand me this gift of clarity.
I started reading the book and became aware that I had never understood the concept of tidying and cleaning. I was a mover of stuff. Whenever my mother would tell me to clean my room I just started pushing things into closets, closing them and that was that.
There was no system, no logic, no healthy habit.
In the Netherlands we have a saying: “Opgeruimd huis, opgeruimd hoofd”, and the meaning of this saying is “When you clean your house, you clean your mind”. It was slowly beginning to make sense to me.
That first weekend I immediately implemented Marie Kondo’s way of cleaning and I threw away everything that didn’t fit Marie Kondo’s narrative. If it didn’t feel good in my hands I tossed it. If it bothered me to look at it, I tossed it. If I was keeping it for reasons I could not give, I tossed it.
It was a hard reset for me, a deep lesson that I needed to learn to declutter my life before I could start decluttering my mind. You see, your outside world is a reflection of your inner world and my inner state was rocky to say the least.
In order for me to accept this new lifestyle I started timing my chores as an argument for my internal battles. Cleaning the stovetop: 2 minutes. Vacuum cleaning the apartment: 15 minutes. It was nothing compared to all the hours in the day. And the results were everything.
What does this mean for you? Well, it means that when you find yourself at a point in your life where it is too much of a burden to change your mind, maybe it will seem easier to start with changing your ruining habits.
I didn’t know how to change my mindset at first, but I started changing one bad habit at a time.
I read in Marie Kondo’s book that it doesn’t take more than 30 repetitions of doing things in a certain way in order for you to create a new habit. That sounded fairly easy to me, something I could actually do. Something I could continue and feel better about. So I started with opening my bedroom curtains every day for thirty days straight. Then I went on to making my bed every day for thirty days. And so on and so forth.
You might think these changes are small and insignificant, but I am writing this because they were the stepping stones for all the changes I made afterwards. Opening my bedroom curtains every morning led to selflove, self-acceptance and ultimately to a higher state of consciousness.
For me, this wasn’t about becoming disciplined or perfect. It was about creating an environment that no longer worked against me. By changing what surrounded me, I slowly made room to change how I felt inside.
So no matter where you find yourself in life, live by this quote and start making the smallest changes towards the better. You don’t have to see the end goal, you only need to take one step. And another, and another, and another. And that’s how it’s done.
This text is an open reflection.
More guided, integrative essays are gathered in my paid essay series on Ko-fi.
“For what it’s worth… it’s never too late, or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit. Start whenever you want. You can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you’ve never felt before. I hope you meet people who have a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start over again.”
