Spring Cleaning for Your Mind

Originally Published by Polly Campbell on Psychology Today, April 22, 2022/Reviewed by Davia Sills

Key Points

• Identifying what’s behind your negative feelings can help reveal limiting beliefs.
• Research shows that our beliefs, thoughts, and expectations can change our perceptions and behavior.
• Reframing the beliefs that cause distress can help you reinterpret your world.

It snowed in the Oregon Valley three days after I cleaned my golf clubs.

Never can tell what will happen. Though it’s too wet to hit the links, it’s a good time for some spring cleaning.

I’m not ready to clean the cupboards. Too wet to wash the windows.

No, the clutter I need to get rid of first is all in my mind.

Years ago, I did a cleanse. Limited the types of foods I ate for 10 days to release the toxins from my body. And it’s routine to clean out the closets, ridding ourselves of worn clothes that no longer fit—college sweatshirt, I’m looking at you.

But how often do we really examine our thoughts and get rid of the mental clutter that keeps us stuck, the ideas that no longer serve us?

I’m doing that this spring. A little metal detox. Spring cleaning for the mind to encourage more creativity, confidence, and calm. Cleaning out the mental clutter and dropping the beliefs that get in our way also helps us get clear about where we are and what we can do next.

Building better beliefs to support healthy behaviors.

This is all a big deal. Why? Because every feeling, every behavior starts from a thought or a belief. Often we are not even conscious of them, but they shape our lives by igniting intense emotion that contributes to our decisions, behaviors, and the ways we think of ourselves.

We are prone (thank you, evolution) to a negative bias anyhow, more likely to see the bad, the threat, the problem, at least at first—in ourselves, in our circumstances. We can get stuck in that harmful pattern and begin behaving badly in response to those thoughts.

We read about the devastating war in Ukraine, and because long ago, we attached to the belief that we are small and powerless, we don’t believe we can help, so we don’t.

But that festers. We may wind up snapping at those we love, falling into depression, and behaving in ways that make everything worse. Of course, we are not powerless. Ever. And not in a war where the people are being aided through memes and e-commerce sales of merchandise.

Here’s how a negative thought pattern impacted me just a few months ago. I was three weeks post-surgery and still using a cane. That triggered a barrage of bad thoughts. After all, here I am, working hard to recover, spending hours in physical therapy, and I still can’t walk without a cane. I’m not improving. Not getting stronger.

And, naturally, those thoughts, which were not even true, left me feeling down and frustrated. Tired. I didn’t feel like exercising, so I didn’t. And—you can see where this is going—that slowed my recovery and led to greater pain, the very conditions I was worried about to begin with.

It’s time to clear up the mental clutter.

Here’s how you can do it too.

1. Evaluate how you are feeling. What’s working? What feels sad or frustrating or frightening? Take note of your emotions and how they play out.

2. Feel good. Give thanks for those good things. Not everything you believe is bad.

3. Take a look at the frustrations or more negative feelings. What beliefs are behind them? Often, we buy into thoughts that we adopted long before from a teacher or parent, and they aren’t even true. Follow the negative feelings to uncover those bad beliefs.

4. How do you respond to those thoughts? What happens when you think those things? Do they fill you up with good feelings and energy? Are they motivating? Do they push you toward self-acceptance and compassion or toward self-loathing, anger, frustration, and judgment? No wrong answer here. We all have pressure points that direct us in both negative and positive directions. Just good to know which way you are headed, so you can change the ones you want.

5. Reframe the thoughts that are bringing you down. Me sulking about how I wasn’t recovering fast enough did not, in fact, help me recover any faster. When I recognized the cane was an aid to help me build strength, not a permanent fixture (as it seemed last year), I began moving more, which actually helped me feel stronger and more optimistic (there’s that mind-body connection again) and that led to physical improvement.

This isn’t about glossing over the difficulty. It’s about noticing that other options and possibilities that also persist. Reframing my situation—looking at the same things in a new way—did not make it easier to use the cane. It did not make me more patient. But it did help me to also recognize the progress and appreciate the improvements I was seeing, and that increased my motivation and good feelings.

When we feel better, we do better.

Research has shown that our beliefs, thoughts, and expectations influence how we perceive the world and, therefore, how we behave in it. In this way, our thoughts can create tangible experiences. If you eat a slice of cake for lunch, and you believe that it ruined your diet, and you expect to gain weight, you are more likely to beat yourself up and throw the diet out the window for the day. That can lead to weight gain.

In other words, if you believe you are a weak person for eating a piece of cake, you are less likely to do the things that will support your overall nutrition and health.

But if you believe that one piece of cake was fun and delicious and won’t ruin your diet or health, you are more likely to choose healthier food at dinner, maybe even exercise, and you certainly will feel a whole lot less stressed.

We get to choose what we think, what we believe. So, this spring, let’s clean out the mental clutter that limits us, the ideas that keep us stuck or leave us feeling bad and reframe them into the beliefs that support our growth and joy, and possibility.

I feel groggy in the early mornings, but by 10 a.m. my mind is buzzing with creative energy, my body feels strong and ready for a workout. I feel like I’m just waking up around then and I’m raring to go. Up until around 2 p.m.-ish.

Understanding Our Chronotypes

Some would say I have an intermediate chronotype. A chronotype is a way of describing or labeling the circadian rhythms that affect our internal clocks and influence the body’s response to daylight and darkness. Natural light halts the body’s production of melatonin, helping us to awaken. Melatonin, which is released during darkness causes drowsiness, helping us to sleep.

Most of us are really a blend of chronotypes, but understanding our rhythms can help us identify our waking and sleeping patterns, but also the times we are most productive during the day.

And that might affect our happiness and well-being.

Research shows that rising early can boost mood, lead to greater life satisfaction, and minimize mental health problems. There is also a link between greater well-being in older people who get up early.

So how would you label your patterns? Are you an early bird? Someone who wakes up early, often without an alarm, ready to roll? Most productive in the a.m. hours? My husband is.

Or a night owl? A person like my teen daughter, who could sleep until noon and stay awake and busy into morning hours?

I’ve been all of those chronotypes at one time or another. As we become older, and our physiology, families, and responsibilities change, it’s common for our sleep habits to change too.

I feel my absolute best when I’m asleep by 11 p.m. and up by 7 a.m. I feel most focused and productive between 9 a.m. and noon, often doing my best writing during those hours. In the fall, when I need to drive my daughter to school, my schedule will shift to an earlier-morning alarm.

But, when our schedules change, can we tweak our chronotype and reap the same benefits as the early birds?

It might depend on how well you sleep and how you feel about what you are doing in your life, to begin with, say researchers. If you are rested and excited about what you’ve got going on, it’s easier to pop out of bed and sleep better at night.

I have not been getting restorative sleep, so it’s no surprise that I’m having a hard time dragging myself out of bed in the morning.

Guess the question then is how can we get a better sleep when we do finally go to bed?

Tips for Better Sleep

Experts suggest turning off your digital devices a few hours before bedtime. As I started shifting my schedule to get up earlier in the morning, I’ve begun going to sleep earlier too.

I also have a couple of practices that get me fired up for the day ahead, so that I have something to look forward to when I do wake up.

One is called Tomorrow Optimism. Before I close my eyes at night, I give some thought to one thing I’m looking forward to the following day. I spend time imagining it.

And, my morning ritual helps me get out of bed and get focused and excited for the day. That ritual includes quiet time enjoying a good, strong cup of coffee, and a short meditation. I write Morning Pages and then take a few minutes to read something that piques my curiosity or inspires me. This all takes less than an hour.

Sometimes I even go outside in those early morning hours or sit in a sunny window and soak up the natural light.

Will all of this help me change my chronotype by fall? Who knows? But I do know if I get quality sleep and do things during my times of peak productivity each day that feel meaningful and satisfying, I’m bound to feel better anyhow.

This article originally appeared in Psychology Today.

Kim Forrester, Host of the Eudaemonia  Podcast

Spoiler Alert. What does it feel like to live with vitality? It feels awesome.

And I’ll share some ways you can ease the fatigue and stress and ramp up your own energy. And let me say this, if I can do it? Anyone can.

There were tears. She took some time to vent to me. A few minutes to complain. Then I saw something interesting. She calmed herself. Made a joke. Expressed gratitude that she didn’t have bigger problems. Then made a plan to talk to her teacher and improve her skills.

This was a change from the kid I was watching deal with disappointment a year ago. That one was reluctant to take responsibility. The one who smoldered in anger. Blamed others.

We expect our kids to learn and grow. Hope for it. But, many of us will also grow through adversity, and even thrive after trauma. It’s happened in this last year repeatedly, as we’ve searched for ways to get our bearings, to ground ourselves when everything around us is changing by the day. Psychologists call it post-traumatic growth.

This kind of growth doesn’t mean we get through challenges unscathed. It’s been a scary and painful time, for everyone, in one way or another. We will be living with the effects of a pandemic for years. Trauma, defined as an emotional response to a terrible event like an accident, attack, natural disaster, or other life-altering happenings, is painful and can be debilitating.

Immediately, we have may experience disbelief, shock, even denial. As time moves on, people who have experienced trauma may have headaches and other physical symptoms, emotional ups and downs, flashbacks, and even relationship problems.

Trauma does leave its mark. But the marks may not be all bad. There can also be growth.

The Good in the Bad

In one study, researchers surveyed nearly 385 people who experienced financial adversity during the pandemic lockdowns, even while working full-time. These people are also the parents or primary caregivers to young children who were being homeschooled. And those surveyed had either been sick with COVID-19 or had a loved one with the disease. Despite all of this adversity, 88% of the people surveyed say they also experienced some positive outcomes.

Many who were surveyed said they now have stronger family relationships and a greater appreciation for life. Some said they experienced spiritual growth and 11% reported that they “embraced” or discovered new opportunities.

Hardship challenges us to adapt, respond, and find other ways to cope. When we do, we become not only capable of healing the trauma associated with it but also thriving again. We build resilience, confidence, and experience that will help us the next time we face adversity—because there will be the next time.

The traumas in our lives can be devastating. And, they can teach us what we are capable of. That is always so much bigger and more powerful than what we know when we are in the middle of the pain.

It emerges later when we stand up and examine what we’ve done. How we’ve survived. What we’ve experienced and been through. And when we recognize our growth, we can be deliberate going forward to preserve what we have learned.

This leaves room for new perspectives, humor, creativity. For authenticity and even calm. Because now we know that even when things are hard, we can get through it.

In the parking lot, one arm dangling out the window of my green Mazda, I called my parents on the flip phone.

“Great,” Dad said. “Here’s your mother.”

“Pretty exciting,” said Mom.

“You’d better hang on to that job of yours now. You’ve got a house payment to make.”

She knew I’d been unhappy in my public relations position and that I wanted to go out on my own and work as a full-time writer. What she didn’t know was that I had already resigned from my public relations position.

I had no savings. No other income. No clients. I’d done a lot of work to prepare. I knew some of what I was up against, but knowledge wouldn’t pay the bills. This isn’t an endorsement of that decision.

But I believed I would succeed and that optimistic outlook made the difference.

We all fall on the spectrum somewhere between optimism and pessimism, and surprisingly, research shows most of us tend to lean a little more toward the positive side of things. I do.

But that doesn’t mean I’m blissfully happy, or even cheery. Plenty of negative thoughts keep me awake at night. Those things motivate me too because, like most optimists, I believe my efforts can make a positive impact.

Optimism, you see, isn’t only about attitude, it’s also about our behavior. I can feel negative about my health and still go to the gym to exercise because as an optimist I believe my actions can improve things. If I work out, I’ll get healthier. Then, I’ll feel better. By choosing optimistic actions, I create better outcomes that lead to better feelings, resulting in the creation of more things to feel good about.

Optimists, according to researchers, tend to do the things they need to do to reach their goals because, notably, they believe it will make a positive difference. They believe their efforts matter, so they get off the couch and get moving. They engage with the world.

These kinds of action-oriented approaches may also help optimists live longer, according to research.

Optimists often eat healthier, stop smoking more frequently, exercise more often, and manage stress in a way that doesn’t decimate their nervous systems or immune function.

Optimism was the only edge I had when starting my writing business. Though my stomach ached with anxiety at times and I was filled with self-doubt, I kept at it. I worked long hours, studied, practiced, hustled. I took small jobs nobody wanted. I did the dreaded cold calls. I diversified, writing newspaper articles and brochure copy and corporate newsletter articles. I made a lot of mistakes. Big stupid ones. But I learned. Adapted. Kept going. Believing that my persistence would pay off.

But the myth that you must always be cheery and happy to be optimistic gives optimism a bad look, because who can do that? Hard things happen. I feel bad sometimes. Depressed even. Still, I can behave optimistically even when I’m feeling pessimistic.

I don’t worry if the glass is half full or half empty. I figure it’s refillable, and next time I’ll get a margarita.

To understand optimism is a behavior and an attitude is such a relief. It means that even on my bad days, I can still persist, create, contribute, and succeed.

This requires deliberate action, though. When I fall into a rut and don’t feel like anything I do matters because the world is going to end anyhow, I remind myself of the power of optimism. Here’s how.

• Practice gratitude. This is the easiest way for me to move the optimism dial up a notch. Give thanks. For your breath, for the cat sitting on the page you are trying to read, for your shoes. It doesn’t matter. Pause. Become aware. Then list it, say it, or sing it, whatever works, just leave time each day to take in what is good.
• Adopt a growth mindset. When we can see setbacks or failures as learning opportunities rather than a reflection of our own character flaws and limitations, we feel better, sure. But it’s also motivating because we are more excited to try again, knowing that we can learn what we need to know to improve. When something isn’t working, just say, “I just haven’t figured it out… yet.”Whenever I have a proposal rejected, I do this, reminding myself, “It just isn’t ready yet.” Then I get busy making it better to send out again.
• Take a minute for some “best-selfies.” Put down the phone, drop the camera, pick up your notepad, and turn on your imagination. I read about this practice in a study published in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry and have been doing it ever since. Start fantasizing about your best self. What will you and your best life look like five or ten years from now? Get specific, but stay focused on a positive future, rather than the challenges you’ve faced in the past. Take a minute to think about how healthy and energetic you are (five years out), how your book has become a bestseller and your husband is adorable and you’ve got checks worth $3,250 filling your mailbox each day and your hair is styling and your team is winning. Whatever it is, create the best possible life in your imagination and feel your optimism increase.

It’s been nearly 29 years now. And the writing gig? It’s worked out. I’ve written some books. Thousands of articles. Now, a podcast. Never missed a house payment—sold that little home years ago for something a tad bigger.

There have been setbacks, for sure. Disappointments, yep. Worries, at times. But I always believed I could find my way through. I still do today. Maybe that’s why I have.