Ask and It Is Given – Karen Creamer Author, Coach, Speaker

Okay, I borrowed this alliteration from the book Ask and It Is Given by Jerry and Esther Hicks. Spring is in the offing. In the spring, when a young man’s thoughts are lightly turning…women’s thoughts are turning too: to thoughts of Spring Cleaning.

I was reading an article in the March issue of Whole Living magazine entitled “Cleaning House” by Susanna Sonnenberg about decluttering. She says that it helps to ask three questions when you are wondering about keeping something:

Do I love it?
Do I need it?
Does it bring me peace and energy or uneasy trouble? (Italics added by me)

I found this very motivating. Maybe you will too. I decided that it doesn’ t have to be a major deconstructive (read: overwhelming, make me want to quit before I start) effort to declutter. Here’s my plan: starting now, as I handle every object throughout the course of my day, I will ask myself those (above) questions, and if the answer isn’t “YES!” to any of them, out it will go.

This is my plan. Since I am a midlifer, I can only hope that I remember it (reference the book: I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron). 🙂

Now, my husband? He’s great at this. Me? Not so much. Hmmm…maybe that’s he has time for his thoughts to “lightly turn…” in the spring?? Ha!

I was rereading the book Ask and It Is Given by Jerry and Esther Hicks (which happened to be a book that I already owned) after my friend Stacey Brooks of Mainely You Massage recommended it. In it, the authors describe 22 processes that anyone can practice to improve their life.

One of them is a twist on a ‘to-do’ list. Here’s what you do: get a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. On one side at the top of the column write “My ‘to-do’ list” and put down the things that you want to get done today. No writing down a hundred things; just the things that you really will do that day.

On the other side of the paper, write “The Universe’s ‘to-do’ list” and put down all of those other things that you want to get done, but don’t know how to get them done (or just don’t feel like actually doing).

I had been looking for something I had misplaced for a week with no luck, so I figured, What the heck? I got dutifully got out my paper, made my two columns, and on the left (my) side, I wrote: write, read, work, have fun and feel good. On the right (Universe’s) side I wrote (among other things) : return my water cup in the black tote to me.

Then I forgot about it. An hour later, I had located my lost item! I didn’t even remember writing the list until several hours after that when I was gathering up my papers to get ready to leave work.

Maybe it was a coincidence?