Marie Kondo & Elizabeth Gilbert

Yoga brings us all sorts of experiences. We step onto the mat and suddenly the rest of the world melts away; or not. Sometimes it can be hard to let go and drop into the present moment. What's to be done?

Recently, I stumbled upon a conversation between two people I respect for their work to make the world a better place in very unique ways: Elizabeth Gilbert (of Eat, Pray, Love fame) and Marie Kondo (who wrote The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up). The interview is featured on the KonMari website and mid-way through, Glibert says says something that was like a lightening bolt in my brain:

"So if you’re too afraid to look into the scary attic in your mind, look into the scary attic in your home. It will be a portal, a doorway, that will take you into the parts of yourself that you’ve been afraid to look at."

So I took at look at my apartment. Sure, I hadn't vacuumed in a few weeks and there were dishes in the sink. Evidently, I'm fine with a certain amount of mess and dirt. But when I looked deeper, I realized that there were also micro-messes everywhere: on my night stand there were pens and pencils all scattered among a teetering pile of books. And the kitchen counter was a bit cluttered with post-it notes. Plus, my coffee table was still a clearing house for old magazines.

The more I looked, the more I found and Gilbert's quote made more and more sense to me. There was a lot of junk and mess blocking the flow of energy. And the more I thought about this, the more I began to really connect the mess in my physical space to way my brain was functioning.

There is a direct connection between messy living and our mental health and productivity. Check out this great article in Psychology Today about how mess and stress go hand in hand.

"Messy homes and work spaces leave us feeling anxious, helpless, and overwhelmed. Yet, rarely is clutter recognized as a significant source of stress in our lives. Fortunately, unlike other more commonly recognized sources of stress, clutter is one of the easiest life stressors to fix."

The take away here for me is to pay attention to the times when my brain can't turn off during my yoga practice. To pause and consider if there's something in my physical surroundings that's a barrier to my ability to let go of thoughts or be as clear-thinking as I want to be. So take a look at your home or office and use some of the magic of tidying up to make your life feel a bit easier to navigate!