8 Steps To Mental Housekeeping For A Happy Home

Mental housekeeping is the act of taking care of your mental home. Your mental home “houses” your mind, the seat of real authority that controls your total well-being. We often pay close attention to our physical home but little to the state of our mental home. Considering that our mental home holds the thoughts that can change our outer reality, this can be a real shame.

Mental housekeeping is needed because we have in our minds, many negative thoughts. Everytime we say “I can’t”, “I will try”, or “I don’t want”, we are engaged in negative thinking. When we think negatively, we are not going to get what we desire. This is also true, according to the Law of Attraction. Instead, we really should be focusing on what we want to bring about positive results.

Your mind, which controls a lot of things about your physical body, holds thoughts that are handed down from the generations before you. Additionally since the time that you were born, you have already received countless thoughts, impressions, ideas, prejudices and judgements. Yet, much of what you have received to make your mental home, is accepted without questioning or further thought. Hence, it can be said that you are really the result of past thinking.

To weed yourself of unhelpful thoughts, mental housekeeping is a necessary process. If you have been feeling miserable and not gotten the success that you have been hoping for, then you will need to look to the root cause: the state of your mind or mental home. About 90 percent of your mental home is directed by the thinking that lies in your subconscious mind. Not understanding this or accessing it for its powers can limit your true potentiality.

For a nice happy physical home, you also need to cleanse, rejuvenate and decorate it beautifully. Many people also apply Feng Shui into their homes. Feng shui is an ancient Chinese practice, which utilizes both the Laws of both heaven (astronomy) and earth (geography), to help improve a person’s life. It usually involves the practice of arranging objects (such as furniture) in the home or office and applying some techniques to bring in good health, wealth and improving personal relationships. I will be explaining more about how these can be applied to your mental home, as you really should not be treating it any differently from a physical one.

Since “8” or “fa” means to be prosperous in Chinese, I’ve written down 8 steps of what you can do specifically for mental housekeeping and to build a happy internal home that will attract luck and abundance:

1. Clear The Clutter. A home that has lots of clutter, such as toxic thoughts like fear, worry and anxiety, will be built on shaky ground and cannot thrive well. Far from what you would normally believe, it is possible to “sweep” them away to make way for new and more empowering thoughts.

Understandably while you may have understood the ills of having negative thoughts, you may find yourself clinging on to the habits of your past. You have been conditioned to think negatively and so out of habit, you may catch yourself voicing out your negative thoughts often. To clear these negative clutter, use the words “cancel, cancel, cancel” as soon as you have uttered a negative word or phrase. Thereafter, reaffirm what you desire in a positive manner. EFT is another method that can help clear unwanted thoughts and emotions that are not helpful to your well being.

2. Water For Cleansing. After clearing the clutter, it will be a good idea to do some form of cleansing, just like how you would mop the floor after sweeping. Cleansing is a purifying process.

Here is something that was taught by The Silva Method: as you drink a glass of water, say this to yourself “this is all I need to cleanse my thoughts”, or “everytime I drink water, I cleanse my thoughts”. Affirm these statements on a regular basis.

You can also cleanse your mind by spiritually connecting yourself to your faith. When you do this, you are infusing yourself with the healing energies of love, kindness and compassion. You are cleansing away toxic thoughts that do not serve humanity. A Spiritual connection can put you on a higher vibrational energy frequency.

3. Keep Out Unwelcome Guests. Just as you would not allow unwelcome guests in your physical home, you should do the same for your mental one. When you allow unwelcome guests in mentally, you are risking the possibility of getting contaminated by them. You fail to turn the key to lock your door, to prevent the free flow of these unwanted guests.

These unwanted thoughts come in the form of harmful thoughts from your environment. They may be from the jealous emotions by a friend, excessive worry by a well meaning parent, or snide remarks from your boss or colleague. All of them can have a negative impact on you.

Because you do not exercise control over who or what comes in, these thoughts can eventually to wear you down. When this happens, they are no longer “guests”. They begin to form your belief system when you take them to be “permanent truths”. With little control over them, they now take charge of your life.

A desired action, from now on, is to guard your mental home fearlessly and faithfully. Only invite the ones that are helpful in and keep out those that have the potential of contributing to a toxic home. Have the courage to kick out those who have managed to enter but who are creating a nuisance.

4. Strengthen With Positive Thinking. After clearing out the negative thoughts, it is important that you next strengthen it with positive and empowering ones. Positive statements include “I can”, “It is easy”, “I will”. The benefits of positive thinking are many. You are likely to be more motivated, feel happier and attract greater success.

Use affirmations to lay the foundations in the building of your mental home. Be aware about some of the pitfalls where affirmations fail to work. You need to build your home with the strongest material; so spend time in daily practice to make your affirmations.

5. Breathe in Fresh Air. Good Feng shui practices advocate having a home with a free and energized flow of Qi (“energy”). Hence, just like you prefer to have a home with good circulation, you would want your mind to be the same.

Go to the park, as often as you can. Amidst the lush greenery and gentle breezes, breathe in the crisp fresh air. Breathe in deeply, to clear your thoughts and rejuvenate your mind.

6. Furnish It With Love. A sad and miserable mental home is one that is filled with darkness, shame and guilt. The Qi is negative, dense and heavy. On the other hand, a happy mental home is one that is filled with love and joy. The Qi here is positive, energized and light (as in bright).

In feng shui terms, you need to remove the stagnant Qi and improve the free flow of good Qi. Gravitate towards thoughts of love by loving yourself and also cultivating the feeling of gratitude for what you have. Practice giving in loving ways to others with Random Acts of Kindness.

7. Nourish With Knowledge. How else would you like your mental home to be? If you have been playing computer games, watching violent TV shows or reading celebrity magazines filled with gossip talk, guess what? You would not have done a very good job of nourishing it, aside from proper food.

As I’m writing this post, I look around me to see what my physical home is like. It is filled with stuff – books, toys, files, photos, files, paper, aeroplane models (belonging to my husband), books, magazines, paper, toys, and books. From the inventory list, I narrowed our possessions down to mainly books and toys, outside of the paper and files (much of which belongs to my husband’s home office). I’ve got books in every room, save for the bathroom. Even my kitchen is stocked with cooking books.

We can’t get enough of books. We borrow and buy them every month. Which explains the clutter. But it is easy to tell that we have a strong desire to enrich our minds in the area of self improvement and spirituality, since most of the books we have are on these topics. We can’t help having the stacks of books lying around either. We are living in a rented apartment with hardly any cabinets for storage. However, we know for a fact that we will be designing a huge library to accomodate an extensive collection of books in our new home one day. And so it is and shall be – a mental home enriched with proper knowledge and right education.

It is the mark of an educated mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision which the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness where only an approximation is possible.
Aristotle quotes (Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scientist and Physician, 384 BC-322 BC)

 

8. Fill It With Beauty. You would not hang pictures of violence, glum or horror in your physical home; so why do the same for your mental one? To stay positive and happy, it is important to protect the mind from too much negative imagery. If you spend a great deal of time beautifying your home, then you should spend as much time doing up your internal one as well.

In a rush and hurried life, it is easy to forget the need to set aside time to see beauty. Yet, if you become more conscious about this need, beauty can be found everywhere: the rainbow after the storm, the morning dew drops, the smile of a happy child or the little yellow flower that grows on the sidewalk. When you see beauty, you are filled with thoughts of joy, love, happiness and awe.

All you need to do is to have the intent to see beauty. When you wake up in the mornings, make this intent by simply saying it to the Universe or God. It is important to plant the seeds that will help your mental home grow a beautiful garden.

Take Charge of Your Mental Home.

It is true that we tend to neglect the state of our mental home. We know that we have not taken good care of it by the misery, frustration and worry that we feel. Our negative thoughts hamper us in the success that we really should be deserving. Our emotions rise and fall like tidal waves, because they are externally rather than internally-dictated.

We allow our mental home to be the breeding ground of toxic thoughts when we do not take charge. As poor gatekeepers, we let our neighbours, enemies or friends plant their negative thoughts on our turf and we eventually adopt them as our “truths”.

Well, it is time to take charge.

“Whatever you hold in your mind will tend to occur in your life. If you continue to believe as you have always believed, you will continue to act as you have always acted. If you continue to act as you have always acted, you will continue to get what you have always gotten. If you want different results in your life or your work, all you have to do is change your mind.”

 

Turn the key in your lock to prevent any more harmful and toxic thoughts from entering. Spend your time clearing, cleansing, and strengthening your home with useful and positive thoughts. When you rejuvenate the Qi in your mental home, you are also bringing its vibrational energy up. You have a happy home. This puts your Self in the best state to attracting abundance.

Download Your Free eBook on 3 Mindset Strategies to Turn Self-Doubt into Confidence When You Subscribe