Spring Clean Your Mind (14 min. read)

It’s that time of year—April showers have officially transitioned to bring us May flowers—Spring. 

I have always loved Spring and Fall. 

Temperatures and sunshine aren’t extreme; life is either blooming and budding or preparing for a period of hibernation and rest before the next period of growth. 

These seasons are transformative—Spring in particular.

Spring feels like a fresh start and smells like new beginnings, uplifting my mind and body to tackle new challenges. The new life and birds chirping make me reflect on what I want the next three seasons to bring before the lull and desire to crawl into my dark hermit hole arrives in November. 

Without fail, every year, the urge to “spring clean” is one item that always pops up. 

I’m talking about more than dusting the blinds, wiping the baseboards, and power-washing the house; I’m talking about going through the closet and tossing out what no longer fits, reorganizing bookshelves, or braving the task of going through the junk drawer. 

Growing up, my mom called it purging.

The autism and giftedness in me love the concept of spring cleaning. A clean, immaculate environment instantly soothes my senses and appeases my giftedness’s kinesthetic aesthetics; I can feel my house, and myself, take a large detoxifying exhale when I purge. 

My ADHD, on the other hand, is running in the opposite direction, screaming violently about how, no, the unpacked boxes that have been shoved out of sight and out of mind since moving to our house two and a half years ago in the upstairs closets are not a problem, and the disarray of the bookshelves is just fine, thank you very much. 

This dichotomy, as is the push and pull nature of being both autistic and ADHD, was exhausting. I desperately wanted to purge the house, pulling ooo’s and ahh’s from my husband in reward; however, my executive function held me captive, frozen in the amber of task initiation from my dysregulated, undiagnosed ADHD that I berated myself over. 

The result? There was a lot of mess and shame within my mind, like my two golden doodles bolting into the house caked with mud after a random downpour, only making the cluttered, spring-cleaning needed space of a neurocomplex mind more overwhelming. 

Negative thoughts about yourself are a vicious cycle—you think poorly about yourself, which makes you feel poorly about yourself… which then leads to the itty bitty shitty committee inside our heads only further bludgeoning us with thoughts that make us feel worse, piling up emotional dirty dishes in the sink and pulling self-esteem issues out of drawers. 

So, this year, I am cleaning my mind rather than spring cleaning my house. 

This begs the question: How do we Marie Kondo our minds to take more actions that bring us joy? Where do we start?

I will walk us through a model that we can use for every circumstance in my life. 

However, we must first define feelings, emotions, thoughts, and facts.

Liv’s Definitions

You will find something different if you look up the descriptions for each word in the dictionary. In my lifelong infatuation with psychology, the brain, and the human condition, Merriam-Webster definitions and society have drastically muddled the meanings of all these words. These interchangeable definitions—particularly feelings versus emotions—didn’t serve my black-and-white brain in both application and communicating my issues. To me, it’s essential to discern the unique factors of each of these as a neurodivergent who, up until recently, has dissociated and intellectualized their feelings and emotions as most neurodivergents do to cope with their intensity. 

Feelings: Feelings contains the precise word that defines this word—feel. Feelings are physical, somatic sensations within the body, like your chest tightening and your stomach feeling queasy when you feel anxious, or your face getting warm and your shoulders getting tense when you get angry. 

Emotions: Emotions are a neurophysiological reaction. Your brain processes something in your environment (person, behavior, object, event, etc.) and determines the corresponding mental state in response to that through neurotransmitters (brain chemicals). The chemicals release signals to the body via the nervous system about what visceral feeling to experience. 

Thoughts: Thoughts are ideas or opinions produced by thinking, either randomly or intentionally, and experienced consciously or unconsciously. Thoughts are created in the mind through a complex interplay of internal and external factors, including, but not limited to, personality traits, past experiences, beliefs, genetics, current mood, the surrounding environment, and the people we interact with.  

Facts: Facts are statements or information proven through objective evidence and observation. Facts are based on tangible evidence that others can verify and validate. Feelings, emotions, and thoughts, by definition, are not facts.

The Model for Spring Cleaning

Alright. Now that we’re all on the same page about how I will use these key terms, let’s see how they all connect and how they are the building blocks of every action we take. 

Here is the model we are going to break down:

Circumstance ➡️Thoughts ➡️ Emotions ➡️ Feelings ➡️ Action & Outcomes

Now, I am standing with a bottle of Pledge and a roll of paper towels, ready to dive into simple, low-stakes spring cleaning of my mind through a low-stakes habit I want to reshape.

Example: 

I enjoy midday yoga flows when I work from home. Within the app I use, I can select the yoga class I am going to take and “schedule” the class so within my app when I make it to my space to begin my practice, rather than try and filter through and find the class I selected again, I go to my schedule and click play. For years (predating my sobriety and AuDHD diagnoses!) I would schedule my time, and 95% of the time, I wouldn’t make it to my yoga mat until at least 15 to 20 minutes after my scheduled time. Why? As I began sauntering my way upstairs to my yoga mat, I’d do things like stop in the kitchen to grab my water bottle, which then led to me doing the dishes, or I’d change into my yoga clothes in the bedroom and realize the bedroom was messy with laundry to do and I’d detour to do that. (Side note: This happens all the time to me for so many things, and I have always put it in the distractibility ADHD bucket.)

I know you’re probably thinking—what’s the big deal? Let’s break it down, and you can see how this small example can have far larger ramifications for my life. 

Circumstance: 

When I am on my way to do yoga, I see something else that “needs to get done”, particularly something that will make the house cleaner, and attend to it, which makes me run behind schedule.

Thoughts: 

Here’s the really wild thing: Before I took a step back and evaluated this whole example through this model, I wasn’t even having conscious, intentional thoughts—just a passive one: This dishwasher has to get switched over, NOW.

However, when I am removed from the situation and dissect this thought like scrubbing a toothbrush on a tiled bathroom floor, I find this with my thoughts. (Note: This is my Neurolinguistics Program coaching methodology, which I am certified in. I use it internally on my unconscious thought process to reach this conclusion; when I coach myself, I’m a bit more sarcastic than I would be with a client.) 

Dirty Thought Pattern (“DTP”): This dishwasher has to get switched over now. 

Internal Coach (“IC”): Has to?

DTP: Well, yes. A clean house is important to me.

IC: What about a clean house is important to you?

DTP: A clean house soothes my sensory overwhelm. 

IC: That’s nice. However, that doesn’t explain why it has to get done now. So what else makes a clean house important?

DTP: My husband also likes a clean house, and I want to make him happy. Good, lovable wives make their husbands happy. 

IC: Hm. Interesting. There’s a lot to unpack there, so I will choose one of two issues to unfold here. So, to be a good, lovable wife, you have to have a clean house? 

DTP: Uh. I’m not sure I like where this is going. 

IC: And you have to have a clean house, right now, and you have to do it to be a lovable, good wife, even though you committed yourself to doing something that serves your wellness first? 

DTP: Um. It would appear so.

Typing that makes me shiver because I’ve barely scratched the surface of what there is to coach through and purge there within a seemingly harmless habit of mine. Talk about a convoluted thought pattern that needs to be Oxi-Cleaned! 

But let’s focus on what stains I did pull out of my mind: equating a clean house with the worthiness of love from my husband, and the fact that I can forgo something that serves my wellness, even though I can do it later. 

Emotions:

Once I have these thoughts, my brain creates and communicates the corresponding chemicals to my body via my nervous system. And, look. There isn’t a specific name for the neurotransmitter that says, “hey, you want to be loved so you have to do this!” combined with “I’m resentful because I have something else on my agenda, but I have to do this right now despite my commitment to myself!” However, I can imagine the unique chemical compound sent throughout my body overrides whatever previous chemical was moving and driving my body forward towards my yoga mat (spoiler alert: it does).

Feelings:

I feel the energy and urgency in my arms as I move forward to grab the dishes or the laundry. I also feel some tightness in my chest.

Action and Outcome:

The result? I end up doing the dishes or starting the laundry; I am late to my yoga mat with visceral sensations that don’t match my conscious mind and remain trapped in my body. 

Additionally, I am communicating to myself that my needs and desire to do a yoga flow, which serves me mentally, physically, physiologically, and spiritually, are less of a priority than having a clean house. 

Or, simply put, I have ingrained in my unconscious mind and nervous system that my inherent needs and desires will take a back seat to anything external and that my self-worth and lovability are equated to my output and doing.

Oof. Just… oof. 

Here is where I want to point out the critical aspect of how I define thoughts—they can be random or intentional, unconscious or conscious. And 90% of our processing and decision-making (aka what drives our day-to-day actions) is unconscious! 

So, what happens when I am more intentional and conscious of my errant, unconscious thoughts? What would happen if I squeezed Dawn on the grease and grime of my thoughts and broke down this internal chain reaction into something cleaner? What if I could reform my thought paths so that moving forward, my unconscious thoughts lead to feelings that better serve me? 

Let’s run back through this example, where I am far more conscious, intentional, and curious about how my thoughts ultimately unravel into actions. 

Circumstance: 

It’s three minutes until my scheduled yoga flow, and I’m in the kitchen getting water. I see dirty dishes in the sink because the dishwasher needs to be unloaded. I begin to reach for dishes and maybe even get a few unloaded. 

Thought:

As established above, a series of unconscious thoughts drove me to this action. However, I can kick my brain back into intentional thinking and ask myself: What is my priority at this moment: taking care of myself or a clean kitchen? What am I subliminally telling myself when I choose one over the other? 

For me, a massive part of sobriety was recognizing the resentment I allowed to build from doing things I thought would make me lovable and those actions going unrecognized (on top of the resentment I felt from thinking I had to do them). In reality, I had to accept that while I can show care and love through action, being who I am inherently makes me lovable, not having an immaculate kitchen. 

And how do I ensure I am being the best version of myself? 

I have to take care of myself and do things that bring me joy; I have to fill up my cup first so others can enjoy the overflow. 

So, I must face the deep, buried thoughts telling me I must clean the kitchen to be a lovable, good wife. I need to converse with them compassionately and say: “I know this is how we learned to survive and feel safe. I’m so proud of you, and thank you for getting me to this point. Now we know better, and we know the priority is not a clean kitchen, rather it’s taking care of myself first. The kitchen can get cleaned later when I don’t have a commitment to myself scheduled.” 

Emotions:

With these different thoughts, a stew of “this is how we’ve done things before, just not how we do them anymore because your wellness and needs matter” floods my brain and nervous system. As I settle into this new routine, my brain will send happy, excited chemicals since I look forward to my time on my mat. 

Feelings:

The energy driving my hands forward to address the dishes has shifted to my legs, which now want to climb the stairs to where I keep my yoga mat. I feel warmth in my face and chest, while a relaxation and sense of ease wash over my chest.

Action and Outcomes:

I make it onto the yoga mat on time. Given I don’t have the gunky emotions from the first chain reaction clogging my heart center and nervous system, I can dive further into my yoga flow, reaping more mental, physical, physiological, and spiritual benefits from my practice, further filling my cup. Most importantly, I am repaving the highways in my brain and nervous system with a new message that my emotions delivered: my needs matter, and what deems me worthy of love is inherent to who I am, not what I do.

I know what you’re likely thinking—Liv, no one has the time to break down and explore the bajillion tiny tasks we passively and unconsciously do every day like you did!

However, when you take the time to do this for one small problem, you will start to see the same principle you learned everywhere in your life. The ten minutes it took me to coach myself through this small example have been life-changing because it gets to deeply-rooted patterns—equating my self-worth with output and prioritizing people-pleasing over self-care—and how those patterns permeate even the most minuscule habits. 

Because if I can’t even prioritize a yoga flow over dirty dishes, how can I do harder things, like set boundaries when someone oversteps or say no to a social event even if it disappoints someone, when what my body desperately needs is alone time and rest? So, if I reinforce these habits through small, everyday actions, I signal a change to my brain that makes drastic, long-term impacts on my self-care and wellness. 

What’s a seemingly small habit you’d like to break? What happens when you run into further thought? Is there more than meets the eye to purge from your mind? Let me know below, and see you for our next post, where we dive more into the model within this blog.

XOXO, Liv