Sorting Out Your Thought Garbage

I noticed something the other day about how our household trash is separated. There are three bins, each with different pick up days for organic waste, recycling and garbage.

What I noticed was that when separated this way, there is so little actual garbage. In fact in our neighborhood, garbage only needs to be picked up once every three weeks whereas the recycling and organic waste is picked up more frequently.  It got me thinking. How much mental and emotional junk that we carry around with us could be sorted out like we do our day to day garbage?

Okay so this one’s gonna get a little messy.

As humans, we tend to rely on our inherent propensity to suffer. We’re so good at it that often we don’t even realize we are suffering until the load becomes too heavy to bear. And, by the time it does come to the surface and we try to get rid of it;  the very weight of the garbage we’ve collected prevents us from actually being able to get to the end of the driveway to dispose of it.

There’s no better time than right now to start separating your thought garbage. I’m not talking about getting rid of it, I’m talking about taking a good look at it and making a conscious decision about what you want to do with it.

Wouldn’t it be amazing to discover that when organized this way, you actually had way less garbage than you thought you did?

We don’t think twice about getting rid of things that are past their expiration date in the fridge. So why on earth do we hold onto so many old thoughts?

Like expiration dates on stuff in our fridge, we can take inventory of our mental fridge and remove any sour thoughts or rotten stories that don’t nourish us.

Good news is I have three thought bins for you so you can begin to sort your junk.

EXPIRED THOUGHTS aka GARBAGE.
These are literally old thoughts that you forgot you had. Thoughts that you’ve been holding onto way past their expiration date. These thoughts are potentially the most dangerous of all because, like food that’s gone bad, they can fester and make you very sick.

RECYCLED THOUGHTS
These are thoughts that you can reframe and repurpose for your new paradigm. These may include old ways of thinking that are no longer serving you or limiting you in the present. Once you’ve sorted through these, you can repurpose these thoughts. This is all about transforming current negative thoughts about past behaviors into lessons that you can use as tools to help move you forward in the present.

ORGANIC THOUGHTS
These are the thoughts that you notice are there and then let pass through without acting on them. This is where your response-ability lives, where you don’t take things personally and can’t be triggered into reacting defensively

We’ve become expert thought collectors -often without giving ourselves the time to consider the thought before we respond or just stuffing it down or pushing it way back on the shelf and forgetting about it. There’s no better time than right now to start separating your mental & emotional garbage and making room for fresh new thoughts that will nourish you today.

Listen to Audio Version here!

Published in Collaboration with:

Also by Lisa Hopkins:

Releasing Your Limited Beliefs

Learning to Shift Your Mindset

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