SPRING FORWARD

by Mimi Riser

'Tis that glorious season again (the one that's both a noun and a verb), when Mama Earth rubs sleepy winter out of her eyes, yawns, stretches, and begins setting her stage for the rich, full-bloom spectacle of summer.

It is spring-into-action Springtime. THE universally acknowledged season of renewal, regeneration, and rebirth!

Not too many generations ago, it was also the season to sweep, scrub, dust, and shake out one's entire house from top to bottom. Few of us today have the time to engage in a good old-fashioned spring-cleaning, but we can, perhaps, spare a moment to do something that, in the long run, will be even more purifying.

I suggest that we all take just a little time this season to clean out our attics. The mental attic, that is. The back of the mind, the repository of all our memories, hopes, dreams, doubts, fears, grudges, guilts... that motley collection of emotional baggage we all accumulate and drag around with ourselves from year to year. We don't really need all that junk, do we? Let's lighten the load, clear out some space within ourselves for fresh new ideas and growth.

It's easier than you think. Just close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and visualize yourself hauling all those tattered old feelings straight out to the dumpster.

Well, maybe not all of them. The hopes and dreams we should probably hang onto, no matter how old they are. Hopes and dreams (even the dusty, faded ones) are always useful. They store nicely, rarely go out of style, and are so cozy to curl up in on cold, stormy nights. We can never have too many hopes or dreams.

Doubts and fears, on the other hand, are worse that ill-fitting underwear. They bind, they chafe, they keep us from moving about freely. And they will ruin our lives if we let them.

Granted, they sometimes seem all but impossible to discard. This is because negative emotions (for some ridiculous reason) have a way of convincing us that they're somehow an integral part of our special core of being. We hang onto the little monsters because they've conned us into thinking that ditching them would be like ditching our own heart, that without them we would no longer be our own, unique self.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Our true self resides in the positive part of our awareness. Our true self IS our hopes and dreams, our courage, our ideals... and, most of all, our loves. That's the stuff that makes us who we are, that nurtures us and keeps us movin' and groovin' from one day to the next.

The doubts, insecurities, worries, hates, guilts, and all those other bugaboo feelings and fears are only nasty little sycophants, weighing us down and preventing us from reaching our full potential. We need them about as much as we need a raging case of scabies. They are leeches on the soul and will suck us dry unless we make a conscious effort to dislodge them.

So this Spring, let's do it! Let's take the old concept of spring-cleaning and apply it to ourselves. Let's sweep out our brains, reorganize our priorities, and disinfect our spirits. Afterall, what have we got to loose by trying? Anxiety? Pain? Sorrow? Stagnation?...

Gosh, I sure hope so!

Peace, Love, & Soap bubbles,

Mimi :-)

(This essay originally appeared in COYOTE.)

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