The Empty Inbox

      I had a trip planned for the holidays, and the week before leaving, I found myself sitting at my computer slogging through my endless list of emails, and started feeling very anxious about going. While I wanted to get away, I also had this dread of returning and finding over 1,000 messages in my email inbox! How stupid is that! I finally did something that I have wanted to do for a very long time: I emptied my email inbox. Completely.
       I have done a lot of de-cluttering this past year, but have felt stuck when it came to emails. Every time I opened that inbox, what I saw was old conversations. I would start rehashing them, and think about whether I wanted to do this or that, and then when I couldn’t decide, I’d just leave the emails there, to be looked at the next time. And of course, “next time” I would do the same thing, until the list was so long, that I couldn’t even find the things that were important.
       The feeling of freedom that I felt when that list went to zero was truly amazing. I felt such space in my life, if only for a few moments. While I knew that the inbox bothered me, I hadn’t even realized how much that impacted my day to day life.
       Our minds are just like our inboxes – always holding on to old conversations, and looking them over again and again. Yoga is one way of clearing the mental clutter – emptying your mind of all those cluttering thoughts. And the result – a feeling of freedom and bliss as you connect to the essence of your true Self that is beyond the frantic thoughts and to-do lists.
        As you move into the New Year, I invite you to look at the things in your life that are clogging you up and keeping you from manifesting your full potential. What can you clear out of your life? What will help free you up so that you can live each day in the moment instead of reliving old conversations?  If you take the time to do this, you may find that your entire life will transform in ways you didn’t think possible.