Don’t miss this opportunity to hear a new perspective about illness, its causes and solutions! It could be a turning point in reclaiming your health!

America is rampant with disease and illness. More women than men are sick; we suffer from cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, metabolic syndrome. We are obese, depressed, anxious, lonely, and tired-really, really tired. What is behind all the disease? Why are we so sick? Bronwyn Lewis tells her own story of illness and recovery, linking illness to mind, body and spirit. She explores how emotions, responses to life situations and the environment affect our health.

Date: March 29, 2011

Time: 8:00-9:00 p.m. EST

Cost: $27

Registration: http://events.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=9lizjscab&oeidk=a07e3gy3prjcc95b505

Presenter: Bronwyn Lewis, MS, FNP, Board Certified Family Nurse Practitioner. She practices Preventive and Energy Medicine with a special emphasis on health and wellness.

Ms. Lewis earned her Bachelor of Science Degree in nursing from Virginia Commonwealth University/Medical College of Virginia in 1998, furthering her education at that august institution with a Master’s in Nursing with a special concentration in family practice in 2001.

In 2008, Ms. Lewis completed a fellowship in Anti-Aging and Regenerative & Functional Medicine from the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine in conjunction with the Institute of Functional Medicine. That same year she also obtained her certification in Quantum Touch/Healing, and in 2010 she became certified in Sign Language of the Soul. Energy healing/Medicine is an essential aspect of her work with clients and, as such, has become a staple of her practice.

“I believe firmly that you are what you think, eat, and believe.
“I believe that there is a Universal Oneness, that all things are related in some way.
“I believe there is a divine spark (light and love) within each of us which is permeated and nourished by spiritual energy and guidance.
“I believe that true healing changes your soul, and is about much more than getting rid of symptoms, medications or having surgery. Soul Healing is self love that begins the work of healing.
“Cherish, therefore, all aspects of yourself from your heart… not your mind.”

If you are part of a couple, you may have found that you and your beloved have very different needs for order and divergent organizing styles. Those differences can stress a relationship. I recommend that you first accept the differences rather than judge them. A person’s wiring determines need for order and organizing style, and is not easily changed.

Second, I recommend that you and your significant other decide which rooms are public areas and commit to working together to keep those areas neat and orderly. I consider the entrance area, kitchen, bath rooms, dining room, family room and living room public areas. I also recommend treating the bedroom as a public area since its condition affects both of you and the level of intimacy in your relationship. All other areas are private areas.

A public area is a space where it’s not OK to create clutter by dropping your things instead of putting them away. Come to an agreement about what will happen when public areas do get messy. I recommend that you first remind each other of your commitment to maintain public areas that are clutter free and ask that the items be moved. If that doesn’t work, give each other permission to move your things to a private area designated as yours to re-establish order in the public area.

Private areas are places where one individual can keep their belongings in any way they wish without comment or judgement from the other partner. It is ideal if you have whole rooms available as private spaces. But, if you don’t have that luxury, you can identify a closet, a corner of a room, even a section of a pantry as a private space. I once helped a client claim a desk and filing cabinet in a family room as her private space. Another woman claimed half a credenza. Having space that is yours that can be as neat or messy as you want helps you be more patient with your partner whose behavior is different than yours.

Organizing differences can be a source of conflict or not. If you work together to accept and honor your differences, rather than judge, criticize and react to the differences, you can have a peaceful, clutter-free home despite the differences.

“I keep my office at work organized, but my house. . . that’s another story!” I have heard that comment so many times. I wonder if what is happening for those people is that their work and keeping things organized at work takes so much of their available energy that they have none left over for maintaining a neat, clean and organized home.

I also wonder if they are choosing to invest the bulk of their energy at work because their financial survival depends on doing what it takes to keep their job. It’s as if they can afford to let the condition of their home slide, but they really can’t let things slide at work without experiencing consequences that they think they can’t afford.

Because I spend many hours per week helping people get organized in their homes, I’ve had the chance to observe the cost of a messy home. Here are some of the consequences of a messy home:

• More chronic health issues, particularly autoimmune diseases like fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, allergies, asthma.
• Difficulty making decisions because you are distracted by the noise of the negative energy of your clutter.
• Difficulty taking action to achieve goals. The negative energy of the mess affects your energy and your ability to think clearly to identify actions to take and how to take them.
• Tend to stay in situations (jobs, relationships) that aren’t working longer than necessary because your mess keeps you immobilized and distracted from the reality of your situation and your options for change.
• Waste money purchasing duplicates of items you own because you can’t find what you need when you need it.
• Feelings of shame, inadequacy and low self-esteem, a reflection of the negative energy of the mess back onto your sense of self.
• Feelings of irritability, hopelessness, overwhelm and apathy that can cause relationship difficulties and keep you stuck feeling anxious and depressed.
• Inability of have family and friends over for social events because you are embarrassed by the condition of your home or it would take too much effort to clean up and restore order.
• You might even deprive yourself of going out and participating in social activities because you think you should be home cleaning your house. However, you never seem to get it done.

Wow! That’s quite a list! A messy home affects every aspect of your life. It’s not a little deal. It’s a big deal! Letting home maintenance activities slide could cost you your health, your mental health, your marriage or primary relationship, your relationship with your children, your money, your sense of self worth, and your social life. If all of those things suffer, it’s quite possible that you will also have problems at work. Doesn’t it make sense that your first priority should be realigning your energy so you have some energy left to tend to those daily tasks necessary to maintain a neat and organized home?

I am an observer of behavior. I watch myself. I watch my clients. I watch family and friends and people I don’t even know. I learn a lot about getting and staying organized and not staying organized by observation. This week I watched myself make a mess on my desk while I was in the process of completing a task. Then I watched myself automatically restore order. I realized that my habit is to make a mess, clean it up, make a mess, clean it up.

Somewhere along the way I learned that if I just clean up my messes as I go along, I stay organized. I might clean up at the end of a particular task or at the end of a particular time segment spent doing things that make messes. And, I rarely leave messes behind. Why? I guess I learned that if I left them, there would be negative consequences. I’ll bet my mother gave me some consequences when I was growing up. She was very organized and both modeled regularly cleaning up and enforced it as a family norm.

Now I can do what I want and I choose to clean up regularly. Why? Because it takes just seconds or minutes to clean up most messes I make, whereas if I leave the mess it is likely to attract even more clutter. Then cleanup time and effort would be much greater–hours and even days. Besides, the bigger the mess the bigger the overwhelm factor, which would lead to procrastination to avoid the overwhelm. That’s how messes snowball into rooms full of unorganized stuff.

Also, I really value closure. Cleaning up is a way to close an activity and give me a feeling of accomplishment. Cleaning up also restores physical order which in turn helps create mental order. I feel grounded and ready for the next task when I leave a neat and organized office. Finally, when I return to my tidy office I am greeted with calm and positive energies. If I didn’t clean up I’d be greeted with chaotic, noisy energies whose message to me would be something fearful and abusive like this, “You’re too busy. What’s wrong with you that you can’t get everything done? Why are you so messy?” Who needs that? Especially if it only takes seconds or minutes of effort to avoid it!

Make the “Mess-Cleanup” approach to staying organized your new habit. It could change your life!

I recently visited by 82 year old father who is contemplating a move from frozen Michigan to somewhere closer to me and preferably a place where winter doesn’t last from November to April. In our conversation I found myself saying that I thought simplifying our home environments as we age makes good sense. If you look at it from an energy perspective, more things in your space means more work to keep them organized, in good working order, etc., more energetic conversations because the energy of everything talks, and more to move when you want to downsize because of financial necessity or because you just don’t need as much house to take care of.

Why doesn’t that happen in many cases?

1. Attention is devoted to other priorities than the condition of the home.
2. It’s easier to accumulate things than it is to clear them from a space. Things at rest tend to stay at rest unless there is a specific catalyst to move them.
3. People get accustomed to the feel of their home, even if it’s cluttered in many areas, and they resist change.
4. People think they don’t have the energy to undertake the chaos of the attic, garage, basement or any area that would benefit from clearing.
5. People really don’t have the physical energy to move items out of their homes.
6. People have so much stuff that they don’t know where to start and feel overwhelmed at the prospect of attempting a clearing project.
7. People are reluctant to ask for help with projects in their home because they are embarrassed by the condition of their home, they think they should be able to do it themselves, or they were raised not to ask for help.

Over the years I’ve watched my mother regularly get rid of things. Just the other day she was clearing out her desk when I spoke to her on the phone. What a great model she has been for me! She is a constant purger. She has a place in her garage that has been identified as the give away spot. As she identifies things that she and her husband no longer need or love, they get moved there. When a pile accumulates, it’s either taken to a local donation spot or I take it to GoodWill for her. When it comes time for her to move or when she dies, dealing with her home will not be the physical and emotional nightmare that it could have been if she hadn’t always been purging.

No matter the size of your home or the overwhelming mess in your space, almost everyone has the ability to identify items that can be thrown in the trash or donated. Instead of focusing on the big picture of all that must be cleared, focus on individual individual items that clearly no longer serve you. Start in the areas where you spend the most time. Create a new habit of regularly identifying items to be released and moving them out of your house. Make it a daily process instead of an overwhelming project that never gets done. If you make clearing a constant process, over time you’ll find your space lightening up. You’ll find yourself lightening up. Then making a move of any type will be that much more feasible.

Lighten up so you are free to go where ever you desire!