Spring Cleaning
By Susan McNeal Velasquez
Attics and basements were a staple of most houses on the East Coast, where I was brought up. The attic was often stifling hot, cramped and suffocating. You would ascend a steep, narrow stairway, a storage box held precariously in hand, and deposit it in the nearest empty space, relieved to get down the stairs as quickly as possible and back to fresh air.
Since attics tend to be places where we store things we have no immediate use for and want out of sight and out of mind, we need to move our stored memories to a better location.
Imagine that your past occupies a place in the attic of your mind. As the years fly by, memories of past challenges, defeats, upsets, and delights brought to you through family and work experiences, friendships, loves, and losses are packed away in boxes, taped shut, and placed into the storage space in the far reaches of your mind.
Whether your daily life routines have stayed fairly constant or you have moved many times into brand-new situations, the memories have come along as a consistent frame of reference and a testimony to your past triumphs and tribulations.
I invite you to shift your perceptions so that your past can be opened up, dusted off and activated as a valuable inheritance of experiential wisdom. Your memories, approached correctly, can help fund the creation of a vibrant future grown from the fertile seeds of your unique past experiences.
As a first step, I want you to use your imagination to conjure up in your mind’s eye a temple, a sacred space and put it in a pleasing location. It may take the form of a church or a temple that you have visited in real life, or a place that you have seen in a photograph or movie. Once the temple is formed, stand outside of the entranceway. Do not enter inside just yet.
Your stored memories will be transported to this new location without you needing to do anything at all. They will arrange themselves inside your temple, in whatever way will be most beneficial to you.
From this moment on, your memories, whether you have held them as mistakes, heart hurts, achievements, validations, or disappointments, will now be housed in this sacred space.
This means that whenever you visit your temple of memory, you will practice the art of Spiritual Non-Interference. You will treat yourself with great tenderness, kindness, and compassion and finally let certain aspects of your life alone so that healing can take place.
Many of us can be compassionate with others but are far too harsh with ourselves. Moving your memories to this sacred temple will allow a new kind of light to permeate your soul.
Your past is not gone. It has been boxed, labeled, hidden, discarded, and abandoned in your memory. Relocating your memories to this sacred temple will allow the wounded places in you to experience incredible healing. Begin to soften and open to newfound levels of warmth in your soul.
Stand in front of the entrance into your sacred temple, step through the doorway and position yourself in the center of the room. Take in all that surrounds you.
Know that at this very moment, you are surrounded by the multiplicity of all the directions you have traveled. The circle of your life is being brought together right at this moment.
You are standing in the presence of timelessness. From this sacred point of view, your past, present and future are here and now.
This present moment is pregnant with your freedom to choose. Choose to own your freedom to embrace all that is beautiful about your life.
Susan is the author of Beyond Intellect: Journey into the Wisdom of Your Intuitive Mind. Reach her at: susanvelaquez.com.
