What does it mean to Live Simple?
Does it mean you toss out your belongings and head to the woods to live deliberately?
No. (Though you could do worse!)
Does it mean that money is bad, and you can get self-righteous about wealth?
Nope. (This is often just a convenient way to ignore your own money issues.)
To Live Simple is to be empowered and present. It means you honor the massive power of yourattention by making clear choices and creating a life you love – free from clutter of all kinds.
Here’s how to start living simple right now…
Eat Simple
Instead of complicated recipes, get local organic produce at tailgate markets. A tray of sliced raw vegetables dipped in hummus or vinaigrette is a great dinner. Or lightly steamed greens with rice. These are easy to prepare and easy to digest. The fewer foods you combine in a single meal, the easier it is for your body to use the energy.
Shop Simple
My favorite thing to carry with me when I shop is this mantra: “If it’s not an Absolute Yes, it’s a No.”
Heal Simple
The Western approach to health is often about adding stuff to fix symptoms of imbalance. This typically involves more pills – which cause more side effects.
Here’s a better way: Allow the body to heal itself. This means removing the excess – excess toxins, fats, sugar, meds. Healing – while sometimes challenging – can be a simple, lovingprocess when we let our body express its inner wisdom.
Carry Simple
Do you hoist around a giant purse crammed full of stuff?
Bring only the basics. Say, lipstick and a credit card. It’s a great feeling to ditch the purse!
Or, try this: Take all of your membership numbers (AAA, Priority Club, etc), type them onto a small piece of paper, and laminate it. You’ll cut your wallet size in half!
Store Simple
Just because you have storage space doesn’t mean you have to fill it. See your storage areas as a metaphor for your life and your body. Clear out the old stuff that you don’t use. Stop clutching to the, “Oh! But I might need that one day!” excuse. Trust the Universe to provide what you need when you need it.
Feel Simple
Honor your emotions, and learn how to talk about them simply. Emotions aren’t as complicated as we make them. It’s the stories we attach to them that make them feel so complicated.
Nurture Simple
In my Uplevel Your Life Mastery Program, participants often discover that they don’t really love sugar, junk food, or hours of television. They only use these things as substitutes for what theyreally want. (Which is often a nap!)
Junk food and television are often fake comforts. Authentic nurturing is usually laughter, sleep, or a great meal.
Grab Simple
Do you grab that free tube of “acne cleansing lavender toner” the mall employee is handing out even though you haven’t had a pimple in years? In other words, if it’s “free,” do you automatically grab?
Start looking at your space and your energy as more valuable than the dollar. Our culture has it all wrong when it sees money at the top of the value chain. Free stuff isn’t free. Take your power back, and place a high value on your time and space!
Drink Simple
Get a Sigg Bottle and make filtered water your drink of choice.
Join Simple
Remove yourself from membership programs, catalog subscription lists, churches, clubs and/or associations about which you don’t feel passionate.
Intend Simple
When we have too many goals and intentions occupying our minds and spirits then we never get to feel the power of completion. We’re always “catching up.” Honor your deepest intentions right now, and let the hundreds of other possibilities go.
Speak Simple
Listen more. Talk less. Give up the complaining habit. Cease all gossip. Take a moment tobreathe before you answer a question. Recognize that listening doesn’t mean waiting for your turn to talk.
Love Simple
Here’s how I love someone best:
I am really with them when we’re together. I watch their facial expressions and truly listen to them without trying to fix or critique their choices. I delight in them.
For me, this is love at its most simple. It has nothing to do with greeting cards, gifts, or “proving my love.” Loving simple is the easiest of all of these things. That’s why I saved it for last.
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Performer, songwriter, and creativity consultant Christine Kane publishes her ‘LiveCreative’ weekly ezine with more than 4,000 subscribers. If you want to be the artist of your life and create authentic and lasting success, you can sign up for a FRE*E subscription to LiveCreative atwww.christinekane.com.
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