Published on Spirit Seeker magazine, St. Louise, Missouri, August 2005
Spring Cleaning Without The Gloves…
Housekeeping, Head First!
by Behnam Bakhshandeh

Spring Cleaning! A light went on in my head! Of course, spring cleaning! In your head! In your head as well as your home, work place, or any physical space around you!

I am a business and personal coach with clients cleaning up their lives every day; and before that, a trainer and program leader of educational/transformational programs for a global corporation working with thousands every year who were committed to cleaning up their lives…and it always began with their heads!

So I am an expert on housecleaning in the head, and I’ve got some strange news to report: where the household in our heads is concerned, we let our house work on us instead of the other way around. Really! Like saying to the dust, “Clean me!” Crazy, but we do it…and then just keep wading through the junk like we spent the weekend spring cleaning…and the junk just keeps on piling. Sound weird?

We care about decorating and adding more beautiful things to our home or workplace, and in the natural order of things, we clean up before we add. Yet in our heads we leave trash, dust, and unused, worthless junk for a long, long time – and sometimes until we leave this beautiful earth! Do we somehow care more about cleaning our physical space than cleaning our heads?

I have invested most of my adult life digging inside this whole phenomenon called being. Imagine a boy hiking into the mountains of Kurdistan to inquire of the Sufi masters on these things. That was me, in high school, in the old country, Iran! I was enthralled with the study of the ancient Persian religion, Zoroastrianism which enshrined the 3 principles: think good, talk good, do good; and the ancient Persian books on transformation; and the books of Sufi masters like Romi, Hafez or Saedi. I consumed the philosophies of Buddhism and then all the other major religions…and then famous ancient philosophers of the west including Aristotle, Plato and the more modern philosophers such as Neitche, Goethe, Freud. And more. And since moving to the United States in 1986, I added the most profound informal education to my personal development, and used whatever knowledge I could find to make that ancient technology available to public. With this great body of thought, I had begun to cut my teeth on what it takes to be a human being!

Not the anatomy and or biology of being human – (ever notice we don’t call ourselves human doings!) but the thought processes, decision-makings and meaning-makings inside our heads. We call ourselves human beings, yet we come to rely on doing as much as we can to save the day. We overlook that often just letting ourselves and others be can cause different things to occur.

Ok, now you’re thinking, what does all this have anything to do with spring cleaning? Stay with me, we will get there! You will discover how to clean up your mind from the ugly, dark, unuseful thoughts to have a major spring cleaning in your head…and how to do it at any time you wish – just like flipping on a vacuum cleaner and sucking out the dirt from your carpet. Here we go…

Did you ever think about how you relate to your work? Again, I am not talking about the physical aspect of the work; I am talking about the way work occurs for you! For example, I’m sure you have either observed your own or other’s resignation, regret, and despair on the job at one time or another, right? That is one way work would be occurring…showing up…seeming. How does this happen? Let’s go back a few steps.

There are three relationships that determine how you relate to the world (the way world occurs or shows up or seems to you). These 3 filters are: who you are for yourself, who you are for others, and what you do – regardless of whether you’re working for someone or you have your own business. If you’ll look, you’ll notice there are always those three elements there: You, Others, and What You Do. And there’s dust and broken stuff and junk you have no use for in there, too.

A. Who You Are For Yourself
First we’ll look at how you relate to yourself and how you think you define yourself. Because, consider that you listen to your inner voice more than anything else in the world. This inner dialog is loud and nasty! It is the voice in your head that determines your decisions, draws your conclusions, and makes you believe lots of nonsense that you don’t have any evidence for, such as:
• You are not good enough
• You are not worthy
• You are a failure
• You are ugly
• You are not attractive
• You are not smart
• You can never make it
• You will die poor
• Nobody loves you
• Nobody wants to be with you
• And on and on and on…

These thoughts think you – a situation just as crazy as the dust cleaning you up! But it’s how it is for us as humans. Are you beginning to hear that sucker now – that voice in your head I’m talking about! But if you’re saying, “What voice?” That voice! The voice that by now has judged and evaluated everyone, from the closest persons in your life (husband, wife, lover) or family members (father, mother, brother, sister) to just anybody and everybody (remember that thought about the lady next to you on the bus?). You’ve made so many decisions in your life based on consultations you received from that voice, yet so far you are not happy about many things, and in some cases you have much regret. Come on! Tell the truth...it’s what happens when you let dust try to clean you!

You become your own worst enemy. Yes: you heard that before, bla, bla, bla… But do you notice that knowing this has made no difference? Knowledge by itself makes no difference! So what do we need to add to the mix to make it work? That something is transformation. Transformation of your thought and your processes…and we will get there. Be patient.

B. Who Others Are For You
This is how you relate to others. There is not that much difference between the way you relate to yourself and the way you relate to others. Again, Mr. /Mrs. Voice is involved. You make decisions about them. And these others are everywhere. You exist by virtue of your relationship to them. You would not be a son or daughter without the existence of your parents. You would not be a wife without a husband, or vice versa. You would not be a manager without a worker, and so on.

Now you’ve see what your inner voice did to you. So what does that inner voice do to these others? It finds evidence to make them wrong and to prove they are not what they say they are. Instead they are:
• Not worthy
• Not considerate
• Not safe
• Not smart
• Not committed
• Not loving and caring
• Not compassionate
• Not understanding
• They are crafty
• They want something from me
• They will leave me
• They will hurt me
• And on and on and on…

Right now you’re probably thinking you’re not that way at all, and you’re a great person – always thinking positive and making sure you find the good in people! But I will say, wake up and smell yourself! Not as if what you think isn’t true…but you must own your darkness as well as your light, my dear. For you cannot love anyone unless you love yourself, and you cannot love yourself unless you own your humanity wholly – good, bad, and ugly – all of it! One complete package.

If you are brave enough to look around, you will see all these dead bodies you killed off throughout your years. Look at all the relationships that went down the drain. Look at all the family relationships not working. Look at all the jobs you quit or got fired from because you couldn’t get along with management, and so on. Are you smelling any of these bodies yet?

C. What You Do
This is how you relate to your job, career, or business. So far we’ve done a little digging in ourselves and others…now let’s look at how your work is showing up for you:
• Hard
• Unfulfilling
• Unsatisfying
• Frustrating
• Upsetting
• Never-ending
• Never being acknowledged
• Never getting anywhere
• Not being appreciated
• Not being understood
• Not being noticed
• And on and on and on…

So, when you look at all these areas together – your relationship to yourself, your relationship to others, and your relationship to what you do – I’m asking you to have a realistic look at your relationship to the world itself.

Up The Environment
Smell the world that you living in! The world that you created since you decided about yourself and others. The world that you made up your mind about. That world you’ve been trying to change and clean up for a long time, but that so far has left you unhappy and tired! Yes that one! That world occurring as a place:
• Not safe
• Not trustworthy
• To shield yourself from
• To keep people at a distance in
• Where you’re trying to make it
• Where you’re trying to not get hurt
• Where you’re resigned
• Where there’s no possibility
• Where you can die safe and intact!

So, when you look at all these elements and really dig into all the inner chatter that has consumed your mind and thoughts for such a long time, don’t you think it might be time to pick up a vacuum cleaner and get to work? Of course you do! So what are you waiting for?

But you might think, where should I start? Or, it’s too hard! Or it will take a long time! And so on. You might be right…but consider your options: you can stay back in your old way of being…Making yourself wrong! Making others wrong! Making the world wrong! Sound like fun?

Not sure? Let’s review your choices:

• Chose your old way of being and do what you have always have done…and I will tell you shut up and stop complaining! OR,
• Chose a new way of being and make a difference in your own life, the lives of others, and ultimately in your experience of life itself.

You have the power to fall in love with life again and live it full out to the last drop. The choice is yours and yes, neither choice you is good or bad, right or wrong. But they will have drastically different consequences!

Yes, it takes time and effort. Yes, it takes determination, commitment and practice. Yes, it takes an absolute, unshakable stand for excellence. But remember, you have years and years of practice becoming who you’ve become…and when you tell the truth, you don’t like whole big chunks of it! So yes, it will take some practice to master who you want to become next.

But what kind of experiences do you want to have in life? Make a choice – would you rather “not fail” or would you rather “succeed”? You will be amazed that you can produce the same results, but definitely two different life experiences. Would you rather settle for “just ok” or would you rather go for “great”?

The difference will live in the spring cleaning you decide to do…or not!

World Class Cleaning
One of the greatest political leaders of modern world, Sir Winston Churchill, Prime Minster of England during World War II said, “The price of greatness is responsibility.” If you want to have a great life and great relationships to others and to the world, you must acknowledge responsibility for the trash and junk you’ve collected and stored in your mind, your heart, and your soul during your precious lifetime. Now’s the time – time to clean out the old storage, and time to clean house of the junk.

It’s your big chance to make a difference in your own life. If you’re thinking “I have tried before and my junk is permanent, I would say: Try again! Try a new way you haven’t tried before! Become responsible for what you made up about yourself, about others, and about the world.

Ready to start?

Ok, so take off the gloves and let’s get busy! I’ll show you how. I’m giving you 3 cleaning tools. Gather them up and roll up your sleeves. Take a good look around and see the dirt. Take another look, a deep breath, and imagine your world looking clean and new.

1. First step is to acknowledge that you have made yourself wrong or you made others wrong and you have been a complainer and you have gossiped.

2. Then look and see what’s the benefit you get by holding onto these complaints about yourself, others, and work.

3. Then look and see what excuses and reasons you use for not letting go the complaints?

Things feeling any cleaner yet? Are you beginning to understand what holding onto those complaints has cost you? When you look at the gain and compare it with the cost, it’s so obvious that you’re holding onto something insignificant, and you’re losing your precious life over peanuts!

Yes, peanuts! And it’s not worth it…being right about “you’re a looser” instead of being responsible for what you can do in your life! Being right that others are insensitive instead of getting related to them and enjoying your time with them! Being resigned that “nothing is possible” in your life instead of attacking the great, full possibility of life!

You have a choice to listen to your nasty inner voice and let it poison you OR to start cleaning the crap out and living clean.

Please don’t settle for the dull and average. Average people leave their houses as well as their heads full of dust, crap, nonsense, and junk that need leadership in action clean it up. Be a leader in your life! It will be a great challenge with a great reward. And please accept one last tool from this housecleaning expert…and remember the great “housecleaner” Winston Churchill. It’s from my book of quotes:

“Leadership is the challenge to be something more than average.”

You can have sunlight through your windows and surfaces that sparkle and air that is fresh to a deep, full breath. And you can have it any time you choose to stop asking the dirt to clean you, and instead put a broom in your hands!

I wish you success and fulfillment in your life personally and professionally. Take off the gloves and get going.