Happy Spring-Cleaning Day! And St Patrick’s Day, if you celebrate that. Today we’re focusing on making room for spring through some thorough cleaning. Next week is the Spring Equinox, so why not gather your cleaning tools and make your home and your life ready?

There is something very sincere and revealing about the increased sunlight exposing everything in our homes now. Our dark corners, beckoning for our attention to be cleared out, alongside other things. Besides a regular dusting, vacuuming and mopping of your home, there are three areas that I like to include in my spring cleaning at least once a year. I defrost my refrigerator and freezer. I go through my closet. And I clean the windows. These things can be added with a perspective of Feng Shui to them, using their principles to improve our lives with it. 

I defrost my refrigerator and freezer. I take it all out and let all the ice thaw. This feels like a symbolic measure in harmony with how our winter now is thawing away (hopefully!). It makes it possible to make an inventory of what we have and what we would like to have. Maybe make a list joined to your usually grocery shopping, where you write down things you’d like to store in your freezer. Some extra ice-cream, bags of your favorite ready-made meals or even some of your own baked bread?

I go through my closet. I put away my winter jacket and boots and take out my coat for spring. I also like to clean and polish my shoes and make sure I clean all my winter cardigans. This too makes it a good time to go through what you have, what you’d like to keep and what you’d like to renew or add. As a lifecoach, I advocate becoming a personal leader for your life. This includes your wardrobe! To feel put together and prepared can make you feel more confident and ready to go out and socialize more, as well as to seek new job opportunities. No more shopping on a whim or having nothing to wear. Decide beforehand what you’d like to have, look for it online and order your preferred items directly or save the pages for later in an online folder. You might even want to make a Pinterest collection or a mood board with colors and fabrics you yearn for. Fashion is an excellent way to both be practical and creative at the same time. It can also inspire you to try doing new things, if you get the gear necessary and use them!

I clean the windows. Not only is it nice to get some new fresh air into my home after keeping them closed the whole winter season but for a couple of minutes once a week, I literally also wash away any marks of snow and rain which makes the sunlight flooding even greater and my view even prettier. Cleaning the windows can be done with a simple solution of regular dishwashing detergent by hand and warm water that you scrape off in big sweeping motions from corner to corner. You can also use some white vinegar to polish with and a cloth to dry off the windowsills. 

And not surprisingly, our windows not only show us the world outside, but can be seen as symbols for our outlook on life. If you live with a huge wall right outside your window, you might feel obstructed, while a view free of any intrusion and a beautiful horizon like I have from my balcony and my living room, makes my choices feel open and endless, while safe away from the eyes of others. I think this is especially important after having been detained under surveillance cameras during my immigration detention in the United States for almost a year, and of course the regular use of surveillance in society can sometimes make me feel watched in an unwanted way, besides having to deal with a stalker. Looking out the window every morning, makes me feel more present both with the weather and nature and her seasons. When I grew up, I learned an old ritual. Every time we move into a new place, we’re supposed to count the windows before going to sleep. Then it’s said that we’ll dream a true foreboding of what is coming. Whether you believe in that or not, is up to you, but having clean windows for sure make us feel accomplished and shows our home some extra care. 

Then what we place in our windows is said to be the eyes of our home. Do you have some nice potted plants and a set of curtains that frame them as cozy? In Hawaii, the culture teaches that we’re not supposed to have any green plants indoors, to not compete with the beauty outdoors. There, the seasons are different and almost non-existent, so it’s always green all year around. Here in Sweden however, it’s different. Here, having green plants indoors both makes the air fresher to breathe, and provides us with something alive during the dark winter months. We simply become less depressed and feel better with potted plants by the windows and a bouquet of fresh flowers now and then!

So, to conclude: What would you like to store at home? What would you like to wear this spring? How do you perceive the world and your place in it from the perspective of what you see from your windows? And what does this say about your outlook on life?

To listen to this blogpost as a podcast, find The Source Podcast on Apple, Spotify and YouTube.