When Spring reawakens, something in us does too. We itch for order and aliveness. Many of us need to order things for the Springtime because there is a sense of a desire for well-being and for balance, and for a beautifulness as we see expressed in the love, regeneration and the stability of Nature. Come Spring, we try all the more fervently to dismiss the energy of chaos that we may feel.

A too great many of us focus on the externals or the “appearance of peace”. When we spring clean a home though, we have to empty and organize the internal container to get there. In the same way, the peace we can feel in a day has often little to do with any external activity or circumstance. It is more about the way we carry our vessel within.

What ingredients best help us plant a sense of well-being and balance into our daily lives? To “Spring Clean” well, that is internally, and so within our minds, we have to become better masters of how we vacillate between chaos and order in our every day.

When the mind is rushed or flustered, it imposes a heavy frequency on the heart.
We feel out of place. We feel disordered and unsafe. We worry, we panic, and we can catastrophize. In this state, we are working against things, and working so hard to feel in control. Maybe those thoughts keep us slaves to the past. Or, maybe it has our mind create anxious scenarios that we imagine before they have come to be. In contrast, a confident, peaceful mind feeds serenity to our hearts. Our minds and hearts then expand, and we feel more in step with the world instead of working against it.

We all understand that negative feeling, like anger and disappointments, and finding frustration in experiences or events, and yes, even pointing fingers, are what would generate an extra chaos, that is an agitation, into our lives. These habits we often play into, often without noticing, only spiral our anxiety to get further out of hand. Our body loses important fuel and we feel more unhappy. Anxiety addiction and chaos clamoring can have us feel a sensation of false power in attaching to the extra drama we then create, often without our realizing. Do you know anyone in your life who is always looking at life as a problem or seeking the problematic in things?

Quite logically then, things that would replenish our sense of balance, well-being, order and beautification would be anything that supports or sends love and appreciation along with gratitude and blessing to the things and relationships around us and within ourselves.

How do we arrive at serenity? Serenity and growing into a state of secure happiness consolidates slowly over time the more you become self-aware. The simple practice of noticing how we ourselves command harmony in our daily lives becomes paramount. How can we become more self-aware? By being honest about our intentions and by bringing ourselves back to the present!

Many of us feel stuck or get surprised by something in our day largely because we go about our lives without taking the time to reference the frequency of peace and order or chaos within our own selves. A green shoot thrives because it is rooted. It stays present to what is. Spring offers us the gifts of presence. Logically then, and at our root, staying present to the moment in a mindful way keeps us true to the manifestation of our best potential.

It is also wise to ask oneself often in a day: How and in what ways can I contribute my share of harmony to the day? What in my speech and my tone or what in my action or what in my thoughts may be creating harmony or disharmony to myself and to others? How can I bring everything I extend back to an expression of harmony and peace even when I veer off? Staying alert in this way is a key tool to growing your muscle of self-awareness.

It may come as a surprise that complaining is refusing to be at peace with what is and to have compassion for what is. The vast majority of us often fail to recognize that complaining is a negative frequency. What would the world be like, I often wonder, if people stopped complaining or finding flaws in things, which in itself is a kind of trouble, and just stop themselves for just one entire day? What if you were to experiment and agree to not complain at all for one day? One week? Longer? And bring yourself back gently to the present when you do?

In this practice, we are not at all being defensive to things or even going about life in the offensive. We are simply being softly present and kindly aware. We are in fact living in the most authentic space of an open heart.

When I find myself remotely complaining about something or anything in the day, I bring myself quickly back to the present often aghast, with a chuckle of compassion to myself, at how self-defeating that approach is to my inner happiness. My world shattered open to a state of higher happiness the day I agreed to stop complaining. I wasn’t all that aware that I was. (Evidently, and because I am human, I will at times be imperfect and an always work in progress.)

Master Ou would routinely ask me to be calmer in our initial years and when I wondered why, I realized that inwardly , and so to myself, I was complaining, and so not as open-hearted to life events as I thought myself to be. I decided to work on it and conscientiously stop because I recognized that to complain is a form of hate. Material escapes are lovely but not the glory; and it is choosing to extend a sincere respect for what is that propels one to be in a true state of life happiness.

To create a consistency of peaceful living, it is often wiser to stop any negative loop and to simply pause and ask: How can I use my energy in a day to create  peaceful order? And how am I using my action in a day to create peace and order? When we ask ourselves this inherent question, we place ourselves as the responsible instruments to how we can respond to our everyday challenges and relations. We become movers and shakers for harmony. Our mental heart naturally realigns almost immediately to what is most authentic and true. You can actually feel the difference of sensation behind the heart.