I admit it, I am a hopeless romantic. Always have been.

I am also a delightfully motivated de-clutter devotee. Not that I always allow myself the opportunity to clean my plate.

But what in hell do my strengths, Ability to Love and Be Loved, Hope, and the Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence have to do with de-cluttering?

Smiling, my secrets are revealed.

Below is one of my all time favorite chunks of humanity prose. Powerful stuff in its eloquence.

Dear Human: You’ve got it all wrong. You didn’t come here to master un-conditional love. That is where you came from and where you’ll return. You came here to learn personal love. Universal love. Messy love. Sweaty love. Crazy love. Broken love. Whole love . . . You didn’t come here to be perfect. You already are. You came here to be gorgeously human. Flawed and fabulous. And then to rise again into remembering. But conditional love? Stop telling that story. Love, in truth, doesn’t need ANY other adjectives. It doesn’t require modifiers. It doesn’t require the condition of perfection. It only asks that you show up. And do your best. That you stay and feel fully. That you shine and fly and laugh and cry and hurt and heal and fall and get back up and play and work and live and die as YOU. It’s enough. It’s Plenty.

-Courtney A. Walsh

Personally, my life these last few weeks has been filled with emotion and pathos. Too much drama. I bet you know what I mean. Some days my brain is over-run with overwhelm. My concern for family members and friends, and the health of my family and myself for that matter, makes “obsessing” my middle name. Death, illness, accidents, interpersonal issues… just too damned much.

Gulp. I pause to re-frame. I take some deep breaths. Then I gift myself with the option to look for the good. Recently, that has seemed like a full time job. But HOPE springs eternal. Hope is a welcoming life raft. An oasis in the middle of a parched desert. I invite you to climb up into that awaiting hope raft with me. Smoother sailing here we come. How’s that for a bevvy of I hope meaningful metaphors?!

Add LOVE to HOPE, and you empower a dynamic duo of optimism. A united powerhouse of positivity. Move over angst. You are getting de-cluttered. Purged. Deleted. Amen!

While de-cluttering and purging a zillion paper files, I found this uplifting prose. I’d saved it for years. It has often helped me put life into more upbeat perspective. LOVE. How powerful is love. Yes, it is messy yet wondrous. We love so much, and because we do, it balances the BS, the pain, the creeping crap that life begs us to swallow. My antidote for that is “NOPE!” I muse, “Release. Let go of all that does not serve me. YES!”

How about you? When your life is all too blamed much, do you think, “No mud, no lotus?” I hope so. Yup, I can see you now climbing out of that humongous elephant poop pile you are stuck in, and galloping towards lovely orange and yellow marigold fields. Terrific!

Hope this lovely prose lifts your spirits and reminds you life is grand, even when it presents you with stressful opportunities to stretch your creative change rubber band. And to LOVE and HOPE as you de-clutter and stress less. Can you see/feel your positive visioning emerge, too?

When challenging life hassles rain down upon your life, may your tears fall upon welcoming flowers who bloom well-being in your honor.

Hug of love, REAL LOVE,

Judy