Creating Healthier Relationships

New Moon in Libra puts the focus on relationships, the perfect time to deal with your social clutter and create healthier relationships.

The other advantage with setting intentions on New Moon is that you have a set theme that you can focus on, and that theme with get of course an extra boost from the Universe which again is beneficial for you and lets you simply go with the flow. 

The Theme of Libra is relationships

This week's New Moon is in Libra, and the theme of Libra is relationships, partnerships, also fairness, justice, balance and beauty but really the focus is on relationships of all sorts, so this is why it's the perfect time to identify and deal with your Social Clutter and setting some intentions for a more balanced social life. 

As always, we start with a Love Tour, if you listened to episode #5 you know already what a love tour is, but for those of you who haven't listened to episode 5 yet, here is a quick summary:

A Love tour is showing appreciation and gratitude for what we already have. Because it's so easy to focus on what is not right, what's not working, or what bothers us, the clutter, the negativity right and what happens is, we forget to allow ourselves to honour and value and be grateful for what we have.

This is true in any area of our life, in our home, our papers, our digital files and devices, our finances and of course also our relationships and most of all our relationship with ourselves.

Remember my saying: Decluttering is self-love, by being on a journey from chaos to peace the way I look at it, we are practicing self-love. So that's a love tour and now I suggest you 

Take a Love Tour

Take a ‘love tour’ through the people and activities in your life. You can do this sitting in a comfy chair with a nice cup of coffee or tea, wrapped in a cozy blanket, or you can go on a walk if that's more your jam, or do some other activity that keeps your hands busy but your mind free for thinking and then ask yourself:

• What do I love about your family,
• What do I love about my friends,
• What do I love about my co-workers or if you have a business about my employees and business partners?
• also, what are some events in your calendar you are looking forward to?

The goal is to be present to all the goodness in your life and business. In addition you can also make a ‘gratitude list’ in your journal or call one of those people and tell them how much you love and appreciate them, or you can send them a lovely email or card in the snail mail. 

Social Clutter

After the love tour,  after we have focused on the good we are going to pay attention to what disturbes this goodness, the love and peace, which in this case I call social clutter. It's the people to what stresses us out and pull us down, we could call them energy vampires. We look at all the obligations and relationships that might be toxic or unloving, and the overfull calendar that leaves no time for yourself. 

Now clearing social clutter can be tricky territory and I am of course not suggesting that you declutter your family and friends, unless of course these relationships are toxic or abusive. If so, please get the professional support you need. 

Most people more typically find themselves in relationships or business partnerships that simply do not serve them, or don't serve them anymore. Spend some time looking at your upcoming calendar and assessing your commitments and activities.

Where can you still say a wholehearted ‘yes’?

And then on the flip side, where is it time to say no?

And I am not suggesting that you just back out of commitments that you've already made, but even that is sometimes necessary. I am more asking that you pay attention and become aware what you are doing is only out of obligation and robs your energy and your sense of peace.

You always want to keep in mind that when we say yes to one thing, we are always saying no to something else. For example, saying- ‘yes’ to helping out a friend is a very kind thing to do but it might mean saying ‘no’ to some much needed time for yourself. 

The reverse is also true. When we say ‘no’ to one thing we can be saying ‘yes’ tosomething else. For example, saying ‘no’ to a new contract may mean saying ‘yes’ to more time and freedom, more time with your family, more me-time, less stress and less overwhelm...

Many of us are ‘people pleasers’ or ‘peacemakers’ wanting to accommodate or cater to others, maybe you have even been raised like that and because of it we often say yes too fast without really thinking it through. But when you try to make everyone around you happy, you can end up being unhappy yourself.

Align your calendar with your priorities

Reflect and become aware of what your yesses or nos might really mean for you. It is also helpful if you have some clarity about your priorities when you are doing that. I talked in episode 10 about priorities, so go back and listen to that episode after this one if you'd like some guidance around priorities. Once you are clear on your priorities, ask yourself: 

• Who are the supportive people who cheer me on and help me achieve your priorities?
• Who are the trusted allies and friends who support my dreams and goals? 

And on the flip-side ask yourself: 

• who are the people who drain me?
• who are the people in my life who are constantly negative, or with whom I only engage because I feel obligated? 

Negativity, obligation, and guilt can be considered forms of emotional clutter, so reconsider the people and activities that weigh you down helps you reduce and eventually eliminate this kind of emotional clutter. 

Dr. John Gottman, one of the world’s leading relationship experts suggests that the magic number for a healthy relationship is a positivity ratio of 5:1 – that is, five positive interactions for every negative one. 

Granted he speaks often about romantic relationships but I think it's a good measuring stick for all our relationships.

What are the ratios in your relationships and partnerships, in your private life or business? Do you have maybe clients who suck the joy right out of you and make your business feel like a heavy burden? What would it look like if you were able to let them go? 

Of course it’s not necessary or even possible to ‘declutter’ (or get rid of) all the negative people in your life, and also there is often a lot of wisdom and personal growth in disturbances, lots that can be learned from conflict, but we do want to increase our daily joy and create more ease and flow in our lives.

Therefore, here some suggestions

1. Make a list of the people you want more of in your life and business and a list of those people who drain you.
2. Start re-designing the time you spend and who you spend it with by increasing the time you spend with your positive and successful peers. Simply put more time with them in your calendar and start saying no to the people that drain you.
3. Intentionally start build up your circle of positive people and dream clients that you love to spend time with or work with. 

Use this week's New Moon in Libra to set the intention to clean up your social and professional circles. You might not be able to letting go of certain obligations right of the bat, but the late Wayne Dyer already said:  

Our intention creates our reality. 

So setting the intention is a good start. It's getting clear what you want and then bit by bit starting to implement it into our life... a few minutes a day... and so we create movement in our lives, we get unstuck. 

I will make a podcast episode and blog post in the future about how I set intentions with the moon. The moon is the timing, the when, but to make it count more, we can create our own personal ritual that includes not just the when but also, the how - the format that works best for us, - the specific wording that resonates with us, - and the setting that has meaning for us 

Now it’s your turn for your 'a few minutes a day' challenge this week: 

1. Do a love tour through your family, friends and activities, be grateful for all the goodness you have in your life and business, the people who are feeding your soul
2. Then identify who or what is sucking the life out of you, where the positivity ratio is not 5:1. Figure out where you want to say no in the future, maybe even where you can still back out of a commitment that really doesn't align with your priorities
3. Fill the freed-up space either with well-deserved me time or with the positive people in your life

That's it, that's how you create healthier relationships and a more joyful life and let go of the social clutter that drains you and stresses you out. 

If you like some help with this, if you struggle with clutter in your life, business or finances schedule a complimentary Clutter to Clarity Chat. Together we will figure out what's the best thing you do 'for a few minutes a day, to keep the chaos away'.