‘Tis The Season to Let Go & Clean House

Well, dear readers, it's the end of the year. It's a time for reflection, a time to take inventory of where you are in your life's journey and a time to purge. When I say "purge", I mean "clean house". We all need to clean house at times because when we evolve and change, sometimes there are people and things in our lives that we outgrow and cannot come along with us on our journey anymore. As it is said, some people and situations come into your life for a season and are not meant to be there for a lifetime. It could be a friend, a job, a project, etc. Once the lesson is learned, it is time to let go and move on to fully experience growth.

Cleaning house is not easy. Especially if you grow attached to someone or something and cannot bring yourself to let go. But for us to move forward on this great journey we are each on, we have to accept things and let go. And no matter how much we try to avoid cleaning house, things will happen to us in life that force us to re-evaluate our lives and clean house, whether we like it or not. I discovered a lot about myself this year. It was both an amazing and devastating year for me. I lost my dad, who was one of the people in my life that I love the most. But during all of that darkness, I also experienced many great opportunities. I joined the production team for Full Figured Fashion Week. I wrote articles for various magazines. I started to blog more personally and launched a Facebook page to accompany that blog. I also joined the Belle Noir team, which is how I came to be writing this very blog every Thursday.

With losing my dad and gaining all of these wonderful opportunities at the same time, I became a different person. I evolved and looked at life with a different set of eyes. As I have said before, death gives you a different perspective in life. It reminds you that life is not forever. And since you don't know when it's your time to go, you have to make every minute you are alive on this earth count. So this was when I truly learned that cleaning house is essential. In order to be successful in life, it is imperative that you surround yourself with people who will support you, inspire you and accept you unconditionally. Toxic people will just bring you down and suck the energy out of you. But when you surround yourself with good people, the opportunities are endless.

The lesson I took from my dad's death was to never take life for granted. His death was so sudden and unexpected so that really made me wake up to the fact that the time is now. I should not put off until tomorrow what I can accomplish today. It is so easy to take life for granted but honestly, tomorrow is not promised to any of us.

The lesson I took from all of these wonderful opportunities that came my way was that I needed to clean house immediately. Through these wonderful opportunities, I have met some amazing people who are the kind of people I need to surround myself with. So it made me re-evaluate who was in the mix and really see that some folks needed to be ousted from the circle immediately and replaced with some new ones. Because those in your circle will directly affect how you feel about yourself and you want people in your life who will fuel your energy, not steal it. It's amazing how it takes just one person to boost your spirit or get your creativity flowing. Just as it only takes one toxic person to cause you to feel down, think negatively and question yourself.

It's not easy to cut off people or walk away from a project or job but once you do it, it is so freeing and empowering. It's as if you are letting go of dead weight. I was a writer for a certain magazine for about a year but got to a point where it was not an opportunity that was beneficial to me anymore. So I walked away. It was hard to let go of a steady gig but I had to, in order to leave the door open for something better to come, which it did. At the end of the day, in your heart, you know what's not right and you know what needs to go. It's getting that courage up to let it go.

Just know that no one's life is perfect so even when cleaning house, you will not get your house fully immaculate and know that, that will not affect you on making progress in your life. Just start the new year off with a new attitude and cleaner house. Accept that there are many things in our lives that we cannot control and that's okay. As long as you are listening to your gut and being honest with yourself about the people and things in your life, you will do fine.

Cleaning house is a constant thing that is necessary in life. And with cleaning house, you're revamping your life. The fun thing about life is that nothing is set in stone. You can have as many do-overs as you want. Ultimately, you decide what you want in your life. You decide what direction you're going to walk. We never know if we are going in the right direction but even if it's in the wrong direction and crossing paths with the wrong people, it actually is not wrong...it was meant to happen because there is a lesson there to be learned. But the key to life is letting go of those "wrong" people and making sure you get back on the path but go in the opposite direction. You get up and you try again...another do-over. How empowering is that?

So Happy New Year to all of you and wishing you a successful 2012, full of good fortune, happiness, love and many great do-overs. New Year, new beginnings, a cleaner house. Yes!