I am re-posting two blogs that I wrote in the past, and hoping to get inspired to try this again! I invite you to try to empty your inbox as well!
The Empty Inbox (originally posted December, 2012)
Today, I emptied my email inbox. Completely. About a year ago, I wrote a blog about clutter and how I intended to spend some time de-cluttering my house. In the past year I have done some of that (though it seems that there always more to do), and this week I just got so sick of the emails that I decided they had to go. I’ve been wanting to do this for so long, and kept getting stuck. Every time I opened that inbox, what I saw was old conversations. I would start rehashing them, and think about whether I wanted to do this or that, and then when I couldn’t decide, I’d just leave the emails there, to be looked at the next time. Finally I cleared it and felt such freedom when it got it to zero!
In a way, our minds are just like our inboxes – always holding on to old conversations, and looking them over again and again. Yoga is one way of clearing the mental clutter – emptying your mind of all those cluttering thoughts. And the result – a feeling of freedom and bliss as you connect to the essence of your true Self that is beyond the frantic thoughts and to-do lists.
The Empty Inbox Revisited… (originally posted February, 2017)
I just emptied my inbox. Completely. It is an AMAZING feeling. The amount of freedom that I feel right now is quite incredible. I cannot believe that it has been four years now since my inbox was last emptied! Over four years ago, I wrote a blog entitled “The Empty Inbox”, in which I talked about just this thing. At the time, I promised myself that I would do a better job of keeping it empty, but here I am four years later. Last week, I had over 200 emails in my inbox, and at least 50 of them were from three or even four years ago. For the past four years, I have been looking at these constantly, and been unconsciously dragged down by the weight of all these things that I should be taking care of but am not. I could beat myself up over this, but instead, I find it much more useful to simply re-commit to keeping my inbox empty again!
In my previous blog, I wrote about how are minds are just like our inboxes – always holding on to those old conversations, and looking at them over and over again. In fact, the majority of our thoughts at any given moment are just repetitive tapes of the same things. When we are trapped in our minds like this, it becomes harder and harder to be creative in life and to experience the full spectrum of what life has to offer.
Just imagine if you could actually live in the present moment, instead of being continually drawn into past conversations, to-do lists, and scores of unfinished projects. What would happen if you opened your email each day and didn’t have to look at all those old things? How much more effective would you be in your life? And what would happen if you could wake up each morning and start your day without immediately jumping into your list of incompletions? Just as a daily commitment to emptying your inbox will help you be more productive in life, a daily practice of Yoga and Meditation is a great way of clearing out the mental clutter. When your mind quiets, you get an amazing feeling of freedom and bliss as you connect to the essence of your own true nature.
I invite you to try this – both with your email inbox and in your daily life. You may be surprised at the astounding results!
