Source: habituallychic.blogspot.com via Caroline on Pinterest
Did you read my previous post about Life Themes – a way to organize making changes in your life? My theme for this week is De-cluttering. Are you stuck for a theme? Let’s do it together. Team support and all that. We start tomorrow. So here’s our plan for the week, it’s pretty simple really:
Hi everyone! How is everyone getting along with their September Clean Habit?
I’m really enjoying myself! I like taking care of my stuff and keeping my shit together. Here are some cleaning tips for you to keep you motivated for our September habit.
If you live in a big household (as I do) it’s a good idea to share your cleaning duties and rotate it over a set period of time.
For example, one person could be in charge of garbage (gathering it and disposing of it), another in charge of cleaning and wiping the countertops and surfaces. Examples of specific duties could be:
If each person claims one duty as their own – that will be their responsibility. You must make sure that your department is taken care of (along with your own bedroom).This will cover most aspects of cleaning of your house, and also make sure it is done much faster!
The less people you are living with, the more duties you will have to claim as your own. You can rotate these duties at a time interval that is suitable for you. Just to mix things up and keep things interesting, yo.
This is also a great strategy for cleaning after a party at your house.
Maintaining a clean home becomes much easier when you can develop some kind of schedule for the tasks that must be done daily, and the tasks that must be done on a weekly basis (and seasonally, and annually too.)
When you start incorporating cleaning into your daily and weekly routines, everything seems much more easier!
This is what mine looks like:
1. Doing the dishes – loading and unloading the dishwasher. Keeping my kitchen sink sparkling and clean before bedtime! (10-15 minutes)
2. Sweeping my bedroom floor. I have laminate flooring and it gets pretty disgusting pretty disgustingly fast. I need to buy some rugs. (10 minutes)
3. Keep your shower, toilet and bathroom sink clean. Easy. Just be more aware and present after you use the bathroom. (5 minutes)
4. Making my bed every morning. (1 minute)
5. Do routine quick tidy-ups. Simply periodically make sure that everything is in its place. (2 minutes)
6. Go through all the stuff you accumulate throughout the day and ditch them or put them where they belong. For example – magazines, fliers, receipts, mail, papers. (10 minutes)
1. Laundry
2. Garbage control 
1. Change bed sheets (10 minutes)
2. Vacuum (20 minutes – depending on much space you have)
3. Dusting (10 minutes)
4. Mopping (20 minutes – depending on how much space you have)
♥ Stop hanging out in bed
I know it is so appealing and that I spent pretty much all of last year doing most things in my bed. Use my laptop. Talk to my friends. Eat snacks. Watch movies.
My excuse is that with the lack of other furniture in my room, and no other real space in my apartment for chillaxing (I lived in the student residences) the only comfortable “sitting and relaxing” place was my bed.
It was gross. My bed never felt fresh and clean when I crawled into it (again) at the end of the day and I hated that.
But my bed is not made for socializing.
Try to create another space in your home where you spend most of your time. It could be your living room or dining room. It could be a giant cushy beanbag on the floor, or a big comfortable chair, or a loveseat (I want it) it could even be at your desk.
I acknowledge that other students like myself may find this a challenge, as we share with other students, the only space we have for “ourselves” is probably our own rooms. And the possibilities for furniture in own rooms is pretty limited. Believe me, I know.
The less time you spend hanging out in your bed, the fresher and cleaner it will be when you get into it at the end of your hard day!
If you have a problem of allowing laundry to mount up, invest in a small laundry basket. When you have a huge laundry basket, it’s easy to allow laundry to mount up because you have the space to do so. If you have a small laundry basket, you will be forced to start thinking about doing your laundry more frequently because your overflowing small basket will be a constant reminder
This also works for your garbage cans.
Here is an example of the laundry system I use. I know all of this is awfully redundant to most of the world population but like whatever 
:
After I have worn something that can be worn again, I hang it up to air out. This is my “I can wear this again” part of my system.
Once an item of clothing is ready for laundry I put it into my basket – keeping my whites, colors and delicates somewhat separately.
Once my basket is full (and it’s a small basket so it doesn’t take long) I put it into the washing machine.
As you know, the whites usually tend to take time to pile up, so you can just ask the people you live with if they have any more whites to add to your load.
It’s simple. It works!
Maintaining cleanliness is possible if you put in a little bit extra time and energy each time you need to put things away.
That means when you come home from work, taking the extra time to hang up your coat, put taking things out of your bag that you need (keys, phone, lunch) , and putting your bag and shoes where it is supposed to go. It’s so easy to come home and dump everything on the floor, the chair, or God forbid – your bed.
We all have this extra couple of minutes to do things “right”. Slowly and carefully.
Sure there are times when you literally don’t have time to put your coat on a hanger and put it into your wardrobe which is organized by colour. Like when your wife is in labour. Or when your room is on fire. Or if your grandma just fell down the stairs.
*Needing to get onto facebook as fast as physically possible is not a good enough reason.*
—–
It’s my first day at school today and I’m excited! Thanks to Hurricane Katia I am pretty sure I will get blown away on my walk into campus this evening.
I have not forgotten about you my blogbabies, and in fact I have a big list of upcoming post ideas, but finding the time to sit and write is proving to be more difficult than anticipated.
How clean are your homes this month?! Do you have any cleaning tips or systems that work for you? holla at me.
malavika
Integrity is defined as “The state of being whole or undivided” and living integrally is measured by the correlation between how you would like your life to be lived vs how you are actually doing it. That’s a tough meter stick to abide by at times. Boy, don’t we all know it.
How do you know when you’re not living with integrity?
Because life hurts. And you take things personally. You create problems for yourself.
Integrity is important in business. And it’s easy to spot it, or the lack of it. It’s easy to drop your involvement in a business as soon as you feel it is not maintaining a standard of integrity. But it’s not so easy to drop your involvement in your life as soon as you feel it is not maintaining a standard of integrity. In this case, you are the CEO and the customer.
If you promise certain things in your business and fail to uphold to these standards – the shit will hit the fan.
If you promise certain things to yourself and fail to uphold these standards in your own life – the shit will also hit the fan and the only person it will affect is you. And everything about your life will reflect this. Everything!
So, as this is a personal challenge for me right now in my own life, I decided to blog about it and brainstorm some ways to start acting from a place of integrity again. My life should be something I am proud of. I should be acting in ways that I am proud of. As soon as I begin to deviate from the girl I know I could be, and settle for the “Oh-well-this-is-just-who-I-am-girl”, my life becomes a struggle.
So if you feel like your life is a little off balance, that who you are is not quite matching who you want to be, here are some steps I think can fix it.
All the things you’re doing without knowing why you’re doing them. All the drama. The false friends and relationships. Really think hard about it. What is happening in your life right now that really doesn’t have a place, that really doesn’t need to be there. Out. Gone.
Keep your promises to both yourself and other people. Make commitments and deliver. Start building a trusting relationship with yourself. Become the kind of person that makes things happen. Become the kind of person who knows why they do things, and doesn’t just do things “just because”. After practicing this step, we should get to a place where you KNOW that if you put your mind to something, you will achieve it. It’s easy to say that, but how easy is it to actually do it?
We’re all excellent at giving advice, aren’t we? We also have a great knack for giving the advice that we really need to take ourselves. So the next time you find yourself preachin’, keep preachin’ but listen as well. When you need consolation, look into yourself, and hold your own counsel. Ask yourself what you would advise your closest friend, and try your hardest to take that advice yourself.
Before opening your mouth ask yourself two questions:
(1). What do I really want?
(2). Is what I am about to say or do, going to get me closer to what I want?
Try to see the bigger picture. Try to look at the life you are creating for yourself. These are your seeds and you are sewing them right now, in every moment. Try to bring an air of consciousness to your decisions, actions, and speech from now on. By being conscious we can make better decisions, and spend less time and energy running around in circles.
Is this what your “ideal you” would say? Is this something your “ideal you” would do? If the answer is no, then forget about it. Whatever. It isn’t worth it. The short term gratification might feel good but it will damage who you are becoming.
It ain’t worth it.
Everytime you act or say something that is different to what your “ideal you” would do or say – you make a bigger gap in your integrity.
It doesn’t matter if you just started a new job, new course, just had a child, are on vacation, just broke up with your boyfriend, just got into a new relationship – there is really no excuse for not getting busy with your life. This is the best time to do it. I want to fill my days with things that interest me and help me grow. Getting busy with your life means getting involved. It means exploring what matters to you, and discovering areas in your life that you can and want to build integrity. It’s all about finding your element. The more involved you are in yourself, the more likely it is that you will live with integrity – because integrity starts with you.
We need to get in the habit of being self-aware. We need to make more conscious decisions, and with our conscious decisions – we can start taking more responsibility. A sense of responsibility is a symptom of a life lived with integrity.
Building present moment awareness is a habit and it takes time to cultivate. It means you have to call yourself on your shit every time you dish it out.
The more “Aware” and “Awake” you are in your day to day life, the more likely you will be doing things that are aligned with who you want to be.
—
I hope you will benefit from this list as much I have! I have come to the realization that I need to grow up in more ways than one. I have realized that you cannot live a happy life if you life a life without integrity. I have realized that when I am not being true to myself, it’s easy to start making up problems for myself. I have realized that I need to get lost in my life again, the way I was before. When I am lost in my life, and chasing the colours of my mind, I create big beautiful spaces for love and possibilities.
(I’ll let you know how it goes!)
Which areas of your life could you stand to be a bit more honest?
Here are 4 random insights of happiness that I am learning as I go. “Learning as I go” because I will be the first to admit that I have yet to master them (working on it!). “Random” because they are in no particular order, neither are they related to one particular shade of happiness. Life throws me many lessons all the time, and they are rarely structured and follow some kind of syllabus. It’s random. It’s a little bit of everything. This is what I am learning today.
My lovely friend, life coach and intuitive, Sue, said to me “Malavika, you must commit to your life.”
This is me and Sue.
She’s a pretty awesome lady, who raised a pretty awesome point. I started wondering what it means to really be committed to your life, and what does it feel like when you’re not? Who do you become if you are not committed to your own life?
Being committed to your life means taking onboard a new project: project you! Are you putting first things first in your life? Are you taking the time to educate yourself, both about the world and also about yourself (you little mystery, you!)? Are you engaging in relationships that add value and nourishment to your life? Are you pursing hobbies just because you love doing it? Are you doing what is important to you? Are you finances where you would like them to be, and if they are not, are you in the process of doing something about it? Are you in a job that you love, and if you are not, are you considering why you don’t enjoy it or what your options are? Are you studying as hard as you would like? Are you seeing the results you want to see? Are you in a relationship that you actually like being in, or are you wasting your time in something wrong for you just because you are scared to leave? Are you doing things that frighten you a little bit? Are you stepping outside your comfort zone? Are you taking part in your community in a way that makes you happy? Are you taking time for yourself? Are you acting on all your creative urges? Are you taking the initiative? Are you okay with saying no to other people’s demands on your time and energy? Are you putting in a good effort into a relationship with someone that you love? Are you investing time, money and energy into making yourself looking and feeling great?
These are all things that someone who is committed to themselves would do.
These things are not things that would be at the expense of someone else (no one would be seriously disadvantaged if you took the time to do these things), but not doing these things would be at the expense of yourself.
You know, no one else can do these things for me. Only I can. If I don’t do them, these things don’t happen.
If you want to be happy, you have to commit to your happiness, and all aspects of it. There is more to us than the job we have or the roles we play in our day to day life. We have to take the time to nurture ourselves
One lesson I have learned this year is to not make my happiness contingent on how “I think things should be.” We always get exactly what we need. We get the situations, relationships and challenges we need to learn more about ourselves, and to help us grow.
Rather than thinking “Oh my god, this can’t be happening” (because guess what sister? it can and it is!) try to replace that thought with “Wow, I wouldn’t have expected this to happen but it is, and like every other thing that has happened in my life – it will serve it’s purpose as an opportunity for me to grow.”
Life rarely goes exactly to plan. But life is perfect because life is exactly what you need.
If you expect to only find happiness where you have decided to look when you were 6 years old, you will be disappointed a lot. If this is something you are okay with, go ahead.
I find that when I release these stubborn thoughts I have about “how I need to live my life” I will find myself suddenly living my life the way I need to, and not just theorizing and conceptualizing it.
I work very hard these days to remain open to all kinds of possibilities in every facet of my life. I try to keep my expectations high (but not limited to just one way of reaching it), my vibration up (in alignment with the best of the best), my feet grounded and my heart open.
If something is not going to “plan” in your life, take a moment to try to shift your persepective. What if this was the plan? Maybe it wasn’t your plan, but what if it is THE PLAN? What if this is exactly that is meant to happen? What if nothing was “wrong” or “broken” or “misguided” about your life right now? How could you approach situations, circumstance and relationships in a more open way, if you knew this was true?
When you are open to your life, beautiful things begin to happen.
Relationships are cyclical by nature and we go through periods of Intimacy, conflict and withdrawal These are the three states of mind in any relationship. It is a natural process and no matter how happy you are together and what a hottie your boyfriend/girlfriend is, or how close you usually are with your best friend, you will eventually transition into phase 2: conflict.
In the intimacy stage, your honey has deposited enough love units into your love bank to trigger an intimate response. You feel close and cuddly. You want to do things for your partner. You do anything you can to make them happy and whatever you can to avoid their unhappiness. Because both people are more concerned about meeting your partners needs, both your needs are fulfilled. The trust begins to build, you feel safe to feel emotionally vulnerable, you share all parts of yourself, and wouldn’t even think of hurting eachother because at this time, hurting your partner would be the same as hurting yourself. We start to give unconditionally. When your partner has a need, we rush to fulfill it without expecting anything in return.
Bad habits can develop during this phase because we tend to “look past” them, but as we all know, when bad habits have been around for a while – it becomes very hard to change them. Over time, because we tend to fail to negotiate terms that benefit both partners during this stage, it tends to drive into the next stage which is conflict.
And after conflict, comes withdrawal. And after withdrawal comes intimacy.
Don’t take this personally.
Over time, we can learn to spend more time in intimacy and work through the other phases of conflict and withdrawal more naturally and with less resistance.
This cycle has nothing to do with you, or your partner. We just invent reasons to make us believe that we are justified. We are in “Conflict” now because we don’t agree about something (even if this something is very insignificant in the grand scheme of things). We are in “withdrawal” now because you hurt my feelings.
In reality, I think it’s very easy to be with somebody. You just be with that person. You just love them, whether you “Feel like it” or not. It’s just something you do.
No matter how you are feeling about this person, if you want a love to last, love them anyway. This goes for all intimate relationships. If you are disappointed in your boyfriend, be a loving girlfriend anyway. If you are angry at your father, be a loving daughter anyway.
No body, including yourself, needs to be punished for the existence of these three phases. No one has to be at blame, and you can cut yourself some slack in realizing that you don’t even have to go around searching for reasons to validate your conflict or withdrawal. If a real and lasting love is what you want to create, then these phases become background noise. All you need to focus on is the love, and continue to act in love.
Because love is not intimacy. And love is not conflict. And love is not withdrawal.
Love is just love. And love is not a feeling. When we start to believe that love is a feeling, we will be terrified at the thought of it coming and going away, because that’s what feelings do.
So to summarize, if you want to create a love that lasts, you have to be the love that lasts, whether or not you feel like it or not. Recognize the natural harmony and cycles of your relationship, and don’t take it personally.
Konstantin said (Wow, I’m quoting him on nearly every post I write now…geez!) that it is unnecessary to put all your energy into worrying about what problems “could” come up in the future. Instead of thinking of all the different scenarios, versions and possibilities and emotionally preparing and executing mental attacks on these fantasies– is kind of a waste of energy. He said “Right now, I can solve any problem that I can face. But do I need to prepare for all of them?”
(Then he added “Especially since my biggest problem is coming back in 2 months.” – since I’m returning back to Ireland in August. Aww what a cute jerk!)
I think he brings up a very valid point. Synonymous to “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it”, I think that a great way reduce in-the-moment-stress is to only deal with problems that may be happening now.
As you efficiently deal with what you can deal with right now, you will allow your days to pass and your life to move forward on the path you have chosen with your guided intentions and decisions you make today. As you move forward, you will encounter new things that you will need to work through – and it’s very hard to predict what these things may be. We cannot know what tomorrow will bring for us, but the best way to be prepared for tomorrow is to by making the most of today. If you are not making the most of your todays, you will not be prepared for your tomorrows.
I saw this video on facebook and I fell in love with this cutie!
A quote from one of her other videos:
“Life is just everything I ever wanted. Life brings me to this wonderful place. It shows me this wonderful stuff I love. “
To me, this says that life is good.
I recently finished my monthly challenge of rising at 7:00am every day. Including weekends.
Including days I went to bed at 3:30am, after dancing the night away.
There was one day I took off, due to me being sick all night 
So, here is what I have learned for my challenge. Hopefully this post will help you decide whether you would want to take part in a similar challenge one day.
I wanted to share with you what I thought of my experience, from the challenges I had to the benefits I gained! I hope to review all these new “habit challenges” I implement into my life, so that if you haven’t yet joined the challenge, you can see how it plays out. Because I’m nice like that.
In short, I have to say that it was completely worth it. I love this new habit so much – I have to say it is probably one of the best decisions I have made for myself in a long time.
When I started my challenge, the thought of waking up every day at 7:00 truly scared me. I was a self proclaimed night owl. Not really a morning person, though I longed to be.
I usually would wake up with just enough time before my first lecture to get ready and get there. And even that was hard most days! I always wanted to stay in bed for longer and longer.
I seriously looked forward to the weekends JUST for the fact that I could sleep in. Talk about aiming low! I also felt so much resistance when I knew I had a 9:00am lecture because it meant waking up early (and this semester, I have very few of those).
The first week was tricky. It was very up and down. Some days were okay. Ish. Other days were HARD. It was just my body getting used to it.
But I got up anyway.
I was tired throughout the days too. I felt like it wouldn’t get better and I would just never get enough sleep. But keep reading because it gets better!
The second week was interesting too. At times challenging, but not as much as the first week. It still didn’t feel “natural” but I did it anyway.
The third week was when it started getting good. Waking up started to feel close to effortless. There was maybe a 10 second period of discomfort – and this usually is for the 10 seconds after my alarm rings and I am stil in bed. I might still be a bit tired until I get wash my face, but at least I was up!
By the fourth week, it was a piece of cake.
Waking up at 7:00 feels effortless now. Maybe a 5 second period of discomfort. But when my feet hit the floor, all my tiredness is gone completely. Like my body was ready to be awake. Like my body was saying “come on, lets go!”
At first it was like my alarm clock would say “GET UP MALAVIKA!” and I would say “HELL NO!!” but now it’s like my alarm clock just says “…okay.” And I say “ok.” And I get up. It’s a mutual understanding. No more yelling.
Don’t be afraid of this challenge. Really. It just takes some will power. I really did not like waking up early in the morning at all. I was not a natural morning person. But it’s a natural progression, and you can do it too!
—-
- We are not necessarily training ourselves to make waking up earlier than our usual time a painless experience. We are training ourselves to overcome our inner dialogue and conflict. We are exercising our will power.
- Getting up earlier gets easier over time.
- When you first start waking up earlier, at first it is a very conscious effort – even the night before. You start thinking “Oh god, I have to be up at ____am tomorrow!! I am already dreading it.” After awhile, those thought patterns cease. It stops feeling like an unnecessary option and instead becomes just “how it is”. You just stop thinking and start doing.
- It has opened up my life in many ways. I have more time to do the things that are important to me.
- My mind is quiet in the morning.
- Being a self-proclaimed morning person or night owl, is varied rather than fixed. It’s relative. It depends on who you want to be and if the habits you are keeping are aligned with that. So don’t use “But I’m a night owl, I don’t function well in the mornings – I could never do it!” excuse with me!
- Even if you are a total night owl, seriously, nothing feels better than getting all your important tasks done before midday.
- In the first week you may feel tired throughout the day, but as you keep going with your challenge, you will find that you have tonns more energy in your day. The first week is just an adjustment week. You can’t take it too seriously.
- You get to watch the sunrise. Every day. What better way could there be to greet the day?
- All those things I used to rush or skip in my morning routine, can be done now with ease and joy.
- There’s no stress about having things done for the day. I have plenty of time in the morning to do it.
- You have to take the thought process out of waking up early, and instead strip it down to just the physical act of getting your butt OUT of bed. Don’t think about it. Don’t rationalize, convince, excuse yourself. Just step out of bed. Like a robot. OUT. And to the bathroom. And do your thang. Waking up early can be the easiest thing you can do. A friend told me “Waking up early is the easiest thing to do ever. In fact, I think getting out of bed is easier to do than thinking about it and rationalizing it.”
- Placing your alarm clock away from your bed is a killer method of getting you up!
- Unless you are a seasoned pro, don’t convince yourself that you will simply “meditate” in bed after your alarm goes off. We all know you’re gonna go to sleep.
- The suckiness of waking up is completely outweighed by the awesomeness of your productivity that day.
- I actually now look forward to waking up at 7:00am on the weekends.
- After a while, instead of condemning yourself for inappropriate or poorly made decisions (like going out till 3:00am and having to wake up at 7:00) you start to become more aware of your decisions and the consequence they deliver. Instead of feeling angry, or disappointed in yourself, you simply make better decisions for yourself, or you learn to take responsibility for the ones you do make without too much fuss.
After taking part in my challenge, I have decided to keep going! It was HIGHLY successful experience for me. I will continue waking up at 7:00 every day. The only difference is, that I might be more lenient on myself, allowing myself to sleep in a couple of hours if I didn’t get much sleep the night before.
Starting from January 2011, I’m going to do a 6:00am challenge. Join me!
It’s the best. I feel like such a rockstar! And I am also soooo proud of myself and to all of you who joined me for making it through the month!
