Heather Aardema delivers a short spoken reflection (YouTube) encouraging viewers to stop 'hiding behind' physical and mental clutter and to intentionally design their next life chapter. She contrasts consuming others' dreams with creating one's own, shares a personal career-shift anecdote and a client vignette (doctor moving from allopathic to functional medicine) to illustrate how ‘mind clutter’ and fear can block life changes, and closes with prompts and a call-to-action to engage with related resources.
Chapters
What's your next chapter going to be? Mary Oliver, my favorite poet asks, tell me, what will you do with your one wild and precious life? My hope is that you don't spend it hiding behind your clutter like I did for so many years. I spent two decades in a career that I didn't love. I felt empty. I struggled to find meaning. It wasn't fun. It was so heavy. And I spent a lot of time comparing myself to others. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I didn't want. I didn't spend very much time thinking about what I did want. And then I decided to make a massive change, and I decided to leave that corporate world. I knew I wanted a different chapter. I wanted a different future. And I began to spend time thinking about what I did want. So I asked myself, heather, what matters most to you? And I spent a lot of time listening. And while listening, I realized that I had been living by default and not by design. I had spent so much time on autopilot, doing the same things every day, repeating the same activities year after year. And so I realized that I wanted to become a creator. And in fact, we are all creators. All humans are. And so my epiphany was that I wanted to spend more time creating than consuming. So today, each morning when I wake up, I ask myself, what am I going to create today? And what am I going to consume today? There's nothing wrong with consuming. And if you're wondering, what is Heather talking about, what is this consuming thing? What I mean is, how much of your time in each day are you going to consume? Are you going to spend consuming other people's dreams? And how much of your time each day are you going to spend creating the life you want to live? One of my clients is an allopathic doctor, and she spent two decades in the field, and then she needed to go on a sabbatical to care for her husband and her mother, who both passed away. She spent a significant amount of time away, and she knew she wanted to get back into the medical world, but she wanted to do it in a different way. She didn't want to go back into allopathic medicine. Instead, she wanted to go into functional medicine. Now, you might think, all right, go ahead, go do that. But she had some clutter, some mind clutter that was weighing her down. And the mind clutter was, oh, it's going to be so hard. You don't know how to create a functional medicine practice. How are you going to find patients? You're not going to have the insurance companies paying you anymore. How are you going to get people to pay you? She had a lot of heavy thoughts around it. And so she came to me because she wanted to get rid of her tangible clutter. And she didn't understand why it was taking her so long to get through with the tangible, physical clutter. And I said, well, what is your plan after you declutter your home? And she said, well, that's when I'm going to dive back into this new calling, this new career. Well, because the career felt impossible, she was using her physical clutter as a buffer so that she then didn't have to go feel the uncomfortable feelings of becoming an entrepreneur in the health and wellness space. So I ask you, what is your clutter keeping you from? What is it keeping you safe? And I want you to know you can handle anything you choose to face. My suggestion. Ask yourself what matters most to you? Ask yourself, what more what what what do you want more of in your life? And then look at your days and how you spend your days and ask yourself, where am I creating and where am I consuming? There's nothing wrong with consumption, but when we're consuming, we're consuming other people's dreams. And I think it's time for some of your own. All right, so what's this next chapter going to look like?
I can't wait to see. Thank you for joining us on this path to living lighter. If you found value in today's video, please like comment and subscribe to our channel for more content that supports your journey. And remember, you can use our soul Compass every day. Listen, let go. Learn and love the process. For more resources to help you live a lighter life, visit our website@schooloflivinglighter.com don't stop here. Be sure to check out our next video and continue transforming your life.
