Maintaining this experience of love can be very difficult when aspects of your life don't work. The moment you are faced with an aspect of life that doesn't work, you get upset and close down. Aliveness and peace of mind disappear. You lose the experience of love.

If you want to be free inside and maintain the experience of love, you need to handle the items in your life that don't work. In other words, you need to clean up your life.

The first step in cleaning up your life is to discover the specific items that need to be handled. What are the items that pull you out of the experience of love?

Get a notebook and start listing every item in your life that you are at the effect of. List the big items and the small items. List the items that seem impossible. Even list the items you are not yet ready to handle. Write down everything in your life that bothers you.

Use the following categories or make up your own.

  - Physical Environment

  - Relationships

  - Guilt and Wrongdoings

  - Job and Career

  - Finances

  - Legal

  - Health and Fitness

  - Miscellaneous

Make sure every item of your life that doesn't work is listed somewhere. Be as specific as possible.

Physical Environment

Keep your physical environment clean and orderly. This includes your home, your car and your place of work.

Notice how you feel when you are in a car that is dirty and full of trash. Now notice how you feel when you are in a car that has just been washed and waxed. Notice the difference.

When your physical environment is sloppy and cluttered, your state of mind will be clouded and scattered. A clean and orderly environment supports a clear state of mind.

What aspects of your environment are you at the effect of? Is there a nail on the wall that always bothers you, but you never take the time to pull it out. Do you have a closet you hate to go into? Do you have a door that is always stuck? Is your car dented? Do you have a faucet that constantly drips? List every item in your physical environment that either needs to be cleaned up or in any way bothers you.

As you clean up your physical environment, you will notice an immediate difference inside. You will feel more alive and have more energy. You will feel better about yourself and your life.

Relationships

What relationships do you have that don't work? Who do you avoid or resent? Who can't you get along with? Who do you get upset about the moment you hear his or her name? List the name of each person that you are in any way upset about.

When you have relationships that don't work, you close down your love and keep your hurt from healing. You become protective and carry your upset to other relationships.

Relationships stop working when you stop accepting.

When you are resistant and critical toward someone, you tell the person that he or she isn't okay. The other person then gets upset and becomes resistant and critical toward you. Then you get more upset and critical toward the other. Then the other person does the same to you.

You create a cycle of conflict that goes on and on like a tennis volley without either person ever noticing his or her role in the conflict. If you want to heal the hurt and have a relationship work, stop the volley of resistance and end the cycle of conflict.

Let go of your demands for how the person should be and accept the person the way he or she is. Forgive the person and be willing to feel your hurt. Then tell the person you want to heal your relationship. Acknowledge your role in the cycle of conflict and ask to be forgiven.

Restore the love in all your relationships.

Guilt and Wrongdoings

What have you done in the past that still weighs on you today? What do you feel guilty about? What are you hiding? What don't you want people to know about you? List every bad thing you have ever done from the time you were born until now. Be careful not to lie to yourself. If you have thoughts about something you have done, write it down.

After you complete your list, throw the list away. Acknowledging what you have done and putting it on paper will release much of your past. Now write the list of guilt and wrongdoings again. This second list will be much shorter and will show you the items you need to work on.

Past misdeeds are like heavy weights that slow you down. They inhibit your aliveness, your self-respect and your self-expression.

Do whatever is necessary to free yourself from the past. If you have guilt for something, forgive yourself. If you have done something bad to someone, go back to the person and clean up what you have done. Tell the person what you did and offer to make amends. If the person is impossible to find or is no longer alive, write the person an unaddressed letter or talk to the person in your imagination. If there is something you have done that you don't want anyone to know about, tell someone, tell several people.

The weight of your past deeds doesn't come from what you did. The weight comes from hiding, avoiding and withholding what you did. Once you are willing for anyone to know anything about you, you will have nothing to hide and you will be free. This doesn't mean call a press conference to expose your past, just be willing for anyone to know. The best way to do this is to tell some people. Keep in mind that everyone else has a similar list, and theirs is probably much worse than yours.

Being free of your past will be an enormous relief.

Job and Career

We spend most of our lives in some kind of job. You may be busy earning a living or taking care of a family. Your job, whatever it is, has an enormous impact on the quality of your life.

Does your job nurture you and fill you with love, aliveness and energy, or is your job a drain? Do you love your job or do you just endure? If you don't love what you do, you should consider doing something else. Life is too short to just endure. Find what you love to do, then find how to do it.

You can discover a job and a career that you love if you really want to. If your job or career doesn't support you, put this on your list. List anything about your job or career that bothers you. Do you have projects that are past due? Is your paperwork a mess? Are there certain conversations you need to have but have been avoiding? List anything concerning your job or your career that you are at the effect of.

Finances

If you are frequently upset about money, you have a condition that needs to be handled.

Money upsets seem to be due to a lack of income but this is seldom the case. Most money upsets are due to over-spending. When your expenses are more than your income, you can expect to be upset.

The key to true prosperity is to appreciate what you have and to spend less than you earn.

If your finances are a source of frequent upset, you may need to take some drastic action to handle your situation. You may need to change your lifestyle and reduce your expenses. You may need to move or sell some property. You may need to find another source of income? What action do you need to take?

If you have past due obligations, contact the people you owe and give them your plan for how and when the debt will be paid. Making new financial arrangements can be a big relief. Make sure you keep any promises you make.

List everything you need to handle in the area of finance.

Legal

List everything of a legal nature that bothers you. Do you have a divorce or a lawsuit that weighs you down? Do you need a will? Do you have any unpaid traffic violations? Does your driver's license have your correct address? Do you owe back taxes? Is your insurance in order? List everything of a legal nature that you need to handle.

If you have a legal dispute, put your focus on finding solutions that work for everyone. When you put your focus on resolving the issues, the issues can get resolved and you can get on with your life.

When you put your focus on winning, you create a condition of adversariness that makes resolving issues very difficult.

By fighting to win, you force the other person to fight to avoid losing. You then have to fight to protect yourself from the other person. Then the other person has to fight even harder to be protected from you. You create a destructive cycle of conflict where coming out on top is all that matters.

When you don't focus on resolving the issues, the issues don't get resolved. The conflict can go on forever. If you want to end the conflict and get on with your life, stop being an adversary and find solutions where everyone can win.

Health and Fitness

What bothers you about your body or your health? Are you upset about your level of physical fitness or your appearance? Do you have physical ailments? Do you need a physical examination? Do your teeth need work? Do you need a new prescription for eye glasses? List everything about your body and your health that nags at you or concerns you.

Miscellaneous

List anything else that bothers you but doesn't fit under another category.

After you list everything in your life that you are at the effect of, the next step in cleaning up your life is to handle the items on your list.

To be most effective, find a buddy or some friends to work with. Make promises to each other about what you are going to handle and by when. A promise to a friend can give you the incentive to handle items you would otherwise put off. Group support is invaluable and can be a lot of fun.

The process of handling your life may take some time and some hard work, but the results will certainly be worth your effort. Every time you handle an item, you will notice a difference inside. You will feel better about yourself and your life. You will have more energy and feel more alive.

If you only handle one item, won't your life be a little more enjoyable? What if you handle twenty per cent of what you are now at the effect of? Won't that make a big difference? What if you handle fifty per cent? What if you handle every item on your list?

Every step you take to clean up your life will make a difference. You can have a life that works effortlessly if you want. You certainly have the ability. All you need is the commitment and determination to make it happen.

ACTION TO TAKE

1. Get a notebook and make a list of everything you are at the effect of. List everything that pulls you out of the experience of love. List the big items, the small items and the items that seem impossible. Even list the items that you are not yet ready to handle.

2. Handle the items on your list as fast as you can.

3. Notice how you feel each time you handle something that has been bothering you. Notice how much energy and confidence you gain. Notice how free and alive you become.

4. Find a buddy or some friends to work with. Make promises to each other about what you are going to handle and by when. Support each other and have fun in the process.

5. Make cleaning up your life one of your highest priorities. Living in the experience of love is very difficult when life doesn't work.

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