I moved my office to the beautiful renovated space downstairs months ago and this allowed my son to claim the room for himself.

Tired of moving things (renovations will cause this), when it came to clearing out my office closet, I said, “no mas.” Later. I’ll do it later. The closet held my books, paperwork, random cords to things, photos… all the necessary clutter I prefer to keep out of eyesight.

However, with the emergence of my daughter, the value of space has never been higher. Time for me to finish the job.

The contractor trash bag is my favorite tool in such operations. I love throwing things away. Every pound that goes into the bag is like a pound off my shoulders. Most of what I tossed was obsolete electronics or software, yet it still felt great to divorce myself from my past.

The books posed the biggest challenge. Much like CDs, I am over the idea of displaying my collection. Just feels like clutter now. (I laboriously converted 700 CDs to digital and threw away all the pesky plastic cases last year.) Before moving the books, I would thin the herd. (The old and weak be put up for adoption at the local library.)

I used this sorting as an opportunity to flex my intuition. By this, I mean that I held each book in my hand and noticed how I felt about it.

If my energy expanded, the book stayed. If my energy contracted, we parted.

During this process, the distinction between “what looks right” and “what feels right” became very clear to me. This is worth paying attention to, because your intuition works tirelessly on your behalf to guide you to who you are becoming and the things you truly desire now.

Simply put, accessing your intuition requires you to notice what feels better to you in any given moment. However, most people have tuned out their inner guide in favor of their logical minds. (Certainly this is understandable when you look at what our educational system rewards.)

When using your mind, you will tend to reflexively choose what looks right… mostly because this is what looked right yesterday, or last year… What looks right is what you’ve always done. It’s what everybody does. It’s the “right” thing. It’s what you were taught to do. It’s what the experts told you to do. Or maybe it’s the nice thing to do. The polite thing. The thing that will make other people happy… But just because something looks right, does not mean it feels right.

And if it doesn’t feel right, it isn’t for you, my friend. Not anymore. Not if you want to leverage the most powerful tool you have to getting what you want with delightful ease.

There were lots of books that looked right – books by teachers like the Dalai Lama, or Wayne Dyer… books that I really liked at one time –  books that now felt empty when I held them in my hand. To be clear, I’m not saying that there’s no value in them, but rather there is no value in them for me at this time. Tossing these sorts of books into the bin caused my brain to stutter (Wait! What are you doing here?), but when I shifted my focus inward to my feelings, I felt noticeably lighter. Letting them go felt better. More specifically, letting go of the old ideas felt like a relief.

My purge continued with files full of programs, techniques, notes. Stuff I invested many thousands of dollars to learn and master found a new home in the recycle bin. The ideas and beliefs that got me where I am today have been loyal soldiers, serving me well. But now I want to go somewhere else and this requires me to shed who I was in favor of who I am.

If this makes sense to you and you wish to access who you are becoming, it’s simple (but not always easy).

Let go of that which looks right. Drag it to the curb. Release it.

Embrace what feels right. And see where you are led from there.