Why Attend More to Our Junk Drawer

What’s on Top, Shapes the Day

Dear Why Team member,

I hope this week’s message finds you well and will be of service to you.

Quarterly, for many years now, I invest an entire day with my business/life coach and good friend Dr. Roger Hall - I always come away reinvigorated from the intense time of reflection on Why, What and How.

One of Roger’s teachings is that of the ‘junk drawer’. Most everyone has a junk drawer in their home, the drawer that is the catch-all for all that little stuff that doesn’t really fit anywhere in that given moment- so it just goes in THE drawer. When something gets misplaced, it’s to that drawer one often goes.

I’ll ask you the question Roger asked me:
“What is sitting on top of everything in the junk drawer?”

The answer:
“Naturally, what was put into it last”.

He uses this as an example of how our minds work. We tend to think of the last thing put into our mind. You have no doubt heard the saying “Top of Mind”. It is what is on top that gets most of our attention - for the mind is most certainly filled with junk.

Now, one might say, let’s just clean out the drawer. And much of this can be accomplished via meditation; however, life, on any given day, can quickly refill the junk drawer of the active mind. What is powerful to notice here is that our mood in any given moment is influenced by what is sitting on top of our mental junk drawer.

Years ago, when Roger first gave me this insight, I have leveraged it in preparation for my speeches. The speech material is in my mind, but with time between speeches, it moves to the bottom and back of the drawer. Practice and preparation are therefore an important discipline to get the speech insights and ideas back on top to be readily available during the speech. I have leveraged this insight for years. But last week, the junk drawer insight took on a different flavor.

Roger leveraged the junk drawer insight again to speak to WHY the practice of gratitude is so vital to experience an abundant life. Without disciplined intention and attention to the Mind - Our Junk Drawer - we could find ourselves thinking of only the negative thoughts we’ve put in there lately. To be clear, not everything in a junk drawer is junk. How may we keep the good stuff on top?

Have you noticed little children? They are prime examples of how our mind works and of how we can influence the ones around us. Earl Nightingale (author of the wildly popular book The Strangest Secret) talked a lot about the power of our mind to propel us or to anchor us: “a child imagines himself walking like the adults he sees above him. As soon as he walks, he wants to run. As we reach success and plateaus in life, we begin to imagine ourselves reaching the next one and that's our imagination, leading us on from one idea to another one every day and every year of our lives.” Imagination is born out of the information we entrap from each day’s events.cause our minds are wired primarily for protection and defense - the unaddressed mental junk could move negative emotions or experiences to the top - and the more easily available - the more frequently we incorporate these top-of-mind negative emotions into our reality.

The remedy?

Consistently and intentionally observing and deciding what you keep and what you want on top of your drawer. What is readily available to serve you and those you seek to serve?

We Create our experiences proactively or reactively. Without consistent attention to what is ‘top of mind’ - more negative, easily accessible thoughts form and shape our experience of life.

Now, in Spring, when Nature revives, let’s do some spring cleaning and revive the good thoughts that we stashed in the drawer. Consider this simple path to minding the mind and what sits on top:

RTP
(Read, Think, Partner)
(Reap The Possibilities)

To Reap The Possibilities, consider giving more attention to where you Read, Think & Partner. What we read goes to the top of our mind and of course influences what we think. Consider the people around you and what they think and how what they speak can sit at the top of your mind as well. It is said that we are the sum-total of the top five people with which we interact. We have all heard that birds of a feather flock together - Why? Because they share the same thoughts and behave accordingly from the junk at the top of their collective drawers.

Mind your….junk drawer.

Consider paying more attention to what is sitting on top. Lift your own life and others by simply listening to your own spoken words. Are they truly junk? Then throw them out. At the very least, try not to put those thoughts at the top of another’s mind. Lift yourself and others with uplifting thoughts placed at the top of your mental drawer and at the top of others. The spoken word constructs or destructs, creates, or destroys.

Attend more to what’s at the top of your drawer - at the top of your mind - and you’ll become more - for yourself and for others.

Make it a great week!

Steve Luckenbach