Reviewed by Karen Wilson

The workings of the human mind and the brain (Dr Leaf explains the distinction) make fascinating and complex subject matter. The author of Cleaning up your Mental Mess tells us that people are not totally at the mercy of their thoughts, and that anxiety, stress, trauma, and toxic thinking can be addressed with some mind management techniques. In her words, “events and circumstances can’t be controlled”; however, “we can control our reactions”.

Throughout the book Dr Leaf highlights the neuroplasticity of the brain – how it changes in response to positive or negative thought patterns that also impact our physical health. Her solution for “mental mess” is a five-step learning process she has dubbed ‘the Neurocycle’, which is designed to make you more aware of your thinking/feeling/choosing around an issue, reflect on it, write it down, reconceptualize, and take action steps to implement your new thinking.

According to Dr Leaf’s extensive research, her Neurocycle needs to be practised consistently for at least 63 days (the widely held belief that it takes 21 days to form a habit doesn’t apply here!) to produce real change. She claims that toxic stress and anxiety can be reduced by up to 81% using her five-step Neurocycle and, since your mental landscape is not static, suggests that the ideal approach would be to make this an ongoing lifestyle. She also refers to an app (not free), which she developed to complement the book.

The book is divided into two parts, with the first half focusing on clinical research data that may prove heavy-going for readers who don’t want to learn about the finer points of alpha and beta brain waves or the effects of unmanaged stress on blood measures and chromosomes. This forms the foundation for the Neurocycle that she elaborates on in Part 2. Her writing is inclined to be a little repetitive.

Dr Caroline Leaf is a US-based communication pathologist and neuroscientist who has done research in her field for over 30 years. Her book is available in our Chartered client library for short-term loan.

Life can feel overwhelming, frantic and exhausting at times. Just think of everything going on right now, our unstable economy, load-shedding, and interrupted water supply, to name a few. And it’s impacting our happiness and health.

As our minds fill with chatter, our worldview becomes tainted and distorted, and our ability to be present is lost. Mindfulness is a way of paying attention to the present moment. You would be forgiven for thinking that mindfulness is just an activity; in fact, mindfulness is a way of perceiving and observing, and it can be developed using various tools. Some of these tools include meditation, exercises, and breathing.

Mindfulness takes us beyond coping and making do. To be mindful means paying attention to what is happening in the mind, body, and immediate environment and remaining present. It improves in response to a straightforward meditation practice that increases awareness of thoughts, sensations, and feelings.

Moreover, mindfulness is not complicated. The practice can be as simple as an awareness of a simple daily task, and it doesn’t have to take long. Feeling unsure how to start, try these simple one-minute mindfulness exercises.

Mindful breathing

This is a chance for you to step out of the daily grind and allow time to be present with yourself; that is, being present with yourself and whatever arises in your mind and body. Take a minute to observe your breathing. Breathe in and out as you usually would: notice the time between each inhalation and exhalation; notice your lungs expanding. When your mind wanders, gently bring your attention back to your breath.

Mindful walking

You can practice mindful walking any time as you go about your day. It’s good to try it slowly at first, but once you’re used to it, you can practise it at any pace – even when rushing. Walk slowly: become aware of the sensations in the soles of your feet as they make contact with the floor and any sensations in the muscles of the legs. You don’t have to look down at your feet. When your mind wanders, use the contact of the feet on the floor as an anchor to bring you back into the present moment. Just take a minute to focus on the sensations generated by walking.

Mindful eating

Eating mindfully can take us out of autopilot, helping us appreciate and enjoy the experience more. The next time you eat, stop to observe your food. Give it your full attention. Notice the texture: really see it, feel it, smell it, take a bite into it – noticing the taste and texture in the mouth – continue to chew, bringing your full attention to the taste of it.

Mindful listening

Taking this time out to tune in to your environment and listen to what it tells you will help you bring mindfulness into the rest of your life – bringing your awareness as you move through the day. Take a minute to listen to the sounds in your environment. You don’t need to try and determine the origin or type of sounds you hear; just listen and absorb the experience of their quality and how it resonates with you. If you recognise a sound, label it and move on, allowing your ears to catch new sounds.

As Thich Nhat Hanh said, “With mindfulness, you can establish yourself in the present in order to touch the wonders of life that are available in that moment.”

I am often asked where I find the time to do everything I do: from being a wife and mom, running a business, doing talks and workshops, writing books, and going on fun adventures with my family. You may not buy into my answer at all, and when I tell people that one of my top life tips is meditation, I can almost feel them switching off. Most people believe that it won’t work for them.

Sometimes I do wish it was possible to stop time or hit the pause button on the speed of life. But we all know there’s no stopping time. Still, there may be a way to buy time by focusing on the present and reducing the repeating background noise in your mind.

To me, meditation is one of the most valuable tools in our fast-paced, modern-day life. I like to use the Chopra meditation App, but I’ve often heard people say the Headspace App works really well. It’s about quietening the thoughts that my brain can’t switch off. Remember that your thoughts become your reality, and you cannot allow the spiralling negative messages of worry, fear, anxiousness and despair to take control of your life.

The benefits of quietening the voices in your head are endless and there are many ways to still your thoughts: going for long walks, consciously finding joy in everyday moments, and simple deep breathing. These are all forms of meditation. As long as you’re prepared for a process rather than a quick fix. It takes practice. Don’t expect to be perfect at it. If you accomplish just being conscious of the thoughts in your mind and not allowing them to control you, you have made a good start.

Like you, I also did not think that meditation was for me when I first started and it did not work perfectly for me in the beginning. I struggled to see how I was ever going to quiet the voices in my head, from to-do lists, worries and stories that my mind made up. I decided to give it a good go, and each time I meditated, my brain got slightly quieter. I still don’t always get it right, and the to-do lists still pop into my head – even when I’m trying to block them out. But now I feel the difference when I’m not meditating.

I like to meditate early in the morning before my day gets busy, and I put aside 15 – 20 minutes to sit quietly. Most days, I use the Chopra guided meditation and other days, the transcendental meditation technique of repeating a mantra until my mind stills. My husband, Gys, has watched my morning ritual for years and now also meditates daily. He says it’s helped him look at his business differently with a more strategic outlook. Josh, my son, has also started and finds he can control his anxiety around exams much more.

I encourage you to give meditation a go! Just remember that you don’t need to be perfect at it. It may feel impossible at first but it gets easier over time.

When Chartered clients Don and Joan King’s second son emigrated with his wife and four children to Australia earlier this year, Joan knew it was time for a change. Having lived in in the same 5- bedroom home for the past 33 years, Joan was keen to sell and move somewhere smaller, while Don wasn’t quite ready to move, particularly since he had yet to complete restoring his 1969 Mustang, a project which he had undertaken with his son. At a crossroads, and after a meeting with their Retiremeant^TM Specialist and Kim Potgieter, they reached a compromise. They would spend the year getting the house ready to put on the market. For Don, this meant finishing his Mustang project, and for Joan, it meant beginning the process of decluttering 33 years’ worth of stuff.

During a client vision boarding day earlier this year, Joan was very intentional about what she wanted her next chapter to look like, and it was clutter-free. Joan had done some serious decluttering a few years back when she retired and closed her interior decorating business, so she knew the process to follow.

Joan decided to declutter by themes to make the task more manageable. She recently gifted a lifetime of old clothes to workers she knew in her area. Using rails, she hung up all the clothes and invited people to help themselves. She also used to make costume jewellery, so apart from a few special pieces that she kept, she gifted those too.

The next project that she is tackling books. Slowly she is sorting out books into relevant piles. She is passionate about animals, so she has decided that most of her books will be donated to the SPCA or Saints Animal Shelter for them to sell. As for the more specialised books, like those pertaining to her interior decorating business, she is researching where they may best be utilised.

There are things that they plan on selling; for example, they were a keen family of scuba divers, so they have all the equipment. Joan has begun preparing the process of decluttering these objects and has taken photographs and gathered information so that she can sell them on Facebook Marketplace or other online platforms when the time comes.

As Joan proves, decluttering is best done the same way they say it is to eat an elephant, one bite at a time. As for her vision board, not only has the decluttering begun in earnest, but she and Don have also booked two trips to see family this year. It just goes to show.

“Clutter is not just the stuff on your floor; it’s anything that stands between you and the life you want to be living.” Peter Walsh

Clearing the clutter, all the “stuff” in our lives that prevents us from living our best life, is becoming a global trend. In an age of overconsumption, people are starting to realise that “having it all” and feeling happy and fulfilled don’t always go hand-in-hand and that getting rid of unnecessary items can bring people a sense of personal relief and pride. As we prepare for transitions, which often entail downscaling, clearing the clutter becomes necessary.

Decluttering is freeing in so many ways. Letting go of the excess “stuff” that fills your home often feels like a weight being lifted from your life. Sometimes you don’t even realise how heavy and burdened your belongings makes you feel until you start letting them go!

One good reason to declutter sooner rather than later is that it allows you to make your own decisions about your belongings and what you want to do with them. This way, you won’t leave your family with the burden of clearing out your home, guessing what you might want to do with items or what items were special to you.

If you’d like to start decluttering your home, but it feels daunting, begin decluttering in waves. Don’t feel you have to tackle every room in great detail. Take a look at each room, slowly and objectively. Immediately remove the things you can see that you don’t want to keep. Put them in a box to donate or recycle. Re-visit that room when you’re feeling fresh and take another look. Remove anything that you notice the second time around. Decluttering in waves means that with each successive sweep, you’ll notice a little bit more each time you do it—nothing scary and nothing too daunting.

It’s also important to start somewhere easy. Don’t head straight into the storeroom or garage. Test and hone your decluttering skills before you approach a big project. Start with the bathroom and sift through the cupboards. Remove items you don’t or won’t use. Clear the surfaces, organise what’s left and practice keeping just what you need and use, no excess.

Decluttering your home is an obvious place to start, but there are many other aspects of life that you can declutter too. You can declutter your time and your digital life, to name a few.

When decluttering, remember to ask yourself these questions:

• Do I need this?
• Do I use this?
• Does this add value to my life
• Do I appreciate having this in my life?

If the answer is no, then it’s time to let it go. Often this is where the process stops as people are not sure what to do with goods that no longer serve them. We recently wrote an article detailing options for charity shops, online selling platforms and community organisations where you could donate or sell your goods. There are also numerous books available on the subject. We highly recommend one that Kate Emmerson wrote called Clear your Clutter, a practical, no-nonsense book that teaches you the why and the how of ridding yourself of emotional, physical and body clutter. If you still don’t know where to start, there are people out there to help. A quick Google search will link you to reputable people in your area.

Don’t let all the excess and unwanted things in your life take away from what’s really important to you.

Accumulating plenty of unnecessary things after five decades of life is relatively easy. I should know. But there comes a time when you have to decide whether what you are holding onto brings you more joy than it would if you shared it with others.

Decluttering can be intimidating because we assign meaning and memories to what we have. A teddy bear reminds us of our childhood, a shoebox filled with old birthday and Christmas cards hold all the memories of our lives, and our children’s old school reports tell the story of their journey into adulthood.

When my dad passed away eighteen years ago, I desperately wanted to hold on to a part of him. I chose to keep and treasure his Stinkwood dining room set that I knew he loved. The table ended up in a boardroom in my husband’s business. I really never had any use for it – it never matched the decor in any of my homes. A few weeks ago, Gys told me he did not have a place for it anymore and asked what I wanted to do with it.

The dining room table is not the only white elephant in my home. I have a selection of bone china tea sets inherited from my mom-in-law, silver cutlery and crockery and specially engraved glasses that I never use. I purposefully don’t use any of these items because I worry that they’ll break, they can’t go into the dishwasher, and I simply don’t have time to polish the silver.

I had lunch with clients the other day, and they shared with me how therapeutic they experienced decluttering their home. Yet my first reaction, when confronted with my dad’s dining room set, was the opposite of therapeutic – it was an emotional one. Just the thought of having to get rid of it made me feel like I was losing my dad all over again. It also made me question the many things in my home that take up space. Would my children want it? Will they use it? Of course not! Some things just aren’t relevant in today’s world anymore. It’s out of fashion and dated – just like my dad’s dining room set.

We have to start reassessing why we keep things that we don’t use and that our children may never want – and find different ways to pass our legacies along. I have decided to pass my dad’s dining room set on to a family who could use and cherish it. This would give me joy. A far more precious gift to my children is sharing happy moments and accumulating treasured memories with them. One way in which I am keeping my legacy going is by teaching them all our family recipes that have been passed to me down generations.

Sometimes giving brings more joy than keeping. Think of items in your home that you are holding on to which may be worth more to someone else. Someone who may actually need, use and cherish it. Donating unused items to charities will make you feel happy, and chances are that the things you have loved all your life but don’t need anymore will be loved and used by someone else.

There are so many benefits to decluttering your living space. Apart from creating more space to live in, going through all the things you have collected revives old memories. And sharing these recollections with your children and grandchildren will be memories they will cherish forever.

Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I call a friend. You all know how much I enjoy spending time with people, and for me, nothing beats a good chat with a good friend. If it’s face-to-face, even better. Add a cappuccino (or dare I say, a glass of wine) – the best!

My friend and I both desperately needed to talk, to lean on each other. Bill Withers expressed it so beautifully in his song Lean on me:

Lean on me,
when you’re not strong, and I’ll be your friend,
I’ll help you carry on…
for it won’t be long,
till I’m gonna need somebody to lean on.

My friend is going through a difficult patch. Her elderly parents have moved in, and her mom is immobile. This has completely changed life in their home. After listening, I asked her: How are you taking care of yourself? She was shocked! It was a question that she has never considered. “But I’m too busy taking care of everyone else,” she said.

I have also been feeling a bit fatigued lately. A while back, I told you that my husband, Gys was diagnosed with cancer. He has been incredibly brave, and his treatment schedule has been harrowing. The good news is that he’s been given the all-clear twice now and his next check-up is three months from now. Life always happens in ebbs and flows, and low points and high points are often grouped together. It has been a difficult time for us as a family as my daughter, Gabi, has now been experiencing paralysis in her left hand. It’s been six weeks so far with no improvement. In addition, my schedule has been ramped up with talks and interviews around my new book, and this time of year is busy with workshops, seminars and meetings. I like to help and very seldom turn down a speaking engagement or meeting request. Trying to make a difference, even for one person, makes it all worthwhile.

My friend threw my question right back at me and asked me how I was taking care of myself. It’s a good question. I always say that if you don’t look after yourself, you will be of no use to anyone else.

We are compassionate human beings, and compassion is probably one of the most powerful forces in the world. It embraces the noble traits of grace, empathy and love; it drives hope; helps us see the light in the darkness and makes us feel loved. We’ve seen compassion in action all over the world. Everyone I know has spent time helping others, being kinder, gentler and offering support. It’s just in our nature. We want to help. We want to be there for the people we love.

But we do have to watch out for compassion fatigue, defined by psychologists as exhaustion on a physiological, biological and emotional level brought on by prolonged periods of stress. You may be feeling more tired than usual, or more forgetful, even burnt-out. Decisions become harder to make, your coping skills diminish, and life just feels too much.

So, here’s my question to you: How are you looking after yourself? Are you self-compassionate? Do you take time out to self-care and self-love? I know it sounds easier than it really is. I get that. It is hard to self-care when you are so busy caring for everyone else in your life. But you simply have to make yourself a priority too. If you falter and fall, you will not be there to look after the ones you love.

Apart from making time for chats with my friends, I self-care by taking long, warm baths. I exercise every day, take my daily vitamins and make sure that I’m always able to serve my family fresh vegetables and herbs from my garden. If things get really tough, I practice gratitude to remind myself just how special my world is.

Find someone to lean on if you need a helping hand… they will need to lean on you too at some point. Be kind and compassionate to yourself and remind yourself that you are doing the best you can.

Chartered client Ronelle Baker recently had her first Covid vaccine and had this to share.

If you are sixty and over and have registered on the Government vaccine site (https://vaccine.enroll.health.gov.za/#/) but have not received an “invite” to go for your vaccination, do not fret, just go to one of the many venues with your ID document and medical aid card (if you have one). You will be given the Pfizer vaccination. You will then, in about four weeks, be required to go back to the same venue for the second injection.

1. Esangweni CHC is the clinic in Tembisa, on Kenya Street – highly recommended; the staff are professional, friendly, willing and extremely helpful.
   It looks chaotic but is very well organised. It is at the clinic, not at the hospital.
2. Dischem Warehouse, Midrand. Reports indicate that the queues here are long but again very well organised, and they even have a coffee station.
3. Discovery Sandton – this venue is only accessible if you have had an invitation to attend at a specified time and if you are a Discovery member.

By the time this is published, residents in retirement villages will also be receiving their vaccinations on site.

Please note that these tips are given from my personal perspective and are not official tips, i.e. not government or medical aid sponsored.