What is Clean up?

I like to think of myself as a yogi, and I also spent a long time reading Ken Wilber before I moved into the ashram. His Integral work describes three kinds of growth that most traditions keep apart. I adapted them for myself and called the whole thing Responsibilism, because responsibility kept turning up as the thing that makes every other practice work. It's my own arrangement, inspired by Wilber and filled in with yoga. Today, let's cover the first step of Responsibilism, Clean up.

Most of us assume that self-improvement starts with adding something, like a new routine or a new app. It usually starts with taking something away.

Self-improvement starts by taking something out.

Clean up is the psychological work of clearing what's in the way. It covers what you eat and when, fasting, the yogic cleansing practices, and shadow work (looking at the parts of yourself you'd rather not). It also covers writing honestly about your past and your future, and things like cold showers and breathing exercises. The idea is to remove what's in the way before you try to build on top of it.

This is mentioned in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. His eight limbs begin with yama and niyama (the restraints and observances), and posture only comes third (Yoga Sutra 2.29). Swami Sivananda's Twenty Spiritual Instructions work in a similar way. They begin with getting up at four in the morning, and many of the rest are about clearing things out, like eating simple food and fasting on Ekadasi. Both of them ask you to clear things out before you build anything.

There is research that supports this order. In a well-known 2010 study of 96 volunteers, it took a median of 66 days for a new behaviour to feel automatic, among the 39 people whose data fitted the model. Individual times ranged from 18 to 254 days [1]. That is a long time to carry a new habit while the old leaks are still open. I think clearing helps here, because a cleared day has fewer things competing for the same hour.

The other two steps wait for this one.

If you read my daily posts this month, most of them were about Clean up, even though I didn't call it that. They covered things like why you procrastinate, why willpower runs out, the bedtime routine and how to fast. I have found that when Clean up is neglected, the other two steps don't get a chance. I can sit for twenty minutes, but if dinner was at ten, the sit turns into a nap with good posture.

This week, my own Clean up practice is three rounds of Kapalabhati (a rapid cleansing breath) or Wim Hof breathing, before anything else in the day.

If you'd like to write yours down, here is the one-page sheet, Where am I starting from? The first line is for Clean up. If you're not sure what to put there, write down the thing you'd be embarrassed to admit you still do.

If you can't find anything to add today, the better idea is to take one thing out.

Sources

1. Lally et al. (2010), European Journal of Social Psychology 40(6), 998 to 1009; plain reading at thebehavioralscientist.com/articles/how-long-to-form-a-habit

Back: Day 19, Is my self my friend or my enemy? Tomorrow, Day 21, What is Wake up?

If this helped, subscribe to Yogic Productivity on Substack, where the Sunday post arrives by email. And if you'd like a pen friend for the clean-up part, an Explorative Letter is where I'd start.