Fuck diet culture. There are so many better ways you can cleanse your life & start the New Year with a fresh start that has nothing to do with dieting or shrinking your body. This year, don’t pull out your waller & let that toxic shapewear and diet food brands starve. Instead cleanse your life in actually positive ways.
1. Delete Subscriptions You No Longer Need
The subscription model is so dang popular right now and it’s really easy to forget about all the things you have on auto-renew. Take time to go through your credit card statements from the past year to remind yourself of all the subscriptions and services you signed up for and slash anything that you actually don’t need anymore. These can be:
- Streaming services (Acorn, HBO, Disney+, etc)
- Spotify or Audible
- Meal kits & food (HelloFresh, SnapKitchen, Daily Harvest, etc)
- Beauty (Myro, Billie, FitFabFun)
- Wellness (Ritual vitamins, ashwagandha orders, etc)
- Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc)
- Business tools (Tailwind, Quickbooks, Planoly, Zubtile, etc)
- Apple Cloud storage
- Sirus AM Radio
- Clothing subscriptions (Rent The Runway, etc)
- Premium Memberships (wine.com, Amazon Prime, etc)
I feel like this list could go on and on, but this is a good starting off point. I’m not suggesting you slash and burn everything (I love my Spotify premium!) but there is probably a subscription or two in there that you aren’t using to its full potential. Cleanse yourself of that excess spending!
2. Undownload Podcast Episodes, Playlist & Apps
This is one I struggle with a lot. I download podcasts and playlists all the time, but never actually remember to undownload them once I finished listening. Right now I have over 10GB of media to remove from my Spotify downloads. YIKES! Let’s both take time this week to go through and delete all the songs, podcasts, audiobooks we already listened to & cleanse our phone storage space. This includes apps you never use!
3. Toss Out Expired Makeup
Yes, makeup does expire!! It can literally go rancid and is so not something you want to put on your face. I’m a little ashamed to admit I didn’t know this until my mid-twenties and was instantly grossed out that I still had lipstick from my early college days in my makeup drawer. Every brand & product expires at different rates but here’s an estimated timeline:
- Mascara: 6 months
- Nail polish: 2-3 years
- Lipstick: 3 years
- Foundation: 1 year
- Liquid Eyeliner: 6 months
- Facial Moisturizer: 1.5 years
4. Trash Expired Food
I’m talking about that can of soup in the back of your pantry that’s been there since Obama was still President. That gluten-free flour you bought just for fun, used once and is now still opened and untouched. And even those Thanksgiving turkey leftovers in the back of your fridge. Toss it all out!! Your kitchen will literally be so much fresher after.
5. Do A Deep Clean On Your House
I LOVE our semi-annual deep cleans. They’re a pain and usually take us at least 2 solid days of cleaning and organizing, but hot dang, I always feel lighter and happier when I’m left with a decluttered apartment. This year it felt extra great – like I was literally washing away 2020 bad vibes and riding my home of all the depression room junk & grim that built over the course of quarantine life.
I have the privilege of being able to take a whole weekend to dedicate to cleaning at once. But not everyone can (work, kids, etc.) So at the very least, set aside one day a week for the whole month to tackle a single room. That’s a great place to start your literal cleanse!
6. Deep Clean Your Car
I am SO bad at just leaving shit in our car. Hats, waterbottles, coats, sunglasses. Combined with my husband’s habit of buying candy while grocery shopping and eating it all before he gets home & hiding the wrapper under car seats (he thinkgs I don’t know lol) our car is just gross AF. And I can’t be the only one!
7. Smudge Your Space
Lastly, you can smudge your home to cleanse it of negative energy. I like these lavender sage smudge sticks from Araceli Farms (my favorite local lavender farm that’s WOC owned!) If you’re new to smuding, a great first mantra to hold in your heart as you smudge is “let hate out and love in.”
