
Why Head Trash Clearance is a Practice
02/04/20 • 15 min
To feel and perform at your best, I believe that head trash clearance and mindset should be a practice. But I realise that not everyone sees things in that way.
Once you get your head around the idea of head trash and that it’s something that you can clear quite easily, it’s easy to get excited about it. Well, it was for me. Noticing such huge differences in how I feel in such a small period of time is something that taps into my need for efficiency and my hate of wasting time.
Since I’ve been clearing head trash professionally I’ve worked with lots and lots of people, some of whom I’m still in touch with.
One of these people - let’s call him Alfie - was recently sharing about the emotional struggles he was having. Immediately my Head Trash Radar went into full alert. So I tentatively suggested that this might be a head trash situation and that doing some clearance might help.
To which Alfie replied “Well, I’ve done some head trash clearance already. You remember? We did some a couple of years back”.
And immediately I realised that I had not explained things clearly enough to him back then. So here goes....
Head trash clearance is a lot like exerciseIf you want to be get fit, then we all know that exercise and diet is a big part of that.
Now let’s imagine that a couple of years ago, you decided that you wanted to get fit. And, for about a month you went to the gym three times a week and did some serious juicing. At the time, you noticed a difference and you were really pleased with yourself. But the juicing and the exercise did not remain a part of your lifestyle.
So today, you find yourself thinking “hmmm I could really do with losing a bit of weigh and becoming healthier. I should probably get back to exercise and eating better”. You probably wouldn’t think “well, I exercised for a bit two years back, I’m not quite sure what to do now.”.
You wouldn’t would you?
It’s fairly obvious that the reason you’re out of shape now is BECAUSE you didn’t maintain the healthy activities.
The same goes for the mind and our emotional wellbeing. You can’t expect to be in good emotional health if you don’t undertake a regular practice.
Head trash clearance is like cutting sugar and fatHead trash clearance is like cutting the sugar and fat from your diet. It’s getting rid of the stuff you don’t need and that no longer serves you. This is the toxic emotional stuff that drags you down and makes you feel crap.
Now, as with exercise, this might need to start with a short period of intense activity. I call these Head Trash Clear-Outs and I LOVE doing them with people.
It’s a bit like hiring a personal trainer and a nutritionist for a month. You go all-in to make some epic in-roads. Then, like exercise, once you get to your ideal weight (or whatever the short term goal was), you take your foot off the pedal. But you don’t stop. You simply carry on at a more manageable pace that’s sustainable. When it fits around your life and feels effortless, it’s more likely to be maintained. The same goes for head trash clearance.
Why mindset should be a practiceOur mind and bodies are connected, so it makes sense that if we are striving to be healthy that we have a regular routine for our minds and our bodies. We wouldn't expect our body to be healthy without a consistent focus, and this is why a focus on mindset should be a practice too.
If you feel like you’re in a bit of a mess emotionally then you might want to start with a Head Trash Clear-Out. This will help you to get rid of those long-standing patterns that are triggering the the stress and anxiety in your life. With those out the way, you’ll feel calmer and you’ll probably notice that your confidence soars too.
Having a head trash clearance burst like that also means that clearing head trash will come second nature to you, so when you notice new stuff popping up, you can get it sorted. Not only will you be able to spot it before it causes you too much angst, but you’ll be able to get rid of it quickly. This means it’s less likely to have too much of an impact on your life.
What does a Head Trash Clearance practice look like?This will depend on where you're at emotionally and what’s going on in your life. And of course, how serious you take this aspect of your life. Just like exercise, there are some who get up everyday at 5am to spend an hour in the gym, and there are others who go for a short run 3 times a week.
Where this differs to exercise is when there is stuff happening in your life that you’re struggling with. Things like a new job, a relationship breakdown or moving house can easily ramp up anxiety and stress or highlight aspects of yourself that you’d previously been unaware of.
When I moved countries with the family, I hit so many new levels of fear and uncertainty that I needed crank up my head trash clearance quite a bit f...
To feel and perform at your best, I believe that head trash clearance and mindset should be a practice. But I realise that not everyone sees things in that way.
Once you get your head around the idea of head trash and that it’s something that you can clear quite easily, it’s easy to get excited about it. Well, it was for me. Noticing such huge differences in how I feel in such a small period of time is something that taps into my need for efficiency and my hate of wasting time.
Since I’ve been clearing head trash professionally I’ve worked with lots and lots of people, some of whom I’m still in touch with.
One of these people - let’s call him Alfie - was recently sharing about the emotional struggles he was having. Immediately my Head Trash Radar went into full alert. So I tentatively suggested that this might be a head trash situation and that doing some clearance might help.
To which Alfie replied “Well, I’ve done some head trash clearance already. You remember? We did some a couple of years back”.
And immediately I realised that I had not explained things clearly enough to him back then. So here goes....
Head trash clearance is a lot like exerciseIf you want to be get fit, then we all know that exercise and diet is a big part of that.
Now let’s imagine that a couple of years ago, you decided that you wanted to get fit. And, for about a month you went to the gym three times a week and did some serious juicing. At the time, you noticed a difference and you were really pleased with yourself. But the juicing and the exercise did not remain a part of your lifestyle.
So today, you find yourself thinking “hmmm I could really do with losing a bit of weigh and becoming healthier. I should probably get back to exercise and eating better”. You probably wouldn’t think “well, I exercised for a bit two years back, I’m not quite sure what to do now.”.
You wouldn’t would you?
It’s fairly obvious that the reason you’re out of shape now is BECAUSE you didn’t maintain the healthy activities.
The same goes for the mind and our emotional wellbeing. You can’t expect to be in good emotional health if you don’t undertake a regular practice.
Head trash clearance is like cutting sugar and fatHead trash clearance is like cutting the sugar and fat from your diet. It’s getting rid of the stuff you don’t need and that no longer serves you. This is the toxic emotional stuff that drags you down and makes you feel crap.
Now, as with exercise, this might need to start with a short period of intense activity. I call these Head Trash Clear-Outs and I LOVE doing them with people.
It’s a bit like hiring a personal trainer and a nutritionist for a month. You go all-in to make some epic in-roads. Then, like exercise, once you get to your ideal weight (or whatever the short term goal was), you take your foot off the pedal. But you don’t stop. You simply carry on at a more manageable pace that’s sustainable. When it fits around your life and feels effortless, it’s more likely to be maintained. The same goes for head trash clearance.
Why mindset should be a practiceOur mind and bodies are connected, so it makes sense that if we are striving to be healthy that we have a regular routine for our minds and our bodies. We wouldn't expect our body to be healthy without a consistent focus, and this is why a focus on mindset should be a practice too.
If you feel like you’re in a bit of a mess emotionally then you might want to start with a Head Trash Clear-Out. This will help you to get rid of those long-standing patterns that are triggering the the stress and anxiety in your life. With those out the way, you’ll feel calmer and you’ll probably notice that your confidence soars too.
Having a head trash clearance burst like that also means that clearing head trash will come second nature to you, so when you notice new stuff popping up, you can get it sorted. Not only will you be able to spot it before it causes you too much angst, but you’ll be able to get rid of it quickly. This means it’s less likely to have too much of an impact on your life.
What does a Head Trash Clearance practice look like?This will depend on where you're at emotionally and what’s going on in your life. And of course, how serious you take this aspect of your life. Just like exercise, there are some who get up everyday at 5am to spend an hour in the gym, and there are others who go for a short run 3 times a week.
Where this differs to exercise is when there is stuff happening in your life that you’re struggling with. Things like a new job, a relationship breakdown or moving house can easily ramp up anxiety and stress or highlight aspects of yourself that you’d previously been unaware of.
When I moved countries with the family, I hit so many new levels of fear and uncertainty that I needed crank up my head trash clearance quite a bit f...
Previous Episode

Mindfulness, Meditation & Clearance
On today’s show I’m chatting with Louise Hallam who is a mindfulness and meditation teacher. The reason I wanted to get Louise on the show is because Louise recently did some head trash clearance with me and I thought it would be useful to share her perspective on using meditation and head trash clearance, and how they can be best used side by side. Meditation and Head Trash Clearance We often hear how mindfulness and meditation is the answer to our problems if we want to reduce the stress and anxiety in our lives. And yes, they can help. But I think there are quicker ways of going about this. Personally, I wouldn't use mindfulness and meditation in that way. I think meditation is a powerful technique that is brilliant for giving you the space to connect to your intuition, to create space for mental and emotional processing, and for being guided in our lives. But, I believe that there are quicker ways to reduce stress and anxiety. And using the head trash clearance method is one such way. I talk about combining meditation and head trash clearance in my book, but I think it’s always worth getting a second opinion on these matters because I don't for one minute believe that I have the final word on this. This is why I wanted to dive into this with Louise. As a mindfulness and meditation teacher, who has now experienced an intense period of head trash clearance, I thought she would be the perfect person to challenge me and put me right (if indeed I needed to be put right!). Those of you who do mindfulness and meditation will be interested in Louise’s experience of doing both meditation and head trash clearance and how she uses them to help her to become a better version of herself. Building Confidence But this conversation isn’t only about that. We also talk about the how head trash clearance helped Louise to build up her confidence. By exploring those aspects of herself that were sapping her confidence we were able to clear them away which created the space for her confidence to step forward. Connecting to her authentic self Getting rid of the fears and doubts also created the space for Louise's authentic self to emerge. No longer trying to fit in with people's expectations of her, or from feeling hemmed in from her fears, Louise is now much more accepting of who she is and is happy to own that. A healed introvert? Louise, a self-confessed introvert used to find it hard to go out networking. It was exhausting for her. She would worry about not being taken seriously and saying something silly. This was holding her back in her business. During our chat, Louise shares how within weeks, she was organising her own networking event with over 100 people interested in attending and how now she has no problems going out meeting new people and putting herself out there. Her networking event is now a regular feature in her local business community. Podcast Transcript
To access the transcript for this podcast episode, head over here.
About LouiseLouise has a background in leadership learning and development and is able to provide a bridge between the corporate world and a holistic approach to employee wellbeing. Her employee wellbeing work has included Volvo and recently CTG, an aerospace company in Banbury and an automotive electronics company in Warwick. She also works with individuals, groups and charities and is passionate about making mindfulness and meditation accessible to everyone.
Louise has been practising mindfulness and meditation for over 10 years and started Still Calm after seeing that the benefits were not only relevant for her own circumstances, but a whole range of factors that people are facing in the modern world. We live in a time when we can be stimulated by information 24 hours a day and more is expected of us in the workplace. Mindfulness is becoming an essential, rather than an optional tool for running anyone who looks after their wellbeing and forward thinking company. With benefits including increased productivity, performance, innovation, building resilience, communication and managing stress, Louise is able to see the synergy between making mindfulness adaptable for employers as well as the wellbeing of employees.
Louise is committed to developing her own practice and continues to practise mindfulness and meditation on a daily basis and attend regular training and CPD events to update her teaching and knowledge.
Louise is also pleased to be a Meditation Teacher accredited with the British School of Meditation.
You can find Louise at her website StillCalm, on Twitter and on Faceb...
Next Episode

Parent and baby mental health
Parent and baby mental health are not discussed enough in my opinion. And yet they are incredibly important not just for the families involved, but for society.
One of the reasons why I’m so passionate about helping women to build their emotional resilience during pregnancy is that it’s powerful place to start if you want to support the mental health of the whole family. The ripple effects of a positive birth experience for the mother go far beyond the mother; they affect the baby, the partner and the whole family.
That’s not to say that a positive birth experience will guarantee that all will be well. Absolutely not. It simply stacks the odds in your favour.
So what else can we do to support parent and baby mental health?
This is something I wanted to find out. So this is why I’m speaking to today’s podcast guest, Selma Bacevac. Selma is a psychotherapist who specialises in working with infants and toddlers who have been hurt through trauma in their early childhood. Her work involves working with all members of the family to help to improve the mental health of the child. So she seems a great person to help us all better understand parent and baby mental health.
What is baby mental health?Baby mental health, or infant mental health, as it's called in the professional world, is essentially ensuring that every single baby out there has the capacity to learn social and emotional skills in a safe, secure and well connected environment with a caregiver who is consistently present.
During our chat, Selma talks about
- Some of the signs that something might be amiss with a baby’s mental health
- The direct link between a mother’s mental health and that of her baby
- The importance of pregnancy and the in-utero experience
- Why women who are planning pregnancy or pregnant should seek mental health support
- The important role of the partner in maternal and infant mental health
- Improving baby mental health starts with the parents and them working on their own emotional health
- How our parenting style will come from the way that we were parented
- How being aware of our own head trash, and dealing with it, can be crucial part of the process
- Why parenting books aren’t the answer to being a better parent.... And what is!
This is an important conversation that I urge you to listen to, especially if you’re not yet a parent. Preparing for parenthood starts much earlier than you think!
About SelmaSelma Bacevac, MA is an entrepreneur, mum, international consultant and promoter of baby mental health. She is an expert on how attachment related problems and developmental trauma affect infants and toddlers. She provides webinars, workshops and online training to parents and professionals who are wanting more information on this specific topic. Selma is also the host of Raising Baby, a podcast devoted to helping parents and professionals understand the world from the babies perspective. Selma is a mom, a wife and in her free time enjoys the beach, biking, and more recently kayaking.
IG: @selma_parentchildrelationships,
Selma's website: www.parentchildrelationshipinstitute.com Selma's podcast: Raising Baby with Selma Bacevac Facebook https://www.facebook.com/parentchildrelationshipinstitute/
Podcast TranscriptFor a full transcript of the podcast head over here.
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