SpaceClear Reflections

It’s Only Weather

Posted on07. Sep, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

“You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.” –Pema Chodron
I often use the metaphor of the weather to teach a key principle of letting go I call spacious detachment. It tickled me to see it being used in the very same way by a world-renown Buddhist teacher.
Enjoy this beauty of a message:

How to [...]

Continue Reading

Let There Be Light

Posted on03. Sep, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

Guess which window was the first to get cleaned today after an embarrassingly long period of time (read: years)…?
Imagine how much more of the world might be available to us with a little bit of loving up (and elbow grease). I’m thinking I should change my tagline to: “Clearing a path to your true nature–one window [...]

Continue Reading

Praise for Your Spacious Self

Posted on06. Aug, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

I love pleasant surprises.  I got a really nice one the other day in the form of an unsolicited review for my book.
This one is by someone named Austin S. on Goodreads. I don’t know who Austin is, but I’m grateful for the time he took to write about my book, and what it has [...]

Continue Reading

Managing the Mountain of Mail (or Whatever Burdens You)

Posted on30. Jul, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

Another good question came the other day:
I am following your practice of clearing one item each day. My question for you is what about the stuff that comes into your home- like mail? I can never seem to get through it and it piles up – then if I clear only one thing, a [...]

Continue Reading

When in Rome

Posted on27. Jul, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

“Respond to every call that excites your spirit.” -Rumi
I just returned from a glorious two-weeks in France and Italy, compliments of dear friends who invited us, and many frequent-flyer miles that were just waiting to be used.
Less than three weeks ago, this trip was not even in our dreams as a possibility.
The ease with which [...]

Continue Reading

One-Minute Clearing Practice

Posted on16. Jul, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

Try this experiment: Watch the 3-minute video below and see if adopting a simple daily practice in home tending doesn’t help bring new energy into your home and  life.
Even better: Set an intention before you begin your one-minute practice and repeat the exercise every day for a week. See if it doesn’t lead to creating new openings in [...]

Continue Reading

Clearing the Residue of Previous Occupants

Posted on06. Jul, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

How many times have you gone into a big warehouse store feeling just fine and come out totally depleted? Or, maybe you’re standing in the checkout line of your supermarket and suddenly feel a wave of emotion, like depression, worry about money, anxiety—something you weren’t feeling before? Perhaps you walk into a room and feel [...]

Continue Reading

Homes are Like Us (They Respond Well to Love)

Posted on29. Jun, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

When I read the Preface to a wonderful little book called Being Home by Gunilla Norris, I realized that my love of doing repetitive housekeeping tasks, like washing the dishes or putting away the same things in the same places every day, wasn’t me just being a hopeless anal-compulsive as I might have believed (and [...]

Continue Reading

Listening to the Nudges

Posted on22. Jun, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

“Respond to every call that excites your spirit” -Rumi
You’ve probably seen my emails or notices about a contest I’ve entered.
The opportunity to participate was announced last February several times, which I dismissed several times. Felt too gimmicky. Besides, after three years of doggedly doing everything I could to get my book noticed, I felt [...]

Continue Reading

Secret to Clearing Anything

Posted on18. Jun, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

“We can only clear to the degree that we are willing to feel our feelings.” –sbv
If you took a workshop with me, you ‘d learn that to clear anything – from a messy desktop to the disturbing influences of an ecological disaster – you would have to enter a sometimes scary zone called feeling.
This [...]

Continue Reading

Going with the Flow

Posted on11. Jun, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

“Nothing that you want is upstream….The stream of well-being is a powerful stream… When your stream is moving fast, and you’re not flowing with it, it’s beating you up, and it makes you grumpy…” –Abraham-Hicks
This video speaks for itself. One of the best… simple… amazing… teachings – delivered in less than 10 minutes!
Here’s to experiencing more flow [...]

Continue Reading

Living the Answers

Posted on25. May, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

This is the last in a series of posts on reinventing ourselves,* excerpted from Your Spacious Self. Enjoy!
Quitting the career and job that defined me for two decades detailed in the last three posts* led to a long period of fumbling in a foggy netherworld I call not knowing. I still find myself visiting that [...]

Continue Reading

Coming Clear: Confessions of a Packrat

Posted on11. May, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

“I want to shed my waste with quiet reverence like the pine…
Keep me mindful of what I take into my home, the items brought to substitute
for real living…Help me slowly to surrender all excess.”
–Gunilla Norris, Being Home
I’m a packrat.
There, I said it.
Yes, squirreled away in the dark recesses of my house I still have boxes [...]

Continue Reading

Extreme Clearing vs. The Slow-Drip Effect

Posted on02. Apr, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

“Change happens slowly, then all at once.” – Unknown
Thanks to Mother Nature and major flooding in our area, we got a head start clearing the junk in our basement this year. Not easy. Not pretty. Not ideal. This form of “extreme clearing” is not worth waiting (or hoping) for. It’s too consuming and jangly.
I favor the [...]

Continue Reading

The Grace in Gathering

Posted on30. Mar, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.” – Anne Lamott
It’s springtime: A return to my rituals of gathering.
Gathering clothes I no longer love (or can wear) to take to the Goodwill. Gathering and tossing the growing [...]

Continue Reading

Farewell, Fridge

Posted on23. Mar, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

Our beloved refrigerator leaves us today. I can hear her humming away in the other room – as she has for 25 years – oblivious to her fate. It’s like we’re putting her down.
We bought our Hotpoint side-by-side* in 1985, the year we were married. Back then her creamy nubbliness and the wood-panel stripe harmonized [...]

Continue Reading

It’s Amazing

Posted on19. Mar, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

What is one song that is certain to lift your spirits?  Change your mood in less than one minute? Give you goosebumps?
I have two.
1.  “Golden” by Jill Scott. Not only do I feel uplifted by her deep, resonant, powerful voice, but expanded in a very spacious way. She’s such a goddess when she sings it. [...]

Continue Reading