Clutter-Clearing and Your Authentic Self

**AmyBoz** · 12-09-2005, 02:18 PM

by Stephanie Roberts

Have you ever felt so discouraged, your life so out-of-control, the universe so unresponsive to your needs and desires, that you couldn't help it: you just had to clean up? By paying attention to these impulses we recognize the deep connection between our personal environment and our innermost selves. It's as though by shifting the arrangement of our belongings we hope to rearrange the molecules of our emotional lives as well.

Feng shui teaches us that our spaces both reflect and affect our physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. When our homes become cluttered and disordered, other aspects of our lives tend to feel gridlocked as well. It's a chicken-and-egg kind of situation. Not only does a cluttered home reflect a distracted and cluttered mind, it also makes it hard to focus and think clearly. It gets easier and easier to stop making the item-by-item decisions that could put you back in control of the mess and help you to feel more in control of your life.

Eventually, we give up. The task seems overwhelming, and the clutter is so pervasive that we can't figure out where to begin. We slog through our days thinking "someday when I have the time I've got to clean this up." Clutter clearing becomes an abstract goal that awaits a mythical future time when our calendars will be free of obligations, we will awaken one weekend morning well-rested and energized, and mysteriously through some unseen grace we will have acquired the focused clarity and enthusiasm that will finally inspire us to dive in and get it done. We wait for the moment to be right before we begin, so beginning never happens.

We're approaching the clutter challenge backwards when we think this way. Regaining a sense of clarity and order is more easily achieved by putting our space in order than by trying to order and control our thoughts in a disorganized space. Clutter saps your energy and erodes your spirit.

Clutter makes it difficult to get things done, enjoy peace and quiet, or spend time the way you really want to. It adds to your stress, slows you down and drains your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual strength. Clutter is disempowering.

In feng shui terms, clutter is both a symptom and a cause of stuck energy. Opening the dictionary we see that "clutter" derives from the Old English word "clott", which means: "to cause to become blocked or obscured." Like a blood clot blocking circulation in our veins, clutter prevents energy from circulating through our homes and our lives.

As a feng shui consultant, I have worked with many clients who complain of feeling creatively or professionally blocked, or who bemoan the lack of sense of purpose or direction in life. What I usually find in their homes are lots of things that don't reflect their personality or future aspirations. These people are surrounded by objects that have been allowed to wander in unchecked at the door or that linger on the shelf long after the relevant stage of life is past.

On an energetic level, all this stuff is preventing a clear vision of self. Anything that is neglected, unwanted, or unappealing to you will drag your energy down every time you look at it. Even a beautiful object of great value does nothing for you or your home if you don't like it. This is why we include "anything that you do not love" in a holistic definition of clutter.

Everything that surrounds you should be working for you in some way. If the things in your space are not supporting you and contributing to the positive quality of your life, it is time to do something about it!

The defeat, fatigue, and depression that you feel when you think about your clutter will start to evaporate as soon as you put yourself in action. The hard part is getting started, but once you do the magic will begin.

Clutter-clearing creates space for us to discover our true path in life and to define who we want to become. With this new vision we can consciously choose to surround ourselves with objects and imagery that reflect and support our authentic concept of self.

© 2003 Stephanie Roberts

**Hardy1** · 12-10-2005, 02:13 PM

Thanks for posting this. When my parents died (over 10 yrs ago) I filled my house with their stuff. I not only had furniture, ornaments, pots, pans, crockery from my own marriage (which was going down hill) but also theirs. I couldn't throw it out as they had gone and it was all I had left of them. It also contained memories of my childhood. Well, I have realised that memories are not made up of their 'stuff' and have managed to pass most of it on (to junk, charity, other folks depending on items and condition). I've since divorced, moved to my own house, found a true sweetheart and remarried. But I still feel trapped by a lot of my clutter. i have been decluttering through the flylady programme for a few weeks and that has really helped. In meditation though, I imagine a very sparsely furnished cottage and find that so peaceful. Any tips on managing to get stuck into my next stage of decluttering my life? My 'baby' (aged 19, lol) has gone off back to Scotland to uni, so 'my' two are at uni in scotland, while I live in England with DH (not their dad) and have my step sons aged 11 and 14 at weekends. Am I holding onto the past bcause I'm going through another transition with son moving away?
Thanks for any advice folks

W

**canadian gardener** · 12-10-2005, 04:48 PM

Emotional stuff is the hardest of all to deal with. I've had a tough time letting go things that I really don't want, yet they belonged to a loved one who is now dead.

it's like the funeral all over again. If I let go, it's like I'm letting go the person, with this little tangible bit of evidence that they existed, and that they loved me.

That is what is hard.

But I've found once I realize that I can let go the stuff that makes me sad, or doesn't fit my life, because at the same time, I am concentrating on remembering my mother or my grandparent's or my mil's love for me, and reminding myself of the "keepers" that I am choosing to keep as a remembrance.

For example I keep my mother's bibles (2 of them, and occaisionally use them but mostly they are just there, comforting me by their presence).

I have some things my mil gave me that still work in my life, so I keep them, while letting go the stuff that was worn out, doesn't fit etc.

Books that grandparents gave me, some I keep others I don't.

It's a long hard process of grief work and letting go.

I think it helps to concentrate on other ways to honour their memory in your life.

One day here I am going to cut up the smocked dresses my mother made my sister and I and have representative samples of her smocking framed properly under glass. Then I can let go the dresses.

It's not like a TV show declutter episode where the host comes in and sorts it all out with the client. These aren't garden variety clutter.

Another thing is DO WHAT YOU CAN and pack up what you can't deal with.

So garden variety clutter-- let it go, and box up the emotional withdrawal clutter (like my smocked dresses that mum made) and let it sit till you can face it.

Emotional withdrawal boxes work well if you don't overuse them, and call everything emotional withdrawal.

It just means that when you are on a dejunking roll, you can keep moving and not get stuck and weepy over a pair of smocked dresses and all the memories they hold.

BIGGEST HUGS HONEY!!!!!

**canadian gardener** · 12-10-2005, 04:53 PM

Another form of emotion is the

well I used to like sewing (or knitting or canning or gardening) or whatever it was that you loved once, and it was a label that you and others used to describe you.

But when we move thru life we change, and sometimes the old labels don't fit.

It's ok to say I was a wonderful baker or seamstress or gardener (fill in blank)

but I don't do that anymore. I want to go on to do (fill in the blank) and try (fill in more blank)

Lives are constantly changing. Our clutter is a direct reflection of that fact.

When we got it, it wasn't clutter, but now that life has changed us, it is.

It's ok to let it go, to bless someone else and say "I did it well, but it's done for me now" and move on.

The worst is hanging onto these things hoping that somehow we will be creative in that way again.

The stuff becomes junk now, and it blocks our future creativity.

Letting go is like bursting a dam, it lets loose a flood tide of energy and creativity ready to attack life with joyous abandon again.

**Hardy1** · 12-11-2005, 01:40 PM

Thanks for your posts. I feel a bit weepy today so maybe it is all just stuff shifting about. I feel a bit overwhelmed with it all and have been feeling sad at the loss of my parents. I haven't felt this sad about them for years and I'm sure it's tied in with my son leaving home. I will tackle the clutter that I can manage now and deal with it kind of as and when.
Thanks
W

**canadian gardener** · 12-11-2005, 06:58 PM

Don't tackle it too soon. It's ok to box stuff like that up for later. That is what emotional withdrawal is all about.

That and doing the grieving when it comes up, because grief isn't something you can schedule. It arrives like an unwanted drop in guest and leaves when it's ready. Best to just cry and remember the good times all together. Patch the holes in your heart with the good memories. It won't fix the sadness but it helps you cope.

Big hugs.

If it helps, this is the toughest dejunking there is. Get thru this grief dejunking, and old spices and old clothes are like the easiest stuff on earth.

**Hardy1** · 12-12-2005, 02:10 PM

Thanks Margery, for your kind reply. I had thought that grieving was over but now I can see that things can stir it up again. Yes, I'm sad, but I can also remember the happy times and as you say, i will patch myself up with these memories. Also, I'm not going to declutter until after Christmas and New Year. I will concentrate on little pamper things for myself and a general tidy up to keep everything looking reasonably neat. My DH comes home tomorrow and doesn't go away again with work for a month so that's good.
Thanks again
W x

**canadian gardener** · 12-12-2005, 05:41 PM

Now that sounds like a plan that will feed your spirit, and get you ready to tackle it in the New year.

You know sometimes we have to gear up to these things with a few warm up rounds.

I've gone thru the do I toss? do I keep? with emotional withdrawal items sometimes over and over with the same thing before making a final decision.

it kind of helps to "meet" the object, do some greiving, put it back for later, then meet up with it again a few more times, same result before finally letting it go.

it's kind of like warming up to lifting a heavy weight.

Each time I do it, I get closer to letting go.

Each time I came closer to letting go, I'm telling myself I don"t need it, and won't miss it.

Each time I come closer to letting go, I'm finishing the grief work involved

till the day I pop over the top and get rid of it, or decide it's a permanent thing and I need it but not out front on display.

**canadian gardener** · 12-12-2005, 05:48 PM

don't let someone else tell you what is junk and what isn't.

If one of the pro's came in, say Helen Buttagieg from that declutter show, she might look at my mum's tattered old recipe notebook and binder or her old worn Bibles and say CLUTTER!!!

But it isn't. I need those things and one bottle of her perfume in my house to hang onto a tangible bit of her presence.

They are most certainly NOT clutter, and furthermore, they are really important to my emotional wellbeing.

Kind of like an old teddy bear.

Those things might look like junk to the world, but they are anything but.

So if they offend the eye, or cause me to grieve more by seeing them out (they don't, but the recipe stuff is really messy and lives in a ziplock bag so nothing falls out)

then put them in hidden storage along with other visual clutter like DVD's or CDs or paperback books.

**Hardy1** · 12-14-2005, 03:18 PM

Yes, I can understand the recipe book. My mum wasn't one for keeping recipes but I have a few hand written ones from my Granny who lived with us when I was young. they are very precious. After New Year, I will venture into the loft and see what I can go through. There is certainly less than there was a few years ago, it's just that I haven't done any for a while.

In the meantime I'm having baths with home made bath milk, shaving my legs with hair conditioner (works a treat!) and doing other things I've read about.

I'm coming up to end of term and am looking forward to a 2 week break frm students - I'm sure they are also looking forward to a 2 week break from me!
W