This book is intended for educational purposes and not as a guide for the diagnosis and/or treatment of any physical or psychiatric illness. Any reader needing such guidance is advised to seek the help of a licensed healthcare professional.
Copyright © 1998, 2008, 2013 by Karen Kingston
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Harmony Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
Harmony Books is a registered trademark, and the Circle colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
Previous editions published in Great Britain by Piatkus, an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group, London, in 1998, 2008, and 2013. An earlier edition published in the United States by Broadway Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, in 1999.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 9781101906583
eBook ISBN 9781101906590
Cover design by Jenny Carrow
Title page art © by Rudyard Mace/Veer
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
About the Author
Introduction
Part 1: Understanding Clutter
Chapter 1: Feng What?
Chapter 2: The Problem with Clutter
Chapter 3: The Effectiveness of Clutter Clearing
Chapter 4: What Is Clutter Exactly?
Chapter 5: How Clutter Affects You
Chapter 6: So Why Do People Keep Clutter?
Chapter 7: Letting Go
Part 2: Identifying Clutter
Chapter 8: Clutter and the Feng Shui Bagua
Chapter 9: Clutter Zones in Your Home
Chapter 10: Collections
Chapter 11: Paper Clutter
Chapter 12: Miscellaneous Clutter
Chapter 13: The Big Stuff
Chapter 14: Other People’s Clutter
Chapter 15: Clutter and Feng Shui Symbology
Part 3: Clearing Clutter
Chapter 16: How to Clear Your Clutter
Chapter 17: Time Clutter
Chapter 18: Staying Clutter-Free
Chapter 19: Changing Standpoint
Chapter 20: Clutter Clearing Your Body
Chapter 21: Clearing Mental Clutter
Chapter 22: Clearing Emotional Clutter
Chapter 23: Clearing Spiritual Clutter
What Next?
More Help
Resources
Also by Karen Kingston
Bibliography and Recommended Reading
About the Author
KAREN KINGSTON is acknowledged as the world’s leading authority on the feng shui art of space clearing, and a leading expert in the field of clutter clearing. Her books and workshops have changed a whole generation’s approach to clutter and the energy of spaces.
First published in 1998, Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui immediately became an international bestseller, establishing it as a classic in its field. It has spawned dozens of similar books, tens of thousands of articles and blogs, and a host of TV and radio programs in many countries, all addressing the issue of clearing clutter.
Karen teaches online clutter clearing courses, conducts private consultations, leads professional training programs, and is an active blogger with a worldwide following.
Born in England, she lived in Bali for twenty years until 2010. She’s now happily back in England, where she lives with her Australian-born husband, Richard Sebok, who is also a clutter clearing and space clearing teacher and practitioner.
Introduction
After my first book, Creating Sacred Space with Feng Shui, was published in 1996, readers’ responses poured in, telling me how much they enjoyed it and what great results they were getting from using the information in it. And one chapter in particular generated more letters, faxes, phone calls, and emails than any other—the one entitled “Clearing Clutter.” It seems that everyone has some!
It was therefore a natural progression to write an entire book on the subject in 1998, and being mindful of the nature of the topic, my publishers and I agreed to make it a small-trim paperback so as not to increase anyone’s clutter quotient too much by purchasing it.
In 2008, I completely revised the book to include many clarifications and updates, several completely new sections, and a new chapter about one of the most challenging types of clutter confronting people today—time clutter. Like the original version, the second edition was translated into many languages and sold well all over the world.
This third edition includes yet more updates and another new chapter that make the content of the book really complete. It’s called “Changing Standpoint.”
HAPPY CLUTTER CLEARING!
Karen Kingston
I once met a woman who set off traveling around the planet with little more in her pocket than the ticket to her first destination. But she had one extraordinary skill—the ability to read palms—and no matter where she went, she was never short of a place to sleep or food to eat. She would pick a local restaurant or hotel, meet the manager, and offer to do palm readings for guests in return for food, shelter, or a small wage. When I met her she had been doing this for three years, had already visited more than a dozen countries, and was having the time of her life.
I have found that feng shui has this same universal appeal. When people discover how much their home can affect them, for better or for worse, they are usually fascinated to learn more.
FENG SHUI
The rising popularity of feng shui has been extraordinary. I first discovered a passion for working with energy in buildings in the late 1970s, and by 1993 had developed my knowledge and skills to the level at which I was ready to teach publicly. Back then when I told people what I did for a living, their common response was a puzzled look and a “Feng WHAT?” Now they generally nod wisely, and the conversation simply glides on. Just about everyone has heard something about it these days.
Feng shui is the art of balancing and harmonizing the flow of natural energies in our surroundings to create beneficial effects in our lives. These natural energy flows were well known and understood by the ancients, and knowledge of them still exists in some cultures today.
In Bali, for example, the people still live in total harmony with both the seen physical world and the unseen energy world. Daily offerings at hundreds of thousands of household shrines throughout the land and an endless procession of indescribably beautiful and very highly evolved ceremonies in the island’s twenty thousand communal temples ensure that balance and harmony are maintained. This, to me, is feng shui at its best—not just a set of principles applied to an individual building for a specific result, but a whole island of three million people in tune with the sacredness of the land and incorporating feng shui as a complete way of life. Materialism is starting to noticeably weaken the fabric of Bali’s spiritual culture to the extent that it will surely not survive beyond another generation or two, but at the time of writing there is still much of this to see and experience if you visit the island.
MY APPROACH TO F
ENG SHUI
My own approach to feng shui is quite different from that of other practitioners because I work directly with the energy of each space. I have a highly developed ability to see, hear, smell, taste, and sense energy, so to begin a consultation the first thing I do is to go around the entire inside perimeter of the building, taking an energy reading with my hands. The history of events is recorded in the walls and furniture in the form of subtle etheric and astral imprints, and through reading and interpreting these I can detect everything of significance that has ever happened there. Traumatic or repetitive events are the most deeply embedded and have a correspondingly greater effect on present-day occupants. I am also able to find areas where the energy in the building has become stagnant and discover what needs to be done to improve its flow.
Whenever I come across clutter, its energy field is unmistakable. It presents an obstacle to the flow of energy and has an unpleasant, sticky, unclean feel to it, like moving my hands through unseen cobwebs. This is what first made me realize that clutter causes problems in people’s lives. It also has a distinctive musty, pervasive odor that I can smell if I walk into someone’s home, even if the clutter is hidden from sight. Actually, if I tune in, I can also smell it in a person’s energy field around their body if they stand near me, because they become imbued with the smell of it. But don’t worry about this if you ever meet me in person—there is so much clutter in the world that I don’t tune in all the time!
The good news is that after clearing clutter, this unwholesome, stagnant energy and accompanying odor quickly disappear.
THE FENG SHUI BAGUA
One of the most interesting aspects of feng shui, and one that I will be exploring in this book, is the feng shui “bagua” grid (see chapter 8 for a simplified diagram and further information). This can be used to determine where each aspect of your life is located in any building you occupy.
For example, there is an area of your home to do with Prosperity (you can find out later in this book exactly where it is). Many people read about feng shui or attend a workshop on the subject, get very excited about it, and then rush to put it into practice without realizing they need to clear their clutter first. They hear they can hang a mirror in their Prosperity corner to attract more wealth. But what if that area is cluttered with junk? Sadly, putting a mirror where there is clutter is more likely to double their financial problems than resolve them.
This book focuses on just this one aspect of feng shui—clearing clutter—which is so vital to its successful application. It is the first book ever to explore this subject in depth in this context, and is intended as an ideal starter for those new to feng shui as well as an invaluable tool for those who have studied it for a while.
Throughout this book I refer mostly to applying the information around your home, but of course it can be used equally effectively in your workplace and any other building you occupy.
SPACE CLEARING
This is the term I coined many years ago to describe the branch of feng shui that I pioneered and have become best known for. It is the art of clearing and revitalizing energies in buildings, and is primarily what my first book, Creating Sacred Space with Feng Shui, was about. Since the publication of that book, space clearing has become a generic name for all kinds of energy-clearing techniques. However, the specific ceremony I developed is the only one whose effectiveness I can guarantee and is the only type of space clearing I refer to in this book.
For your life to work well, it is vital to have a good flow of life force energy or chi in your home and workplace. Feng shui teaches many ways to improve this energy flow, and space clearing is one of the most effective. It is a simple yet powerful ceremony to clear the stuck energies that accumulate in buildings over time and cause you to feel stuck in your life. The results are impressive, and many people choose to make it part of their regular building maintenance program so that the space is energetically as well as physically clean and clear. All buildings, no matter how well designed, benefit from having this done regularly, and feng shui always works better and faster when done in conjunction with space clearing.
In relation to clutter clearing, the three main causes of stuck energy that space clearing addresses are:
⬦ Physical grime
⬦ Astral imprints
⬦ Stagnant energies
Physical grime—By this I mean all types of dirt, dust, filth, and grunge. Low-level energy always accumulates around dirt; hence the old adage, “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” A good cleanup is an essential part of space clearing.
Astral imprints—Everything that happens in a building is recorded in the walls, floors, furniture, and objects in the space in the form of astral imprints. They build up in layers in much the same way that grime does, except that we cannot see them, and they affect us in profound ways. For example, if you move into a home in which the previous occupants were happily married, it is likely that you, too, will find marital bliss there. On the other hand, if the previous occupants were unhappy, got divorced, got sick, went bankrupt, put on weight, or any of a million other things, those remain in the building and will generally cause history to repeat itself (known in feng shui terminology as the effect of predecessor energy). Imprints of your own experiences and anyone who shares the home with you will also form layers on top of the historical ones, causing any tough times you’ve had there to continue to affect you. Depending on the skill of the person doing the space clearing, some or all of these layers of imprints can be cleared to give you a fresh start.
Stagnant energies—Any kind of clutter creates an obstacle to the smooth flow of energy around a space. This in turn creates stuckness and/or confusion in the lives of the occupants. Space clearing clears the stagnant energies that accumulate around clutter, which makes it much easier to sort through and clear it.
While a space clearing ceremony can easily be done in a few hours, cleaning the physical grime and clearing the clutter can take a lot longer. In fact, it’s fairly common for me to hear from readers that they glided through the early chapters of my first book, then came to the clutter chapter, and there the bookmark stayed for six months or more until they had done enough work to read on.
These are the kinds of letters I get:
“I have now cleared out most of the clutter and am ready to do the space clearing ceremony. I feel that in the last six months I have not only sorted through every cupboard in my home but also through every part of my life. I already feel healthier and happier than I have felt in years.”
“I read the clutter chapter in your book and am now on my fourteenth trash bag and still going strong. My husband is astounded because he has been nagging me for years to do this.”
“When I cleared my filing cabinet I found stock certificates that are now worth $4,000! Your book certainly paid for itself.”
The next chapter will start to explain more fully why most of your lovely clutter is more of a hindrance in your life than a help.
In the course of doing feng shui, space clearing, and clutter clearing consultations all over the world, I have the opportunity to visit many homes and poke about in places people would never let me go otherwise. As a result of this unusual (and sometimes dubious!) privilege, I have been able, over the years, to identify and verify the types of problems clutter causes.
CLUTTER AND FENG SHUI
It’s important to realize how fundamentally intrinsic clutter clearing is to the whole practice of feng shui. Before this book was first published in 1998, other feng shui books mentioned the subject only in passing or not at all. Perhaps they assumed their readers had already dealt with this issue, but of course the truth is that most had not. Now, I’m glad to say, all feng shui books worth reading have a section on this topic and it is given the importance it deserves.
I do not consider clutter clearing to be one process and feng shui anot
her. I have come to realize that clutter clearing is one of the most powerful, transformative aspects of feng shui there is, and in most cases, feng shui cures and enhancements are at best only minimally effective until clutter clearing has been done.
If you have already been using feng shui for years without knowing this, you will be delighted at the energy upsurge clearing your clutter will bring about. And if you are new to feng shui, you will be pleasantly surprised to realize that the first and most important steps to learning this art are already well within your reach.
CLUTTER IS STUCK ENERGY
The word “clutter” derives from the Middle English word “clotter,” which means to coagulate—and that’s about as stuck as you can get.
Clutter accumulates when energy stagnates, and likewise, energy stagnates when clutter accumulates. So the clutter begins as a symptom of what is happening with you in your life and then becomes part of the problem itself, because the more of it you have, the more stagnant energy it attracts to itself.
You know what it’s like. You’re walking down the street and you see that someone has thoughtlessly thrown an empty cigarette packet in a corner near the roadside. The next day you walk past the same spot, and the empty pack has been joined by a few more items of trash. Before long it becomes a full-blown garbage dump. Clutter accumulates in the same way in your home. It starts with a bit and then slowly, insidiously, it grows and grows—and so does the stagnant energy around it, which then has a correspondingly stagnating effect on your life.
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