If you somehow get your life moving again, you will instinctively want to clear the clutter out of your home and make a fresh start. It will feel like the obvious thing to do. So one approach to clearing clutter is to embark on a course of self-improvement and wait until you get to the stage where you just can’t stand having clutter around you anymore. There are many self-improvement books you can read and courses you can take (and I certainly recommend that you do), but it can take a while to get inspired enough to clear your clutter by taking this route.
What I am teaching in this book is a new approach—sorting out your life by sorting out your junk, which results in a tremendous renewal of your life force energy. This is something practical and tangible you can do to actively help yourself.
STUCK ENERGY IS VERY STICKY
This is why it is easy to let your clutter stay put. You need to have some pretty good reasons to rouse yourself enough to do anything about it. That’s what the next chapter’s about.
Every aspect of your life is anchored energetically in your living space, so clearing your clutter can completely transform your entire existence.
CLEAN UP YOUR LIFE
Back in the 1980s, I was one of the top professional rebirthers in London (rebirthing is a way of releasing inner blockages through the breath). I’ve always been a great one for motivating people to help themselves, and I began to suggest decluttering as extra “homework” for some of my clients who were particularly stuck in their lives. Sure enough, in the process of sorting out their belongings, they made substantial inroads into sorting out themselves. For the really stubborn cases I would tell them at the end of a session that next week I would be rebirthing them at their home, not mine. I think it was realizing the difference between how their home felt and how mine felt that shamed them into action.
One long-term client I remember was a young girl who was a recovering heroin addict. After she had had a couple of relapses, I realized I had to take a firmer approach. I refused to work with her again unless we did a session at her home and she showed her commitment to kicking her habit by getting her place fit enough for a rebirthing session. This was very difficult for her to do. Her self-esteem had sunk so low over the years that she was living in squalor. But she set to work with a will and triumphantly invited me to her apartment several weeks later. It was plain to see how much work had been done, and the change in her in those weeks was also remarkable. The next few therapy sessions marked profound breakthroughs for her.
Several years later I bumped into her in a public place and didn’t recognize her. She had transformed into a radiantly beautiful woman, full of happiness and love for life, with a successful career doing what she had always dreamed of doing. She dated the change from those sessions and told me she had never touched heroin or looked back since. Through clearing out her clutter she had cleaned up her life.
YOU AND YOUR HOME
The reason clutter clearing is so effective is that while you are putting your external world in order, corresponding changes are going on internally, too. Everything around you, especially your home environment, mirrors your inner self. So by changing your home you are also changing the possibilities in your own life. Removing the obstacles to the harmonious flow of energy in your living environment creates more harmony in your life and the space for wonderful new opportunities to come to you.
GO FOR IT!
One English woman who came to one of my workshops got so inspired that she went home, called a charity shop, and said, “You’re going to need to send a truck!” She cleared out all but five items of clothing from her wardrobe, and got rid of her ancient stereo system and stacks and stacks of junk. In doing this, she released huge amounts of stuck energy, which created space for something new to come in. A week later she received a check in the mail from her mother for £5,000, and she went straight out and bought herself a whole new wardrobe of wonderful clothes, a new sound system, and everything else she wanted.
She told me the check was totally unexpected, and that the last time her mother had sent her any money had been ten years earlier. I don’t recommend that everyone undertake a cleanup quite so dramatically, but it certainly worked for her.
Here’s another inspiring letter I received from a teacher who read my book and also went for clutter clearing in a big way:
“Five months after my mother passed, I needed something to help me get my head above water. I picked up your book…and was SO energized and excited. I have cleared clutter that has been stored and gathering dust for over twenty years! Bags of things have been thrown out and SO much is ready to be donated to charities. During this month of sorting, discarding and cleaning, I was given an unexpected check for $5,000, found out about an inheritance of $3,000, found gift cards and gift certificates worth over $400, found out about more income that will be coming monthly, and gathered about $75 worth of change too. The additional income has been wonderful, but more than that, I’m energized and no longer feel overwhelmed. I’m comfortable and happy in my home. I’m reading about feng shui and applying the principles at home and in my classroom. Thank you for getting me started!”
Letters like these arrive in my mailbox every single day and are what has inspired me to actually write this book. Of course, not everyone who clears clutter can expect a financial windfall. I have chosen these stories because they show how tangible the results can be.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines clutter as “a collection of things lying about in an untidy state.” Yes, that’s part of it, but it’s describing clutter only at the purely physical level.
In my definition there are four categories of clutter:
⬦ Things you do not use or love
⬦ Things that are untidy or disorganized
⬦ Too many things in too small a space
⬦ Anything unfinished
Let’s have a look at each of these so that you will be in no doubt as you read through this book where your own focus for clutter clearing needs to be.
THINGS YOU DO NOT USE OR LOVE
Things that are loved, used, and appreciated have strong, vibrant, joyous energies, which allow the energy in the space to flow through and around them. If you have a clear focus in your life and you surround yourself with things that have this marvelous free-flowing energy, you will have a correspondingly happy, joyous, free-flowing life. Conversely, anything neglected, forgotten, unwanted, unloved, or unused will cause the energy in your home to slow and stagnate, and then you will feel that your life is not moving.
You are energetically connected to everything you own. When your home is filled with things that you love or use well, it becomes an incredible source of support and nourishment for you. Clutter, on the other hand, drags your energy down and the longer you keep it, the more it will affect you. When you get rid of everything that has no real meaning or significance for you, you feel lighter in body, mind, and spirit.
THINGS THAT ARE UNTIDY OR DISORGANIZED
This category is for the messy people of the world and the hopelessly disorganized. Even if you keep your stuff pared down to just the things you use and love, your home will still be cluttered if they are scattered all over the place and it’s difficult to find things when you want them. Probably, like most messy types, you maintain there is order in your chaos, and what’s more, you need to keep items in the open to remind you of important things you have to do. But if someone actually puts you to the test and asks you where something is, at best you know only the general direction and rarely the precise location.
Everyone’s life works better when they know where things are. For example, think of your bed. The energy connection between you and your bed is direct and clear. Unless you are the nomadic type, you know exactly where it is and you can connect to it in microseconds. Now think about your house keys. Do you know exactly where they are, or do you have to mentally hunt around fo
r them? How about that bill you need to pay? Where is it? When your things get jumbled up and confused, the strands between you and them become like tangled spaghetti. This creates stress and confusion in your life rather than the peace and clarity that comes from knowing where things are.
Clutter in this category consists of things that either don’t have a proper place of their own, or that do have one but have strayed from it and got mixed up with everything else. Many items seem to just appear in your life by chance, not because you made a conscious decision to acquire them. They include the mail that relentlessly arrives and dauntingly distributes itself in far-flung corners of your home, and other bits of paper that appear from nowhere and build themselves into mountainous heaps, defiantly resisting all your attempts to categorize and sort them. Then there are those impulse buys. You bring one home and say to yourself, “I’ll just put it there for now”—and there it stays. Sometimes it stays there for months, years, or even decades, always looking slightly out of place and vaguely irking you in the back of your mind.
Now, I’m not advocating pristine neatness. A home that is too tidy, where everything is “just so,” is energetically sterile and can be as much of a problem as a place that is a complete dump. But your home is an outward representation of what is going on inside you, so if you are messy on the outside there is a corresponding mess of some kind on the inside, too. By sorting out the outer, the inner starts slotting neatly into place.
TOO MANY THINGS IN TOO SMALL A SPACE
Sometimes the problem is simply one of space. Your life or your family has expanded but your home has stayed the same size, or it never was big enough in the first place. You can become creative with storage cabinets but the more you cram into your living space, the less room there is for energy to move and the more difficult it becomes to get anything done. With clutter of the just-too-much-for-the-amount-of-space variety, your home starts to feel as if it cannot breathe; your own breathing will actually become tighter and shallower (when was the last time you took a really deep breath and filled your lungs?) and you will feel constricted in what you can do in your life.
The only solution is to move to a bigger place or shift some of your stuff off the premises. You will be amazed at how good it feels, either way.
ANYTHING UNFINISHED
This form of clutter is harder to see and easier to ignore than the other types, but its effects are far-reaching. Anything unfinished in the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual realms clutters your psyche.
Things not dealt with in your home reflect issues not dealt with in your life, and they are a constant drain on your energy. There are the niggling repairs such as fixing the broken drawer or repairing the faucet that keeps dripping, and the bigger jobs, such as redecorating the house, servicing the central heating or air conditioning, or taming the jungle that your garden has become. The larger the scale, the more these things impinge on your ability to get on with your life.
Buttons that need sewing on, phone calls you need to make, relationships you need to move on from—these and many other forms of loose ends in your life will hamper your progress if you do not deal with them. Your subconscious mind will suppress these things nicely if you ask it to, but it takes a lot of your energy to do so. You will be surprised at how your vitality soars if you just complete all your unfinished business.
The next chapter explores how all these types of clutter affect you in ways you may never have suspected.
Most people have no idea how much their clutter affects them. You may actually fondly believe yours to be an asset, or at least a potential asset after it has been sorted through and organized. It is only when you start clearing it out that you realize how much better you feel without it.
Clutter will affect you according to the type of person you are, how much stuff you have, where in your home you keep it, and how long you have had it.
Here are some of the main effects to watch out for.
HAVING CLUTTER CAN MAKE YOU FEEL TIRED AND LETHARGIC
Most people who have clutter say they can’t find the energy to begin to clear it. They constantly feel tired. But the stagnant energy that stacks up around clutter actually causes tiredness and lethargy. Clearing it frees up the energy in your home and releases new vitality in your body. Here’s what people tell me:
“I stayed up late to read your book and got so ‘wired’ that I couldn’t sleep. Finally I got out of bed and started clearing my clutter until four in the morning! I had to go to work the next day but I didn’t feel at all tired.”
“At first I felt daunted by the sheer volume of my clutter but I knew I had to clear it. What amazes me is how much better I feel after each drawer, and how the energy somehow comes from nowhere to carry on and do more.”
“My husband and I have both just read and reread your book on clearing clutter. I have tried for over a year to encourage him to unload some of his mental baggage and holdings. I read the book and read a few paragraphs out loud and he was ignited on fire like I have never seen. He is moving clutter out so fast and so much of it neither of us could believe it. He has so much more energy and is finally taking the time to actually finish the book!!!”
HAVING CLUTTER CAN KEEP YOU IN THE PAST
When all your available space is filled with clutter, there is no room for anything new to come into your life. Your thoughts tend to dwell in the past, and you feel bogged down with problems that have dogged you for some time. You tend to you look back rather than forward in your life, blaming the past for your current situation rather than taking responsibility for creating a better tomorrow. Clearing your clutter allows you to begin to deal with your problems and move forward. It is vital to release the past to create a better tomorrow.
HAVING CLUTTER CAN CONGEST YOUR BODY
When you have lots of clutter, the energy of your home gets congested, and so does your body. Clutterbugs generally do not get enough exercise, are often constipated, have dull, clogged complexions, and show no vitality in their eyes. People with little clutter in their lives are generally more active; they have clear, radiant skin and a twinkle in their eyes. The choice is yours.
HAVING CLUTTER CAN AFFECT YOUR BODY WEIGHT
A curious fact I have noticed over the years is that people who have lots of clutter in their homes are often overweight. I believe this is because both body fat and clutter are forms of self-protection. By building layers of fat or clutter around them, they hope to cushion themselves against the shocks of life, and particularly against emotions they have difficulty handling. It gives the feeling of being able to control things and prevent them from having too deep an effect. But this is an illusion. In Oprah Winfrey’s words:
“What I’ve learned through my…ordeal with weight is that you can’t really begin to work on the physical until you first get at what’s holding you back emotionally. The reason we don’t move forward in our lives is because of the fears that hold us back, the things that keep us from being all that we were meant to be.”
I have certainly found it to be true that overweight people have many fears buried deep inside themselves, which they need to overcome in order to clear their clutter. However, many write to let me know how liberating it feels when they finally do it, and how the process of letting go of their junk also magically allows them to let go of their fat. They tell me it is a darn bit easier to focus on dieting their home than dieting their body, and when they start looking after their environment more, they naturally feel more inclined to look after themselves better, too. As one woman put it, “After you have cleared the junk out of your home, it doesn’t feel quite right to keep putting junk food in your body.”
HAVING CLUTTER CAN CONFUSE YOU
When you live surrounded by clutter, it is impossible to have clarity about what you are doing in your life. When you clear it, you can think more clearly and life decisions become easier. Being
clear of clutter is one of the greatest aids I know to discovering and creating the life you want.
HAVING CLUTTER CAN AFFECT THE WAY PEOPLE TREAT YOU
People treat you the way you treat yourself. So if you value yourself and look after yourself, people will treat you well. If you “let yourself go” and allow the junk to mount up around you, you may attract people who mistreat you in some way because subconsciously you feel that is what you deserve.
If your home is untidy as well as cluttered, your friends may like you as a person but find it difficult to fully respect you, especially if you are always behind with everything you need to do, don’t keep your promises because you are disorganized, and so on. When you sort out your home you can improve all your relationships in the process.
HAVING CLUTTER CAN MAKE YOU PROCRASTINATE
If you have a lot of clutter, you will tend to put off doing things until “tomorrow.” The clutter stagnates your energy and makes it difficult to get yourself to do anything. After clutter clearing you are likely to surprise yourself (and everyone else!) by wanting to do things you have put off for a long time. People suddenly feel motivated to replant the garden, take a class, call a friend, go on a vacation, and so on. The letters I receive on just this one effect of clearing clutter are amazing!
Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui (Revised and Updated) Page 2
