De-cluttering the World Around You
You might have to take a few runs at this hill, but I know you can do it. I know you can do it, because I did it.
And as yucky as I thought it was going to be, and as hard it was, it got easier and easier as time went on.
If just thinking about de-cluttering your world creates a panic in your throat or heart, don’t worry, you are not alone. It’s a big step to take, and you can break it down into smaller steps, and then you will find your way out of a cluttered life. By making it into mini-steps, the whole de-cluttering process, won’t seem so overwhelming.
De-cluttering is the process of removing items from a space that are no longer necessary, or items that are not inspiring you to move forward.
This could also mean items that are attached to you, that are holding you back.
For example, there might be a plant in your home, that is the craziest looking plant ever. For some reason, even though it doesn’t fit anywhere in the home, and every time you walk by it, you sigh, and not the happy sigh, and for whatever reason you are unable to let go of this plant. Your friends are even wanting you to let go of it already.
The reason you are still holding on to this plant, is because someone said they were going to come back and get it. All these years you’ve held on to this plant for someone that said they were going to come back for it.
You don’t even like this plant, yet to keep it in your home because of an attachment. These are the kind of items that you want to be on the look out for.
And it’s going to take many days, even longer to find them. But now that you know they are there, they’ll be a bit easier to spot.
Have you ever heard that your home and car is a reflection your state of being? As hard as it is to believe, this is actually true. I expect you already knew this to be true.
There were times, when my vehicle was a mobile whatever it is when it’s full of garbage. I guess it would be a garbage truck, only a passenger vehicle. I have some funny stories about items I used to drive around with in my car, but those are for another time.
I would do maybe a yearly clean out, of great detail. And that’s where I would find the receipts from over a year ago, all of this time spent and the past year of history right in the vehicle. When I stepped into the vehicle and drove into the vehicle and drove, it around, did I did I feel good about myself? I didn’t.
Even though the vehicle is essentially an external environment, it’s also an extension of you. It was still representative of me, and it needed some work.
You can divide your home into zones, to accomplish your de-cluttering task. Spending a day on each one, or however many hours that is necessary to get it organized.
I used to play this game with my papers, as I had so many of them that it would be overwhelming for me to deal with them.
In the end I found a soft pocket file system, that was helping with the monthly papers that would come in. I had a zillion receipts all over the house, every time I spent a dollar I had a receipt for it.
As a business owner, receipts are important, and even if the receipts aren’t business related it is still a transaction through your bank account and having documentation is important, should there ever be an audit situation.
So I keep everything, having supported a friend through an audit, this is what the auditor recommended. As well, when you have all kinds of receipts and papers around you, it’s not clear as to what they are about, this external environment of paper chaos can weigh heavily on a person.
And then at the end of the year, I had to sort through a years worth of small little paper receipts to find the ones that I needed. And then one day, I found the answer I’d been waiting for. ZIPLOC.
This was the answer to containing my continuous receipt chaos. I used the large frozen Ziploc bags and marked them: Personal, Fuel, Business, Bank, Other.
Now when taking receipts out of my purse or vehicle, it wasn’t an overwhelming task to deal with them. I could quickly sort them into piles and then place them in the proper Ziploc.
It would no longer take a weekend or a week of transforming the living room into a war on little pieces of paper zone, instead it was easy to keep it current and all of those receipt that went into the personal Ziplocs, those were now out of the way and not contamination my business receipts.
The weight of these little pieces of paper had been lifted from me.
If there is a drawer or a cupboard in your house that you purposely avoid, or if it makes you feel uncomfortable in any way, that is a drawer that you want to get to the bottom of.
You could put it on your calendar to de-clutter one drawer a day, and move forward from there. Once you have done a drawer and a system has been put it place, you don’t have to do the drawer again. It’s all about finding the right place for everything.
To help you start moving forward in your sorting process, with each item think about whether you should: KEEP it because you love it (for the right reasons), SELL it to a consignment store, DONATE it to a shelter or charity, or give it away, RECYCLE or trash (if there is no other use for it).
That will get you started, and pay close attention to what you feel when you see certain items. I remember when I had my papers everywhere, I would come across an event on paper and I would go right back to that place and time as if it just happened.. It would be me into a frozen state, and it would take me extra time to come out of it.
Of course, when you go into reaction with a piece of paper, or a time in your life, and you are able to see how it immediately changes your state, that event is what you want to look at in greater detail.
When you go into reaction with something, it is showing you there is an emotion still trapped in there that is unresolved, is unsolved, and is still open.
The trauma is still there, even though it may have happened 20 years ago, it’s affecting your world in this moment right now. As you go through the de-cluttering process, be aware of those items that have charges with them and you can come back to them.
Clutter around you will make you feel out of control, that it’s all too much to deal with, there isn’t enough time, why bother, and this list goes on and on.
When you are able to look at your stuff, and find a place for it, whether that is inside your home or now, that will be organization to your home.
And what does that feel like? What does knowing the plant that you never liked is gone, that you aren’t holding that energy any more for someone else.
What does it feel like to feel on top of things, to feel prepared, and organized and ready for the next thing to begin? It feels exciting, as a brand new day approaches and you are ready for it.
There are many aspects to clutter, and how it can grow in our home and spread to other areas like a weed. But by taking the right action and stopping it from spreading, you will always be free of it.
De-cluttering can change your life, and it’s all about moving forward. For those objects that are charged, those are the ones you want to pay close attention to. They form part of your layers, and there is wisdom still locked in there waiting for you to let it go.