That’s right today we are going to start our attack on CLUTTER!  Can’t you feel the excitement growing?  Clutter is a major feng shui no-no.  According to feng shui principles, clutter has a serious downside.  It is believed that it slows us down, holds us back, keeps our minds from focusing on the important stuff, makes us ill, and stops us from achieving our goals.  Clutter is the ultimate result of stagnant energy, it affect us.  Clutter creates chaos in our lives and wreaks havoc in our homes.

Start attacking your clutter by first just paring down the number of each object you have.  You can begin with pens, coffee mugs, lipstick tubes, sheets, towels, shoes, hair thingies, etc.  I was in the home of a woman recently who had thousands (and I mean literally thousands) of paperclips in her home office.  Ask yourself, “Is this _______ necessary to make my life work?”  If the answer is no, let it GO!  Now, I hear you men giggling with joy.  You are thinking, “YAHOO, the wife has to get rid of her extras!” right?  Well, I am on to you!  It may not be paperclips for you, but if you have 47 screwdrivers in that garage it is time for a clearing out!

            The second part of our definition is whatever you don’t use.  This can be a very difficult one for people to grasp, especially if they have been holding on to things for a very long time.  There are actually 2 steps to this part.  You have to begin by getting rid of things like that handy dandy carrot juicer that has been sitting in your kitchen pantry gathering dust for 7 years.  Then you need to move on to the things that are part of your ‘previous lives’.  Let me explain, and I’ll even use myself as an example!

Years ago I was a competitive karate forms champion.  This meant that I was in the gym 5-6 days a week and in tournaments almost every weekend.  I had about 15 different karate uniforms since I didn’t do laundry very often.  This made perfect sense at that point in my life since I was wearing them every single day, right?  Okay, fast forward to my life now.  I am a wife and the mother of 5 children, I run a business, teach classes, home-school, write, etc.  The closest I get to karate is pillow fights with my kids!  Would it make sense to keep the karate uniforms, of course not.  They take up space, and hold me to the past.  This would keep me from redefining myself in the present.  It is probably very easy for you all to see that.  It is always easy with other people’s stuff!

My husband is from a VERY small town in Michigan.  We will go back for visits from time to time and maybe catch a hometown football game.  Inevitably there will be older men there in their 40’s and 50’s still wearing their high school jackets and reliving the ‘glory days’.  Is that who you want to be, or do you desire to live in the present and create your future?

How many of you have t-shirts from college that are ripped, faded or generally un-wearable, but rather than get rid of them and make room for new you keep them rolled up in the bottom of a drawer?  How about college textbooks that were obsolete after that first semester?  Clothes that are too small or out of date also fit into this category.  Do you have CD’s that you bought, listened to once and realized they just didn’t fit your life?  How many books do you have in your home?  I tell my clients to ask themselves a really hard question.  “Does this ________ fit my life RIGHT NOW, and where I desire to be within the next 90 days?  If not, it should go. 

I have heard people say, “I love everything in my house.”  Is that a true statement?  If I asked you to close your eyes and visualize the room that you consider to be the most cluttered, would you honestly say that you loved everything inside that space?  I doubt it.  When I ask individuals what they love about a particular room, the answer is usually only one or two items…sometimes not even very large items!  It may be a picture that makes you smile every time you see it, or perhaps an object you picked up on a trip, or even a garage sale find that thrills your soul when you think of it.  It doesn’t matter what it is, if you react in a strongly positive way when you touch that object, it should definitely stay in your space…it is not clutter. 

If, however, you pick up an object and have to think about it, or there is a looooooong story about why it should stay without the positive energy behind it, it is clutter.  (You know the stories I’m talking about don’t you?  The ones that go something like, “My great aunt Martha gave that to my cousin…”).   Maybe you never even LIKED aunt Martha, so why are you keeping her stuff?  There are many times when I am called in to help someone de-clutter, that I feel compelled to ask them “Whose life is this??”.  They are living with things that do not represent who THEY are at all. 

So, grab a piece of paper and WITHOUT looking around your house, write down a list of the objects you love.  Don’t peek, if you can’t remember it, you don’t love it enough to keep it hanging around!

That finishes up our definition of clutter.  If you don’t need it to make your life function well, if you are not using it currently or will not use it in your life within the next 90 days, or you don’t love it, it is clutter. 

The question that I am most often asked about clutter revolves around photographs.  Are they clutter, and what do we do with them?  This brings up a really interesting point.  De-cluttering and organizing are two entirely different things.  You cannot organize clutter, because no matter how pretty it looks on a shelf, it is still clutter!  

First, begin with the de-cluttering of the photos.  Be very honest with yourself, do you have pictures of yourself that you don’t like?  They should be the first things to go.  Keep only the pictures that you love, that you are proud of, and that make you feel good.  Pictures that make you feel depressed, self-conscious, or uncomfortable should not be in your space.  That should cut your pictures in half.  Then you can begin removing the pictures that are filled with people you don’t know.  I know you have some of those!  Realize that you are NOT throwing away memories when you throw out pictures, those memories are already a part of you!  Don’t forget to take out the blurry ones, the pictures of your thumbs, and the red-eyed monster pictures and all of a sudden you have a group of pictures you can actually work with!  Now you can begin organizing them in a way that will enable you to enjoy them! 

I had a client whose closet was out of control.  It was filled with tailored suits and designer business outfits, each one perfectly cut and coordinated with shoes and purses to match.    We began by weeding out the clothes that didn’t fit and that she was uncomfortable wearing.  We then removed duplicates, I mean, really, who needs 17 white shirts?  She tried on clothes and shoes and spent some time deciding on colors and fabrics that she liked.  She decided on a core group of colors that were flattering and pleasing.  She determined that wool had to GO, it reminded her of an awful teacher she had once had!  She chose soft, feminine fabrics and came to realize she loved scarves!  By the end of the afternoon she had a wardrobe that complimented her in every way.  It fit into not only her closet, but also into her LIFE. 

What wonderful things do you have hiding under the piles?  Is there a fabulous chair that you should be enjoying?  Are you covering up beautiful pictures or furniture with paper clutter that has been there for years?  Aren’t you ready and excited to begin your journey?  That is what de-cluttering is, a journey back to ourselves.  When you remove all of the junk blocking the way, there you are! 

Blessings,

Lori