–  What Is Holding You Back?

As humans, it is in our nature to experience clarity, calmness and spaciousness all the time. The problem is we’ve forgotten how. It’s my hope that we (re) discover and (re) claim the journey. I know I do, and I am pretty sure you want to remember what life can be like when it sparkles like a diamond inside and out. Yes??? Yes!

Well, let’s put on our amazing designer rubber gloves, roll up our sleeves, get our bright bucket and get to it! Shall we?

Behind the mess that is your stress and your clutter, there is an infinitely spacious clean place one might call stillness, or joy. This is our natural state of being, but we hardly know it because most of us are caught in a tangle of social expectations, family expectations, people pleasing, illness, worry, fear, negative beliefs, material attachments, and endless mechanical “doing.” We go to work under extreme stress, come home to stress, and then start the stress cycle all over again every day. And … it scares the heck out of us; I know it once did me. So how do you break up the clutter inside and out and clean it up for good?

1. Realize clutter comes in many forms.

There’s the obvious physical stuff, of course: the junk that spills out of the closets and the piles that we wade through every day just to get out the door. It’s the stuff we don’t use, love, or need. The stuff that doesn’t have a permanent home or we can’t seem to put away on a regular basis. But there is also the more invisible clutter that gooks up our lives, the result of our unconscious and conscious human behaviors, for example.

~There’s mental chatter, the resident ego barking orders to assure its eternal comfort and safety, the endless loop tapes we play in our mind like “I should,” “I can’t,” “I couldn’t,” “I shouldn’t.”

~There is emotional charge we hold, like when our buttons get pressed, or we have a grudge, or we’re still mad at something that happened a while ago. There is the endless litany of judgments, doom and gloom catastrophizing, the fears that have us going to hell in a hand basket …”any day now.” Wow … that shocked me.

~There’s feeling small, powerless, insignificant, and unworthy and the feeling that I am not good enough.

So what do these patterns have in common? Yes, none of them feel good. None of them are attractive or inspiring. They’re real downers. They prevent us from living in present time with joy and spaciousness; they prevent us from seeing through the clutter of life to new beginnings.

Ask yourself, what are some of the “faces” you put on? When you do this, be honest to the core. You are not in judgment. There is no right or wrong. Let it go and watch what happens. Most importantly, remember you are doing this clutter picking up only for you and no one else. Laughter goes a long way when you are clutter busting.

2. Recognize the symptoms of clearing the clutter

~There are many ways that the body, mind and spirit process old stuff that rises to the surface as we clear. This is how the ego copes with the idea of letting go and having to feel “those feelings.”

~Prepare yourself. Don’t allow judgments to lead you off your mission.  Remember: This is the “clutter part” of your mind talking, not the real you! The first step is to try not to give in to all that chatter and noise.

– Celebrate in knowing that when you are clutter clearing, it changes you from the inside out and then from the outside in. You know how you feel when you have cleaned out from underneath your bed, you actually sleep better at night. There are studies related to having a better night’s sleep when we don’t have negative energy underneath us.

So, a few great questions to ask yourself during this process are: “How am I feeling right this minute? How’s my breathing? Am I feeling calmer now than I did before I began clearing the clutter, or am I feeling more jangled and agitated?

A good practice to remember is, do nothing. Just allow. You are not in self judgment; you’re in the spaciousness of self discovery.

3. Resolve that everything needs a place. There are obvious reasons for giving everything a home, of course. Having a place for everything helps us keep things in order and find them again. It helps us get to the car in the morning without tripping over physical and emotional clutter.

~Giving things a home helps us know when we have too much stuff. For example, finding zero space in the bookcase to jam another paperback, or zero coat hangers to hang the new outfit we just bought on sale gives us instant feedback that something has to give or something has to go.

~Housing things properly holds us accountable and keeps us out of the chaos of clutter. But there is more going on here than the obvious. Giving an object that we use and love a dedicated space recognizes its purpose and honors its value to us.

~Creating space for our inner energies and essence needs a dedicated space too. This may be an area of your life you have neglected for a long time. You may have to sweep a few cobwebs out and clean the glass to see clearly. The best way to manage spacious self time is to dedicate a place and time each day for at least 15 minutes and work your way up. You will become your best helper if you follow this as a clearing practice.

Try this on for size: look around and notice if there is something that has not yet been put away. How does this make you feel? How does your body feel, how does your inner self feel? Now, go and find a place for those items that need a home.

After you’ve completed this, ask yourself: How hard was that really? What does it feel like to consciously place this thing where it belongs? How does the room feel now? And, of course … how does your energy, your emotions, feel inside?

As human beings we affect our surroundings all the time: – our homes, our neighbor’s homes, our workplaces, where we shop – in ways you can’t even begin to know. Remember, anything you do every day, no matter how small, gets the energy moving in your spacious life, inside and out. Though there’s no predicting what amazing wonders you’ll discover in the process, one thing I can say is that the more you clear the clutter, the easier, juicier, and more fun it is to live in spaciousness.

Clearing the clutter indicates that all emotional patterns, joyful and otherwise, deeply influence the spaces we inhabit. Negative thoughts and stressful lifestyles create an energetic residue, and depending on how much emotional charge they carry, they can literally “stick” around for years. Happiness, too, leaves its own abundant joys and yumminess.

In the weeks and months to come, notice if your sense of ease, peace, or joy has any effect on your home, a friend, a colleague, or even a loved one. Notice how your state of being affects the world around you, and how the world, in turn, mirrors you back to you. Don’t forget our clearing energies are contagious and we own what frequencies we put out into the world. Always remember to stop and feel as part of your ongoing lifelong spaciousness of clearing.