Clutter?

Where can you reduce clutter in your life?

According to Miriam-Webster “clutter” is “to run in disorder.” Wikipedia goes further, “… may refer to any of the following: Excessive physical disorder… a confusing or disorderly state or collection, etc.”

How to get rid of clutter when you mean junk around your domain, whether apartment or house, well, we all face the same problem. At its base level clutter centers around the question: “Do I need this?” And to determine the answer you might use the following filter questions to make that decision.

When was the last time I used this?
Am I keeping this for its sentimental value, intrinsic value, utility value, or is it just taking up space because I can’t part with it?

If it has utility value, when was the last time I used this item? When do I see myself ever needing or using this item again? Would it change my life in any way if I didn’t have this item in my cluttered domain?

You get the idea.

If it has emotional/sentimental value, do I view the item with the same emotional attachment I had when it came into my possession, or has this changed over time, I just don’t want to part with it? Again, is it going to change my life in any way if I don’t have this item in my life?

If it has some intrinsic value (think art or antiques for example), is there also some sentimental/emotional value, or investment value that prevents me from parting with it? Is the value more beneficial to my bank account, or to the investment I’ve made and the appreciation in value I expect?

All these questions will have positive results and reduce clutter in my “stuff” if I answer them honestly.

Which I did recently, and have written about in the past few weeks on my blog. I cleaned out stuff I’ve had since 1972. Ugh. I can’t believe I even kept some of it. Some of that old junk, I didn’t even know I had. It was just stuck in a bin and put up on a shelf never to see the light of day again… until it got tossed in the trash!

Now, all that said, when I move from talking about “stuff” to talking about “mind clutter,” well that is a whole different ball of wax. Just thinking about the “clutter” in my mind over the last 10 years makes my head hurt.

Recently, I’ve discovered the truth of applying some counseling I received about 8 years ago. In sharing my emotional pain with a counselor, he introduced me to the concept of “flushing.” Everyone reading this will probably laugh out loud, as I did that day, at the metaphor for getting rid of emotional baggage.

But don’t laugh too loud…

Simply put, I have put my emotional and psychological pain on trial. I set a chair just a few feet in the room opposite mine, then imagined the person causing me the pain sitting in that chair opposite and facing me. I imagined them saying or doing whatever it was that hurt me so badly. I imagined what I wanted to say in response, but instead of it just being in my head, to the person in the chair I would yell, or scream, or slam books, make faces, etc.

Now for the important step. I imagined all the pain, tears, disappointments, anger, hurt, and then I reached over and “flushed” that toilet of “clutter.” Sometimes this step took multiple attempts to get it all out.

This does actually work in resolving emotional clutter stemming from relationship issues. But there is one more step, and it is just as important.

When the body is injured in some way with a cut, the human body is equipped with healing properties that over time heal the would. But not without a scar. What happens in the human mind when we touch that scar? Immediately we remember the event, the pain, and all the clutter associated with that injury. And it is as real as if it happened in that moment.

Emotionally/psychologically we have the same type of memory. We may have gone through the whole process of “flushing” out the “clutter” resulting in the beginning of the healing process. But what happens when we are reminded of that psychological pain or emotional injury? We are right back there in the moment, and it is as real as when it happened the first time. Even though we “flushed,” our memory won’t let go that easily.

So here’s the final step. You have to have a word or phrase you say to yourself every time one of these events occur. Be careful to select the right phrase. For example, the phrase should never start with “don’t”, like “don’t go there”, or “don’t think about that.” It’s like saying, “don’t think about elephants!” Now what are you thinking about?

Rather than “don’t” a simple two-word phrase is what I adopted, “Flush it!”

Use this phrase if you want to, or come up with your own. Just remember, every time those feelings come back, that you’ve already flushed, the phrase is your way to remind youself how you’ve already dealt with this issue.

And now it’s just “clutter.”