Clutter Clearing: A Magic Pill for Positive Change

How space clearing can revamp every arena of your life

One look at my desk and I know it’s time to clear the deck.

I’m one of those people who’s always got my thumbs in at least five different projects. Are you one of those people? Or are you someone who is teetering on the edge of leaping into a creative endeavor?

Either way, what I’m about to say may cause you to do some things differently.

I’ve learned that creativity flows far more seamlessly if I create from a space of clarity. That doesn’t mean that the only thing I need to clear up is the outline for my project. In fact, that outline might take me twice as long to write and be less organized and less effective if I’m trying to create it from an overwhelmed, cluttered space.

Have you ever noticed how your cluttered desk or room seems to reflect what’s in your mind and visa versa? If you haven’t noticed this phenomenon, then I suggest you set about clearing up your desk, room or office, and see what sort of effect it has on your mind.

I assigned this as homework last year for a group I facilitate on mindfulness.

Every person in that group was positively impacted.

Some group members even opted to clutter-clear a second space the following week, after experiencing the clarity of mind that resulted from the first one.

My participants not only expressed a clearer state of mind and emotions, but many of them felt more energized and expressed that the spaces they had cleared simply felt better to be in.

Now tell me honestly, are you more likely to be creative in a space that feels gloomy or one that feels good?

I don’t recommend that you take my word for it. Instead, try it for yourself! That’s the only way that you’re guaranteed to reap the benefits of this little exercise.

If your workspace is clear, but your kitchen or your car is a mess, set about clearing it up and see what happens to the way you think and feel about things. What happens to your outlook on life, your relationships, your work, or your perception of yourself?

So, what’s the deal behind all this space-clearing business anyways?

Why does it seem to hinder us when things are a mess? Why does order and less stuff laying around during input seem to support better results during output?

For 12 years I’ve worked in classrooms with kids who have autism spectrum disorders. One thing I’ve noticed is that the kiddos I’ve worked with are easily distracted and overwhelmed by too many items in a workspace.

So, one of the first things I always do when I enter a classroom is to decontaminate the environment. I remove anything that is not essential to support that child’s learning for the time being.

Kids with autism have taught me how to pair down and focus in on what’s necessary for the time being.

They’ve taught me that what isn’t essential to the current lesson or project can better serve my client and myself if it’s tucked away in a drawer or cupboard out-of-sight.

The children I work with are easily overwhelmed by too much outside input — too many things on a shelf or table, too many words on a page, too many bright colors in a room, too much noise, and the list goes on. They can be very sensitive to sensory input.

And the truth is, so are the rest of us. We just don’t realize it because our filters are a bit thicker.

Rather than having an abrupt reaction, like throwing the crayon box across the room if stuff in our environment isn’t right, we suffer from a much slower reaction time, in which the light of inspiration is gradually drained out of us — so gradually in fact, that we don’t even notice it happening.

Too much clutter in a space can bog us down mentally and emotionally. It can slowly infiltrate our creative processes with a hazy grayness that smokes up the viewing screen within our minds. The more we pile on, the more weighted the feeling and the dimmer our creativity becomes.

We’ve got to clear the deck — clear the air, the desk, and the creative channel!

As an energy healer who performs space clearings on a regular basis, I can actually feel the constriction in a cluttered space. It’s almost like life begins to breathe less of itself into a space that needs cleaning, and the area begins to feel energetically suffocating.

It reminds me of how the lifeblood can slowly get squeezed out of our bloodstream with too much plaque build-up in the arteries until finally a heart attack occurs. When our lives become too cluttered with unfinished business, it’s like plaque in the mind and emotions and it’s harder for inspiration to breathe life into our creative channels.

Whether we express through writing, painting, dancing, or cooking, that creative energy needs a clear, uncluttered opening to stream through. When energetic debris clears out, things begin to operate in a whole new way. In almost symphony fashion, all aspects of this process begin to work together.

The uncluttering of your workspace can trigger inspiration to create something new, which can fill your heart with gladness. When your heart is smiling, the faculties of your mind operate more efficiently. Ideas come more rapidly, with greater clarity, and things get done more easily.

The interesting part is that it all began with a choice in your mind to unclutter your space in the first place.

In the end you’ll be brought full circle, back to the beginning, where you can choose to keep things clear and consistently create your best work.

We can apply this same principle and habit to any arena of our life. I can choose to clear the clutter in my mind in my relationships and take action steps to do what is necessary for the health of those personal connections. I can do this by saying what needs to be said, caring for what needs caring, and by leaving nothing undone that needs doing.

In other words, I can deal with my relationships creatively when I’ve cleared the emotional clutter around them, and keep them clear by addressing confusion as it arises.

In principle, it is the same as keeping my work space uncluttered, so that everything operates optimally.

We can do this with our health, with our finances, with our parenting, with the pursuit of our passions, and even with our state of psychological balance by staying on top of self-care. In fact, clutter clearing the different areas of your life is a tremendous act of self-care.

Its also, simultaneously, an act of service to all the people and circumstances of your life, because when you are clear, you’re more likely to put your best foot forward.

The practice of clutter clearing can take on as many dimensions as you want it to. And the benefits can reach as far as you are willing to go in any direction.

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