Perfect Living

How to Declutter Your Home to Declutter Your Mind

One of the greatest challenges facing elegant people today is a cluttered condo. This looks like boxes of magazines from your grandma’s house in an apple crate behind the toilet. The solution is to declutter your condo immediately.

Witness the Horror

I first noticed the problem of a cluttered home when I was a small child in northern Canada and was often cared for by my mother’s best friend who had two children about my age. She had a small house on a half lot in the suburbs on a culdesac. On the outside, everything looked normal, but on the inside, there were items to the ceiling. We had to walk sideways through the pathways to move from area to area in the home.

Two Causes of Hoarding Behaviors

It’s not clear what causes hoarding but, genetics, brain functioning, and stressful life events are being studied as possible causes (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2018).

One. Genetics. There is a strong association between having a family member who has a hoarding disorder and having the disorder yourself (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2018).

Two. Trauma. Some develop hoarding disorder after experiencing a stressful life event that they had difficulty coping with, such as the death of a loved one, divorce, eviction, or losing possessions in a fire (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2018).

Excess clutter in the home has a negative effect on the mental wellness journey. It is a manifestation of the inability to seek assistance in letting go of past traumas. Japanese organizing consultant and author, Marie Kondo, would agree. When you put your house in order you choose to listen to your inner voice. The question of what you want to own is a question of how you want to live your life (KonMari Media Inc., 2021).

Three Dangers of a Cluttered Home

One. Depression. Your environment reflects your state of being, as well your state of being is reflected in your environment. The home of a severely depressed person isn’t typically in stellar shape (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2018). So make sure yours is.

Two. Self Degradation. Cleanliness is a form of self-respect. Cleaning should be the top priority (Weimert, 2019). In order to place yourself on the road to peak excellence, you must have a clean and organized home.

Three. Long-term negative impacts. My childhood friends, the children raised in the home with the sideways walking paths, have expressed to me as adults that they have experienced lifelong traumas as a result of being raised in filth and chaos. The younger of the siblings can't sleep if she has left a bobby pin on the counter.

The problem of a cluttered home looks like piles of mail next to your laptop, piles of aluminum cans in your pantry, and piles of misery freezing in your black soul.

An orderly space reflects a sense of strength and capability. This affects your life, when you wake up in the morning rather than seeing your state of mental health in the form of empty whiskey bottles and wet pizza boxes, you can instead experience a fresh sense of well-being.

Edit the Bad Out

Step one. Clean. Immediately address any lingering depressive feelings by deep cleaning your home from head to toe. Hire as required, be it a cleaner or a therapist to get you through. Just the smell of lemon in the air will lighten the air, and lighten your heart.

Step Two. Edit. Climb the staircase to peak excellence by editing your items one by one. Ask yourself why do I hold onto this item? How do I feel when I hold this item? Remind yourself that you have everything that you need, and you are not in a state of scarcity.

Step Three. Strategize Maintainance. Put systems in place to ensure long-term success in your home and your life. This is a crucial part of your wellness journey.

“It’s about choosing joy.” -Marie Kondo (KonMari Media Inc., 2021)

We have seen that cluttered and hoarded-up shoebox condos are a challenge for elegant people. Even the chic and privileged, can face this issue as it does not afflict the poor, but the unhealed. Whether suffering intensely from over-collecting or if you just have a few extra items around, your wellness journey will advance with a total home overhaul.

More on your mental wellness journey:

References

KonMari Media Inc. (2021). About. Retrieved from KonMari: https://konmari.com/

Mayo Clinic Staff. (2018, February 3). Hoarding disorder. Retrieved from Mayo Clinic: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hoarding-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20356056

Weimert, K. (2019, April 8). Is a Messy Home Making Your Depression Worse? Retrieved from Healthline: https://www.healthline.com/health/depression-and-a-clean-home