An interesting thing just happened to me. I have been thinking of cleaning my house for awhile now. I want to clear out as much unneeded clutter as I can and just open up the space and make the energy more comfortable for me and those who live here. I've been putting it off and putting it off because usually there is so much clutter it is just a huge, overwhelming job. I tend to collect a lot of clutter, no matter how much work I do cleaning...I just hold on to things and don't put them away in a place where they belong or serve a purpose.
So, yesterday I choose one tiny room...OK, the room chose me because someone failed to let the dog out and he made a mess in there! (This is how this stuff works people!) I saw the mess and started to feel overwhelmed and then thought to myself, I might as well just clean the whole room and be done with it. I was surprised to find that because I have been slowly and carefully working on removing clutter from my home and I've had some help from my family doing this, there was not that much clutter to remove and cleaning went very quickly! There is still some work to do in that room, but I am comfortable with what I've accomplished so far. I'm looking for comfort here, not perfection!
This morning I decided to work on the room my daughter stays in when she comes home. The last time she was home she had to sleep on the couch because things had started just piling in this empty room. I carefully opened the door, which would only open part way because of the stuff sitting in front of it. I had a moment of dread thinking, how much stuff is piled in there if the door won't even open? I let that go and peeked in. Actually most of the stuff was just piled right in front of the door and there really wasn't that much stuff. I made my way into the room and slowly started sorting through the stuff. Anything that no longer served a purpose in our house went in the give away pile, anything that had no purpose to anyone went in the throw away pile, anything I needed to save got put in storage place and anything that could still be of use was placed in an easily accessible place. When I came across anything iffy, instead of pondering over it and taking a trip down memory lane with it, I simply placed it in a big plastic tub to consider later. Before I knew it the room was neatly organized and ready to be dusted, vacuumed and just generally cleaned. Removing the clutter got me down to the point where I could remove the real dirt.
I came into my computer room for a little break and what occurred to me was this...my house represents my life. My life had become very cluttery, I hold on to things (past experiences, emotions, people, ideas) for too long, I'm afraid to let things go because I might need them some day, I don't tend to put things in a proper, useful place in my house (life), but just kind of lay them where ever is handy and then ignore them until I need them and then when I need them and can't find them, I become completely overwhelmed at the huge mess I have created. I am aware of the messy state of my house (life) and some times agonize over it, but mostly I just look at it, ignore it or feel guilty, but don't take steps to get my house (life) back into order. I don't often ask for help in cleaning up that mess I've created because I see it as my own responsibility and I feel guilty asking others for help in cleaning up the mess I've made yet, when I ask for help I receive it and it always makes my job so much easier, sometimes even fun.
Recently I've begun to take responsibility for the mess my house and life appear to be in. I've asked for help when I've needed it, I've looked things over and released them, put them in the proper place or set them aside until I could more clearly determine what to do with them. Most importantly I've learned to not judge myself or anyone else for the mess that I see, but to just acknowledge it and move forward in cleaning it up. Because of all of this I can see that my mess has gotten much less difficult to manage. I still have a lot to sort through and put in it's proper place, but I'm making progress!
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