Spring Cleaning – Decluttering satisfies and releases Energies
05/02/15 by Felicitas Heyne | Filed in: Happiness
Although in most of the world’s regions spring has not yet arrived, soon it is going to arrive there as well; the days will be longer, the sun will soon shine more brightly into your home – a perfect time for a thorough spring cleaning, don’t you think? However today I don’t necessarily mean the one with water and scouring powder, but rather a kind of an „energy“ spring-cleaning per Feng-Shui. Never heard of it? Then it’s about high time! You’ll see, it is fun and in all respects worth it.
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Naturally motivation psychologists and –coaches have quite a bit on this subject up their sleeve; without my most recent move I would in all probability not have gotten acquainted with the Chinese Feng Shui doctrine where it concerns the subject of energy. At that time I acquired the above-mentioned book and discovered tips allowing for a totally new way to release energy. I tried it myself and can now justifiably state that it works – and how! So, in case you feel like it and can use an extra dose of spring energy I can only fervently recommend the book. Although I am convinced that almost everybody can profit from it, it is certainly particularly well suited for all perceiving iPersonic types. So you are aware what to expect, here is a brief foretaste:
The concept: Clutter is pent-up energy! According to the author clutter, stuff and junk – accumulate at a point when energy backs up. This makes it particularly insidious when accumulating junk in turn holds additional energy captive (the telling illustration for this: it gets “stuck” so to speak). This causes the initially insignificant junk- and energy accumulation to gradually keep growing, the energy congestion keeps getting less and less manageable, energy flows more and more sluggish. When you manage to establish order externally and re-invigorate the energy flow, it is going to reflect on your inner balance and your life by and large. Remember: Like inside, like outside – like outside, like inside! (Maybe you are already aware of this yourself: Tidying up, cleaning windows, vacuuming and similar external specifically “targeted” physical activities can sometimes be very helpful in case one is emotionally agitated and confused. Once one spent an angry hour vacuuming the entire apartment from top to bottom, pitching all those old newspapers and opened all the windows, everything tends to become emotionally calmer and clearer as well.) The author counts a variety of categories as clutter:
- Things you do not use or love
- Things that are untidy or disorganized
- Too many things in too small a space
- Anything unfinished
I would imagine that there are things of one or the other (or even all categories) in everyone’s life: after the move two years ago the box stored in the basement “for now” and then never touched again; the three pairs of really too tight jeans one still has not dumped into the used clothes container; the ancient childhood comic collection one has not looked at in years and dragged from one domicile to the other since Christ made little green apples; the tax return started and then moved from one side of the desk to the other . . . why do we have so many problems discarding, selling or giving stuff away? To me the author’s responses to this question were fascinating because after all, they start from the premise that “behind the obvious reason for the accumulation of junk ( . . ) are always hidden layers of deeper issues” – that is to say psychological problems. Without wanting to pre-empt too much, here are a few; maybe you recognize yourself in some of them?
- Those who hang on to things “just in case” because he/she - perhaps, maybe - eventually may still need them, (according to Karen Kingston) demonstrate lack of trusts in the future. He/ she feels vulnerable, insecure and tries to protect him/herself against all eventualities imaginable instead of feeling reassured that, in case he/she lets go of these things, at the right time he/she will have everything he/she needs.
- For some people their own identity is tied up in their “junk”. For example, photos and mementos validate them in who or what they are. That is ok as long as there aren’t too many things – because if that is the case, they tend to tie the personal energy into the “past” rather than directing it towards the “future”.
- For us in the west personal assets also represent status. Consequently many people indiscriminately collect stuff in order to shore up their sense of self-worth (known otherwise as „keeping up with the Joneses“). That is obviously an illusion just as the quest for security via personal assets or the assumption that more is better.
- In the author’s opinion junk affliction is also a means of dealing with undesirable feelings: Some hang on to obsolete or useless things out of skimpiness because they have the feeling they are getting the short end of the stick. By literally hiding behind their mountains of junk, others suppress feelings of loneliness, fear of intimacy or other unpleasant emotions.
Well now, did you get all contemplative while reading one or the other “junk interpretation”? No worries - the book provides you with all kinds of release tips for stuff and junk in your life that you may now see with different eyes. Among them the so-called Pareto-Principle (80/20 rule) is probably the most important. It states that we derive 80% of our benefit from 20% of our assets. The best example (particularly appropriate for women) is the wardrobe. Let’s be honest – isn’t it really true that a lot of stuff hangs in there that one never wears because one doesn’t like it (any longer), it became out of fashion or is too small? As a test for this hypothesis the author suggests a monthly inspection: Namely, each time when you wear something in the coming month you hang it one end of the clothes rail. At the end of the month it is easy to track which clothes you wear a lot and which of them rarely or not at all.
And how does one deal with this conundrum on the whole? Kingston suggests the four-box-method:
- The trash box (for everything that is obviously ripe for immediate discard)
- The repair box (for things that have to be repaired – they receive an individual time limit i.e. a time by which each item must be fixed, otherwise those items continue on into the trash box)
- The recycle box (for stuff one can still use: give away, donate, sell or perhaps return to folks from whom it has been borrowed at one time, or the other)
- And an indecision box (for those items where one is simply not sure whether to keep them or throw them away. Those get a deadline and after its expiration one tries to remember what it was that ended up in the box. After the expiration of the time line anything still considered useful is kept, the rest - out it goes.)
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This article was written by psychologist and book author Felicitas Heyne. She is the developer of the iPersonic personality test. Take the free personality test now and get in-depth career advice and life coaching from our unique iPersonic personality profiles!
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