Recently I worked with someone who'd been wanting to help her parent get rid of his clutter. But for many years, her father refused her efforts. She was determined to help him clutter bust and he was determined not to change his ways. Even though he wasn't budging, she wouldn't give up. These efforts on her part were causing her tremendous emotional pain.
I pointed out that it takes an openness on someone's part for change to occur. Just because another person believes this person can change, won't make it so. The openness is a crack, and that's what lets the light through. Until that crack of openness occurs, things will remain the same. There's something about relentlessly pushing someone that tends to close doors rather than open them.
It helps to be honest with ourselves about what's happening in our lives and see the effect it's having on us. This means looking at what's in our lives without the guise of how we wish it would be. For my client, it was seeing that she had been hoping and trying to get her father to change for over twenty years, and that he wasn't changing. Also it was seeing that her efforts were hurting her heart. She was experiencing deep sorrow. This despair was effecting her work and her relationships with others that were close with her.
Clutter is anything in our life that isn't serving us. It can be as simple as a sheet of paper on a counter that is a flyer for an event that was last year, or as complex as trying to make someone do what they don't want to do. My client's wanting her father to get rid of his clutter, was her clutter.
When my client saw this situation for what it was, I sensed she felt a weight lift. That's freedom.