We can get so tangled up in the clutter in our lives that it can be hard to notice what's no longer serving us and what we love and enjoy. It can all look like one big conglomeration of stuff. This can make it intimidating to take a look.
What helps is to admit it's daunting. "This is a friggin' mess! I don't know where to start! Looking at this makes me want to give up." Let the feelings fly. There's relief in admitting to what is. Ignore any feelings of blame. You're just looking to see the situation for what it is. You're releasing all the feelings so you can have a clearer head about it.
This makes it easier to sit down amidst it all and begin to sort it out. The matter-of-factness about it is you're looking to separate out the clutter piece by piece. It's like untangling a wire, one loop at a time. You undo loop and it leads you to the next.
A while back I was working with a client who was standing amidst all the piles of stuff in his bedroom. He looked like a fractured man. I could see that he had given up. It made sense because here was this room that was meant for rest, and it was a cacophony of bits and pieces of who knows what. He said, "I'm so embarrassed to be living this way."
I took that opening and picked up some socks off the floor. I asked, "Do you still enjoy wearing these?" He thought about it and said he didn't. They went in the donate bin. I picked up an empty diet coke liter bottle. I asked if he plans for it. He said he didn't. It went in the trash bin.
I didn't tell my client what to think. I wanted him to get back in the experience of making decisions for himself. It's the making of decisions that gets us out of the mental shutdown.
After about a half an hour of my asking, he began to pick up the pieces and ask himself whether he loved and used something anymore or not. He was back on his feet.