Thanks for stopping by today's blog post. I'd like to share something from Saturday's Clutter Busting Your Life webinar.
One of the participants wrote in and said, "I have made pretty good progress clutter busting some rooms - amazing progress, but, I can't even make a dent, a start in the office. I spend a lot of time in this office and it is chaos
... and I don't know how to start here. I am stuck in this room. I do
not love it but I don't know how to start with it. There are things piled up on the desk, stuffed filing cabinets, piles of paper books etc from my ex."
My clutter radar went off when I saw "ex." I said that it was probably the presence of stuff from her ex that shut her down and made it impossible for her to let go of anything in her office. It's often unresolved emotional associations that we have with things in our life that make us feel confused and depressed and incapable of taking action.
She said, "I have bad memories about the stuff that is not mine, but he won't come and get."
I said it's as if her ex is living in her house through his things. It's a passive aggressive act. He knows she doesn't like that he's left his stuff there, but he won't come by and get his things. It bothers her and it hurts her, and he knows that.
I asked her to imagine that her ex left her with two dogs that she hated, and the dogs went around tearing up her furniture, barking all the time and peeing on things. And she asked him to come and get the dogs and he wouldn't. That's what it's like for her to have to hang on to her ex's stuff because it's bothering her. I said it's okay to admit that it hurts her. I also said it's her house. Whatever she says goes. She can toss his things or or mail them to him. Whatever is easiest for her.
It's an act of kindness to take care of ourselves. To no longer live with crap that we don't care for, that bothers us. It's our right to remove from our life what hurts us. We can't wait for other people to do this for us. Our home is our realm.
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I'll be doing another Clutter Busting Your Life Webinar this Saturday August 18th at Noon Central. Sign up info is on the upper right of this blog page.