About half way through a clutter bust, my client said, "Some of the things I have here are for
someday in the future. Some of the things I have are to keep the past
alive. There's not much presence for me that I'm living in. There aren't
things I love now."
She was being very honest with herself about her clutter situation. It was a powerful and healing realization for her.
When you live with things that don't nurture you now, your life feels empty. You don't feel taken care of. Even though you have things, there's a deep feeling of lack. You know this feeling when you come through your front door and you don't feel at home. You know it when you are sitting home amongst all your things and you find yourself having a craving for more things. You feel edgy and irritable and you don't know why.
The way to come back to yourself, to feel alive now, is to start systematically removing item by item the things you no longer love and use. It's like you are buried alive, and you are unburying yourself. With each piece of clutter that goes, you feel life coming back in you.