One of the radio stations I like to listen to is National Public Radio (NPR). There was an interview on one of the shows with a woman who had just written a book on Feng Shui. Now I’m not an expert on Feng Shui, but I do understand that it’s an Eastern philosophy of how you design and decorate your house or business, and how important the placement of everything is in order to best tap into the flow of energy of the universe, with the goal being to have good chi.
She said something that was really fascinating to me. She was talking about clutter in our homes, and how clutter keeps us from tapping into life’s energies, into that universal force. She talked about the need to clear out clutter in order to make ourselves ready for new possibilities in our lives.
She was talking about physical clutter. She also talked about people who have financial trouble and how if you clear out stacks of old bills or receipts that are just piling up in your house (either file them away, or just toss them, shred them, whatever) then you can open yourself up to new financial possibilities.
I actually de-cluttered my home several years ago. At first, I looked at all the “stuff” I had and was almost paralyzed by the thought of de-cluttering my house. I had a wise friend that said, “Dan, just break it up into doable pieces.”
So, I took a 4 by 4 foot area of a room and systematically went through it, throwing away or giving away things that I didn’t need or hadn’t used in a long time. I kept only those things that brought me joy or nourished my spirit. The outcome? I felt freer, lighter and more energized. It really worked, and as I look around my house, I think it’s time to do that again!
If it works on physical clutter, then what about the spiritual and emotional clutter in our lives that gets in the way of our tapping into the possibilities of new opportunities?
Joyce Rupp, author of Praying Our Goodbyes, says that saying goodbye is not always easy, but it’s part of life, part of our daily life. We say hello and goodbye all the time, every day. We say hello when someone walks in the door, we say goodbye when we leave a group of friends or when our loved one is going to work. Our lives are a process of saying hello and saying goodbye on multiple levels.
Rupp gives four steps in the process of saying goodbye. These are helpful steps in enabling you to have proper goodbyes so you can move on, without the clutter.
Step 1: Let go
The first step is to recognize what it is that you need to let go.
Maybe it’s old resentments or grudges. Perhaps it’s the need for control. Maybe you have emotional scars from your childhood that you’ve been holding onto for a long time. Maybe you have fear or anxiety about something in your life.
Maybe you’re in an unhealthy relationship and you need to let go of people around you who are holding you back from doing what you need to do in your life. Maybe you’re in a dead-end or life-draining job and it’s time to move on and find something else that gives you more life. Maybe it’s a destructive habit.
Perhaps you’re dealing with old grief or loss from a divorce, or a job or a move. Perhaps you need to let go of a person, someone who has died, a friendship that has ended or a child who has gone off to school or who’s gotten married. Maybe it’s the loss of health that you need to say goodbye to, or the loss of your youth. Maybe it’s simply the image that you had of where you thought you’d be in life by this time.
I’m sure you could come up with your own things that you need to let go of, things that are holding you back from experiencing life to the fullest.
Step 2: Don’t hold back
The second step is to accept the wisdom and necessity of not holding onto whatever it is that’s holding you back, and to realize that it often takes more energy to stay in one place than it does to move on.
Think about the image of a hovering humming bird. Did you know that it takes a hummingbird more than 1,000 heart beats a minute just to keep flying in the air? Imagine, the energy that is used by trying to hover in one place, instead of moving on.
Now imagine the emotional energy, the psychic energy that you expend just trying to hold onto what you’re familiar with, because of fears of moving into the unknown of the future.
Step 3: Take action
The third step is to gather the energy and the will to take action. Do something. Again, it’s never easy, and it often takes a while. It’s a process. If there’s something that we need to let go, praying about it can be very helpful.
Step 4: Trust in God
The fourth and final step is to surrender whatever it is. Give it to God, trusting that God will take care of it, and take care of us, and that it’s OK to move on.
Unresolved grief keeps us from fully entering into the new. When I talk about letting go of things, you can’t just let go of grief without dealing with it, you have to work through it.
What is it that you need to let go of? What is it that you need to get rid of in order to fully enter the new?
Here’s to living clutter-free. Be empowered!
