Clutter Busting: Letting Go of What's Holding You Back

by Brooks Palmer

personal copy paperback 215 pages

Published: 2009

Genre: Non-fiction, self-help

 

Back story: I saw this in the gift shop at Abbott Northwestern on one of my trips to visit Louise in October. I was intrigued, so I snapped a pic of the cover and requested it from the library. For the first few chapters, my basic response was, "what a bunch of New Age psychobabble crap!" But it's a pretty quick little read and there were lots of specific story examples, so I kept reading. Pretty soon, I was putting post-it notes all over it. Then I decided to bite the bullet and buy my own copy so I could share it. (Though the people I'd like to share it with may not be interested . . .)

 

Title page quotation: "With all the things you have in your life, are you any more happy than your dog?" -Ramesh Balsekar

 

Chapter 3 "Clutter Keeps Us Living in the Past" is the first one that really made me stop. At the end of each chapter, he has an "exercise" for the reader to try. This chapter's exercise is about imagining your own death and seeing complete strangers come into your home and sort through all your belongings. "Listen to their reactions to your stuff. See what is left behind after they leave. See the garbage men come and take and toss the leftovers. See new people move in and distribute their clutter." He writes about our attachment to our stuff and trying to discern what is really important and worth saving versus what is just clutter.

Page 83 (Chapter 4 - Clutter Represents Fear of Change) - ". . . guilt does not work. It is simply self-cruelty. It prevents change. The person gets to keep whipping herself with bad feelings."

In this section, he's talking about a woman who's had an exercise bike for five years and not used it. It's hard to get at and piled with other stuff. "She was keeping the bike to make her feel guilty as a way to get her to exercise." I understand this! Intentions and actions . . . don't always match. The guilt piece can be extremely powerful, but is not productive!

Page 90 (Ch. 5 - Clutter Is an Addiction) "People defend their clutter, sometimes even when they see that it no longer serves them. This happens because they are looking at the thing and not at the feeling behind the thing."

This chapter really started getting my attention. I've already been trying to declutter my home. I recognize that people are more important than things. I still have too much stuff and sometimes it really gets in the way of what's important!

Page 94 - when he talks about the woman who is picking up free roadside stuff . . . it made me think of watching Hoarders. I think for some people, collecting stuff definitely is like being addicted to drugs. They get a "high" off of getting stuff. I don't struggle with this one!

Page 107 (Ch. 6 - Clearing Clutter to Make Room for Clarity) - "It's good to get used to open space. Layering adds confusion. Space brings peace and ease."

I'm no "Marie Kondo" or "Clean Sweep" person, but I do value having open space to work on projects, relax, bake, etc. I like having less stuff, though I still have too much!

Page 115 (still ch. 6) - This made me think of someone dear to me. "As you take a closer look you being to feel that there's a string tied to everything you own, the other end of which is triple-knotted around your heart. Subconsciously, you are pulled in many directions by the things you own. You become overwhelmed and lose your clarity. This is one of the main reasons why so many people are agitated and stressed." To me, this is a heart-breaking way to live.

Page 148 - (Ch. 7 - Inner Clutter Creates Outer Clutter) - "This is the definition of clutter: things that exist in your outer life to distract you from the inner things that you're avoiding. If you avoid something, it grows." I like this part a lot. Sometimes we make things worse than they are by worrying and avoiding. 

Page 149 - "When your home and world are in disarray, you can't relax. It takes more energy to be in chaos because you have to keep track of all the junk. Eventually exhaustion sets in. When you honestly look at clutter and ask if it's necessary in your life, buried emotions come to the surface."

I ended up enjoying this book more than I expected. I'm not sure how to share it (or with whom) . . .