An essay on Creating Space - Declutter

You must have heard of the analogy that anything that occupies space has no potential for possibilities. If you keep filling your cup with things that maybe don’t require that place, the cup will overflow and you won’t be able to add things that truly mean a lot to you. Sometimes we tend to add on way too much than we need because we’re afraid that we won’t get something better and one of the most common reasons is that we find it difficult to let go.

In my experience as a therapist, I see a lot of people experiencing burnout, overwhelm and fear because they don’t create space for what truly matters. There’s a pressing need to declutter and detox. Decluttering is an important strategy to apply because the more we tend to let go, the more we create space, and creating space gives us an opportunity to add what truly helps us grow and evolve.

When we tend to hold on and constantly add more and more that’s when we feel our energy and enthusiasm also depleting. Sometimes it is also just our own thoughts that tend to weigh us down and somehow because we are spiralling and holding on too much than we should we miss out on amazing opportunities and moments of happiness.

There is a lot that is talked about being mindful and making choices and decisions that truly add meaning and value to our life. Somehow because we tend to keep adding instead of taking away, we end up making decisions and choices from a very exhausting mindset and the choices we make don’t really help us in the long term.

Creating space for happiness, peace, love, and compassion can happen when we allow ourselves to slow down and look at all the things that no longer fit in our lives currently. It could be material possessions, relationships that don’t fulfill our soul anymore, tasks/activity that no longer feels fun, job/work that doesn’t help serve a purpose anymore, or even habits that once helped but now need to change.

In the third week of my coaching program, I tend to work with clients on their habits, and one of the things where most people find it difficult is to declutter and let go. When they start implementing it, they feel a lot lighter and less chaotic. They’ve often come back to me saying, that they always meant to let go of it, but somehow found ways to hold on, just because.

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There was one time when all I asked my client to declutter was her use of labels. We discussed the number of labels they usually give themselves and to declutter it slowly. Let go of the need to hold on to those labels as validation or punishment. It sounded extremely uncomfortable at first but it helped free up space for appreciation and compliments, something she hadn’t thought of before.

Sometimes we may need to create space even before something has happened or arrived. When we’re waiting, we tend to get impatient, it is in that period of waiting that we need to start creating space for the thing we’re so eagerly waiting for.

If it’s love, we must declutter our mental space with negative feelings related to love or experiences of the past. If it’s money we need to declutter our feelings of fear and make space for an abundant mindset that will help attract better and happy money.

As a coach/therapist, my focus is mainly on mental and emotional decluttering. In my opinion, our mind is a lot like our homes. We need to decorate it, nourish it, look after it, protect it, and cleanse it from time to time. But due to our own fear or lack of awareness, we tend to hoard emotions and feelings that make our emotional and mental space feel cluttered, noisy, and messy.

As someone who teaches a lot about manifestation, I can personally vouch that better things tend to happen when we keep creating space for the things, we truly desire. Because if you think about it, you can’t attract from a cluttered space. Something needs to go for something else to come in for something better to come in.

A lot of times, I’m approached by clients who need clarity and a better direction in creating this space. A better level of confidence, productivity, better lifestyle, an aligned way of living with purpose, better relationships, and connections. Decluttering is a very important variable that we often miss out on.

Decluttering is usually spoken of in terms of physical clutter; however, mental decluttering is just as important and required. It’s also the one we are afraid to touch upon because we know that it could mean making changes that we may not be ready for just yet.

And that’s okay, we can always go at it at our pace. If you need to take help in a better direction, you can always work with a professional to take it step by step and make smaller changes that could feel very daunting to go at it alone.

There’s a trend that most of us often fall prey to, the more the merrier. We all want things in great abundance and a lot of it all the time. But slowly we get confused and lose touch with what’s really healthy and unhealthy and welcome everything in. This becomes a pattern and we find ourselves bogged down. It becomes difficult to retrace steps that made us feel this way in the first place.

In my professional experience, one size doesn’t fit all and it needs to be tailored specifically to our needs and requirements. The most basic step to follow is to bring to our awareness all that we have been collecting and segment it down to what’s healthy and unhealthy and slowly find ways to let go of what’s unhealthy.

I’ve often journaled this anytime there’s way too much that I feel I’m holding on to. I find it difficult to let go too so I completely understand how this can be very daunting and might I add very frustrating too.

I allow myself to meditate a little just to be able to listen to my own clutter.

This may be funny to read, but somewhere I have felt that the clutter, the unnecessary bit also wishes to leave me painlessly. And now that I’m finally listening to it, I might find ways to pay attention to it.

Before I conclude this article, I’d like to leave you with an important question that you could either journal or meditate on –“What is the clutter in your life trying to tell you right now? What does it need?”

Thank you for reading!

Write to me if this activity helped you in anyway.

This was also published on my Substack - Click here to read