Beautiful gifts lie hidden in this murky darkness.
Grief lives in our bodies, and it’s often buried in our clutter. We stuff away papers, clothes, and memories that we’re not ready to deal with. Most of us weren’t taught how to be with and process grief. Now you’re overwhelmed by the unprocessed items in your home and can’t seem to get started.
Grief feels uncomfortable, and we absolutely don’t want to spend time with it. Instead, we shove it aside, way in the back of the closet. Life is too busy right now anyway. You imagine dealing with that icky stuff someday in the future, much further out when you finally have the time.
Only “someday” never seems to arrive. Somehow, that closet began overflowing with old shoes, boxes of papers, and unpleasant memories. Maybe a whole room starts to feel like a junk room full of indecision. You’ll do some sorting next weekend. For some reason, even when you really try, you can’t seem to move the needle back. You’re stuck.
In my work as a professional home organizer, I see and hear these stories constantly. While many emotions, both positive and negative, get buried, grief feels like one of the most uncomfortable–and the one we feel least prepared for.
As a holistic practitioner, I take these buried factors into account. When clients stumble into something that feels unexpectedly horrible, I’m there to hold space. Does talking help? Do you just need a safe space for silence? These tender moments feel significantly valuable. We’re discovering what hurts and being brave enough to listen to what it needs.
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How I Navigated My Own Grief
Nearly six years ago, I felt my whole world collapse. I burned out of my tech job, discovered narcissism in my birth family, and realized my intentional community home had serious cult vibes. Thankfully, my minimalist lifestyle had empowered me to save enough money for an open-ended sabbatical.
Complete emptiness and hopelessness are feelings I know well. I often reflect on how clearing my physical space gave me the capacity to sort through my inner clutter to release what no longer served me.
During my early healing process, I poured into psychology books, making lists of behaviors to reroute, patterns to watch for, and new beliefs to take on. We don’t have to earn love. Femininity is seriously valuable. Emotions matter. As my logical brain ran circles and did flips to fix the mess, it only worked so well.
Pain and trauma live in our bodies. The only way out is through. My body’s healing pace felt way slower than I’d like. Somatic processing channels, like yin and restorative yoga practices and free-form dance, helped so much.
One step at a time, I built inner strength to thoughtfully heal inner scars and navigate my triggers in daily life. I sobbed nearly every day for almost two years. I know what that overwhelming black abyss of loss can look and feel like, and I’ve come through, better for having embarked on that journey.
Our grief is valuable and deserves to be felt. As we move through the grief, pain, and trauma, we begin to trust in the process. Our lives flow more gracefully, and those protective layers of clutter fall away.
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How You Can Build Inner Strength
As a holistic-oriented professional, I take mind, body, and spirit approaches into consideration. We’re talking about strengthening your intuition and honoring your emotions.
Karen Kingston, author of Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui, describes clutter as anything that is:
- Unloved
- Unused
- Stuffed in
- Unresolved
Identifying and clearing clutter flows much more naturally when you build up your discernment muscles. All that decision-making gets easier and can be simplified. Maybe you can clarify an entire style, category, or hobby as no longer present or useful for you. How exciting! You’re ready to release and create space for the new.
During sessions, I’m frequently grounding the energy and encouraging mindfulness. Why are these clothes so tough to get rid of when you know you haven’t worn them in years? Why are you keeping hundreds of books when you read fewer than five per year? What are you really expecting to do with the old journals or bin of graphic tees?
Building inner strength can look all sorts of ways. Maybe you start going to the gym again and clean up your diet. Perhaps you finally reach out for that therapist you know you’ve needed to find. I’ll share my daily staples and a few bonus ideas.
- Journaling: Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, motivated me to do “morning pages” every day. That’s three pages filled with your stream of consciousness words. This practice helped me know myself more and feel grounded enough to take creative risks and eventually, to start this business.
- Meditating: It’s been nearly 10 years since I began my daily meditation practice. It helps so much. We create space between stimulus and response to make healthier choices. We gain rich self-awareness and connectedness. It’s powerful stuff.
- Moving: Find whatever ways you can get into your body joyfully and safely. Gabrielle Roth’s “5 Rhythms of the Soul” dance practices seriously inspired me to reach a whole new level of body love. Most importantly, listen to what your body is telling you. It knows.
Dream tending is another practice that feels especially potent for healing. It’s an embodied Jungian practice for exploring your unconscious. Ultimately, we’re integrating these repressed parts of ourselves to show up more fully.
Create space for play time with your inner child, whether that’s more planned like Cameron’s “artist date” practices or in small moments throughout the day. Allowing space for play balances and accepts grief as part of our wide spectrum of emotions.
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Healing and clearing can be very exciting and uplifting processes. We learn to trust and flow with the constant changes in our lives. We adapt. We shed what no longer feels present and lean more fully into the now.
Clutter clearing is really about improving your relationship with your things. Do you walk around your home and feel empowered, inspired, and relaxed? Or do you see an oppressive to-do list and piles of delayed decisions? Let’s shift the needle by creating safety for those buried emotions. With inner strength, we gain confidence to address even the most stuck areas.
I hope I’ve motivated you to create momentum! If you need some professional support, I’d love to connect. I offer in-person home organizing and decluttering sessions to clients in the San Francisco Bay Area. If you’re ready to feel lighter and more at peace in your space, feel free to book your free intro call. I’d love to hear from you.
For now, take care and happy clearing!
Photo Credit: Unsplash, Oleg Ivanov