​It’s Spring and I’m Clearing the Clutter from My Home and My Heart

It’s Spring and I’m Clearing the Clutter from My Home and My Heart

3/18/2016

It’s been awhile since I have written a Telling On Myself blog but I think it is time because there are new insights and changes that beg to be shared.

It all began when my daughter, during her Christmas visit, decided to organize my bathroom drawers and cupboard in the hopes of inspiring me to “Commit to the Cleanse!” and de-clutter my life. Talk about buying in hook, line and sinker! One look at the pristine, organized contents of my bathroom storage spaces and I was in. “Commit to the Cleanse!” became my mantra and I was filled with a kind of zealot-like crazed energy.

I couldn’t wait until my dresser drawers were worthy of a full page spread in Home and Garden magazine. Next came the closet…Dear Lord, that was a monumental undertaking but I was determined that I would not stop until Martha Stewart would be green with envy at the immaculate beauty of my closet.

Five large bags of stuff went home with my cleaning lady and still there were a few that went to the shelter. With each bag that left, I could breathe a little easier. It was positively intoxicating. At one point I told my daughter, “There may not be anything left for you to inherit, but I am having a hell of a time!” It was so freeing and so great not to feel that little twinge of guilt, every time I walked into my closet or opened a drawer.

Then, as if to get confirmation from the Divine, I had Robin and Michael Mastro on my Transition Radio show and Michael, who is a Vastu Master talked about how critically important it is to de-clutter your homes in order to allow the energy to flow freely, in order to enhance your health and your life. Vastu, for any of you who didn’t hear the show, came from India and preceded Feng Shui but incorporates the same ideas and principles.

Now, it's spring and while I have broken the back of the "House Clutter Beast," I recently realized that there was another area of my life that also needed de- cluttering.

It was my heart and what it has been attracted to for way too many years now. Like a lot of you, I have been single for quite awhile. Oh, there have been a few long-term relationships along the way but nothing that was really lasting. You see, I had perfected being attracted to Likeable Narcissists, as I have now come to realize. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, I had a real propensity for finding the ones who were absolutely terrified of the C word. That’s commitment for those of you that didn’t get it. But what I now understand is that this was a perfect guy for me because I, too, was terrified of commitment and with this kind of guy, there was never any danger that we would end up in a marriage or some other long term living arrangement.

In next weeks blog I will share what I have learned and what I have done to de clutter my heart and make a space for something new and different. I hope you’ll join me for that.

PAULA SHAW, CADC, DCEP is a Master Life Transition Coach and Grief Specialist. She is also a Best Selling Author, Keynote Speaker and radio talk show host.
For more than 20 years, Paula has been passionate about empowering people who are dealing with profound loss, to help them reap something truly beautiful from their pain, turning that pain into possibility.
She also helps clients who are going through major life transitions or seeking freedom from self-destructive addictions. She has degrees in Education and Communications from Long Beach State University, as well as graduate counseling credentials in Grief and Addictive Disorders from Loyola Marymount University.
She is one of the founding members of the Association of Comprehensive Energy Psychology and currently serves on its board of directors.

Paula is the author of Chakras, the Magnificent Seven (2002), as well as the newly released Grief...When Will This Pain Ever End? Finding Your Way out of the Pit of Despair after Profound Loss, which was released June 15, 2015.

1 Comment

Michelle

3/21/2016 02:22:55 pm

Congratulations, Paula! I, too, have seized on the decluttering bandwagon with a fervor that approaches frenzy. I call it moving from the Macro to the Micro. So what's the Macro? Big projects that are visible to a visitor. First, I identified areas that, like you, made me cringe when I walked by. I decided to devote a month to each project. Every Saturday since the first of the year, my husband and I have worked on 1/4 of that month's project. By the last Saturday of the month, that project is finished. January was the room we call our library. When we were done, we donated more than 400 books to our local public library. February was our son's bedroom (he moved out last June). This month it's the unfinished side of our basement, which was covered in inch-thick plaster dust from a 2013 kitchen remodel that required plumbing and electrical work in the basement - yikes!! April will be the garage, though we expect to get that done in one day. What, then, is the Micro? It's the smaller stuff that a visitor wouldn't be able to see, but it's still there. Closets, dresser drawers, tax records, filing cabinet. The difference already is palpable. So I applaud you! And now, let's adhere to a new rule: if something other than food comes in the house, two things leave the house. Buy a sweater? Donate two articles of clothing (or more!) to a shelter or charity. Let's not create a beautifully restful, peaceful tranquil environment only to junk it up again. And one more suggestion: when we're done, let's smudge our home with sage and walk through the rooms with a tinkling bell to get rid of the rest of the old energy. Happy Spring!!