While I’m sitting on my balcony with my lunch bowl, enjoying the autumn sun, my gaze falls onto my opposite neighbour’s balcony.
It belongs to a lady who moved in a few months ago. Since she spends a lot of time moving things to and from her balcony right opposite mine, I couldn’t avoid watching her from time to time.
There was A LOT of - what looks to my eyes - clutter. Old blankets, broken stuff, plastic flower bouquets, broken kitchen appliances.
Sometimes she would move things, sort things out and clean up the space, only to fill it up with new old stuff.
I talked to her briefly (more shouting friendly words from one balcony to the other while the sound of traffic interrupting the conversation). She seems like a very kind and lovely person.
So while I’m sitting here with my lunch, I’m contemplating the chaos… From a Feng Shui point of view this would likely count as clutter (well, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, by all means!).
But as a therapist I wonder: what is this brave woman processing? She seems to process a lot of stuff - only to clear out and bring in more stuff to process… What is her history, her story?
Clutter / stuff is so much more than just… well, material objects. Its a reflection of what we accept into our lives, our energy field.
We all have clutter. Our clutter can be old, broken, dirty stuff, it can be unpaved bills, digital clutter on our devices, clothes we dont wear, magazines we never read, mind clutter… you name it.
One of my teachers, Karen Kingston, has written her famous book ‘Clear your clutter with Feng Shui’ about it and many have followed her with their own books, TV shows and advise.
While I do help people to clear their clutter, I have also realised over the years that clutter stands for something deeper which more often than not needs to be looked at more closely.
Clutter represents our shadow. It makes out shadow visible. The shadow we want to hide. That we are ashamed of. It shows that we are not perfect. And there it is, visible to all, in the form of our clutter.
Thats why clutter is such a shameful subject…
Instead of hitting yourself over the head with that big shame hammer, I rather suggest to make yourself a nice cup of tea and sit with it. Contemplate your clutter without immediately jumping into action (or avoidance). Sit with it. Watch it. Observe yourself: what comes up? Breathe… Sip your tea.
And eventually, when the time is ripe, you could decide to take action. But please, be kind with yourself about it! Have patience with yourself.