Living In The Present

Clutter keeps us stuck in the past and diminishes us. When you let go of clutter, you become present with yourself. You get your life back. In this track, I share an example of a person who let go of what was not serving him and how it improved his life experience.

Transcript

Hi,

This is Brooks,

And thanks for joining me.

I'd like to share with you a story from the Clutterbusting Frontlines.

And it's about living in the present rather than in the past.

So I've been helping people at Go Clutter for about 20 plus years.

And basically I go into people's homes and help them ask questions about the things in their lives.

To decide whether it serves them or not.

My experience is a lot of us hold on to things that are no longer part of our lives.

At some point it was,

Or that we wanted to be,

But it isn't anymore.

And it's in the way of us living our life.

And it can be hard sometimes to ask the question,

Does this serve me or not?

Do I love and use this or not?

How does it make me feel living with this thing?

Because most of us are trained to believe that things are more important than us.

That as we are,

We're not enough,

So we need more.

So I'll share with you this story.

I was working with this client,

He's a photographer,

And I was working in his office with him.

And every once in a while his wife would come in the room.

And she was from another country.

She didn't speak English very well.

And he didn't speak her language very well.

And when they were talking with each other,

There was this discord.

They weren't able to connect very well.

And it was frustrating for both of them.

You could tell they wanted to connect,

But it was difficult.

And I was making them both irritable around each other.

So she leaves the room and we continue working in his office.

And there's this waterfall machine that's on his desk.

It's one of those things that you plug in and water flows out of it,

Within it,

Like a waterfall.

And it's supposed to relax you.

My clutter radar went off when I saw it.

So I asked him about it,

And he turned very pale.

And his eyes went glazy.

He looked sick.

That often happens.

Like when you ask someone about something,

They don't even have to say anything.

You can see it in their body that it's clutter for them.

It's not observing them.

And I asked about the machine,

And he goes,

Well,

It doesn't work.

And he turns it on and makes this grinding sound.

So I said,

Can it be fixed?

And he says,

No.

So I said,

Can we toss it out?

And he got that pale,

Sick look back to him.

And he said,

No,

No.

I've got to hang on to it.

So I said,

Who gave it to you?

And he related the story about how it was a gift from an old girlfriend.

And they had a really tumultuous relationship.

And at some point,

She left him.

And he said that he was stuck in bed for like three months.

He couldn't get out of bed.

He was so devastated.

So I said to him,

So if you hang on to this,

Then I guess you're going to get a divorce.

And he said,

Well,

What are you talking about?

And I said,

Well,

If you have something like this that reminds you of such a horrible relationship and it's on your desk and you see it every day,

It's already having a detrimental effect on you.

But it's going to be a cumulative,

Destructive effect.

And it's going to hurt your heart,

And it's going to hurt the relationship.

It's not going to allow you to be close and intimate with your wife.

It's like being terrorized by the past.

And he thought about this.

He really thought about it.

And he got this sobering look.

It's hard to describe.

There's a point where a person is very confused about an object or an activity or a person in their life that's clutter.

And you can feel they're fighting it.

They're wanting to hang on to it at the same time.

Like they want to let go,

But they can't.

And all of a sudden,

It's like a fever broke in him.

And he got this sober,

He just became very sober looking.

And this piece that just emanated out of him.

So he picks up the waterfall machine.

And he throws it in the trash can,

And it cracks in half.

And he looks so powerful.

You can see he let go of that old relationship when he did that.

And he's very present.

He put himself first.

He made himself primary.

He came back to life.

Basically,

That's what happened.

And then,

On his own,

Without any prompting from me,

Because he had all this strength and this courage,

Because he was present,

He went to these drawers.

He had all these drawers with photographs of him because he was a photographer.

And he went to the bottom drawer and reached way in the back.

And he had stashed all these hidden photographs.

And he pulled them out.

And they were all photographs of ex-girlfriends.

And he had told me about some of his relationships and how bad a lot of them were.

So these were more mementos,

And very much like that waterfall machine.

Something that was the reminders of pain from the past.

Reminders of heartbreak.

Reminders of sadness.

And an attachment to old relationships that weren't serving him.

So what he did was,

He took one photo at a time,

Looked at it and tore it up.

And looked at another and tore it up.

And looked at another picture of this woman and tore it up.

All these different women.

Tore them all up.

And he was crying while he was doing it.

These tears were pouring out of his eyes.

And again this feeling of vitality,

Of life,

Was just shooting out of him like the sun.

As beautiful as it will hold.

It always is.

When a person lets go of something that isn't serving them anymore.

They decide they want to live in the present today,

Fully alive.

Let go of that past.

So he got his life back.

And then,

Not soon after,

I mean very soon after that,

His wife comes into the room again.

She brings some snacks.

And suddenly they're communicating so much better.

It's not that they learned each other's language better.

But there was an undercurrent of connection that had been re-established.

And they were laughing and they were touching each other and hugging each other.

And giving each other these beautiful,

Loving gazes.

And you could feel their connection,

Which was not there before.

And they were both amazed.

They were like,

They had lost something,

They got it back,

You could see how giddy and happy they were about it.

So she leaves the room again.

And he says to me,

He says,

Oh my God,

I've never been able to feel that close to my wife.

And I said,

Well you did a great thing for yourself.

You got rid of these old things that kept you lost in the past.

Trapped and suffering in the nightmare of the past.

And you got rid of those things and freed yourself and now here you are today.

And you're fully present.

And you're able,

As a result,

To feel that presence with your wife.

And together you get to share that experience.

And it was stunning.

The transformation was incredible.

And I've seen this a number of times.

People removing something that was an anchor to the past in one way or another,

That wasn't serving them today.

I mean sometimes we hang onto things that have really good memories,

But what they end up doing is making us feel like the past was better than today.

So that denigrates today.

It reduces today.

There's this feeling like I can live off those amazing,

Remembering feelings of the past.

But those are never equal to what it feels like to be alive and present today.

Even when there's difficult times,

If we're present in the moment,

There's that vitality of being alive that carries us through that.

That aliveness that feeds us,

Especially in difficult times.

So these experiences,

They give me the strength to help question people.

Help people question their stuff.

Everything gets questioned during a clutter bust.

If you question something,

You realize,

Yeah,

This is a part of my life today.

I love and use this thing today.

Great.

You keep it,

You enjoy it.

And if it's the opposite,

No,

I don't love and use this.

It takes me away from today.

I want to remove it.

And again,

You get your life back.

Each piece of clutter that goes,

You get your life back.

It's the greatest trade in the world.

It's the greatest trade.

To feel alive today,

To feel present today,

To realize that you're enough.

As you are today,

You're enough.

And suddenly you're protecting yourself and you're loving yourself.

And you care about yourself.

And that's the greatest feeling that you can have.

So I say it like that to encourage you to look,

To encourage you to ask.

Maybe before you clutter bust,

You can put your hand on your heart and say,

I'm enough.

As I am,

I'm enough.

And I'm going to go through my things right now,

Piece by piece,

And I'm going to ask,

Do I like and use this or not?

Does this support me today?

Does this make my life a better place to be today?

And anything beyond yes is a red flag.

Anything like,

Well,

You know,

I spent a lot of money on this or,

You know,

I don't want to forget about this these days and those days in the past or,

You know,

Like anything beyond yes.

Because yes means I love this.

It's part of my life.

There's no problem with it.

It serves me.

It's good.

Any hesitation,

Any yeah buts are red flags.

And it's worth taking a deeper look.

No,

Just like my client did.

He took it.

He took a deeper look.

And he got his life back.

And again,

That's the best thing.

The best thing.

So.

I wish you the best in your clutter busting.

And it's good spending this time with you.

Take care.

Bye bye.

Reviews

Very profound