Preparation For Letting Go

Hi,

It's Brooks.

Thank you very much for joining me.

Today I'm going to talk about clutter busting as a simple and kind approach to letting go.

So for a little over 20 years I've been helping people let go of their clutter.

And I love my job.

I love it because I'm basically helping people take back their lives.

And that's what clutter busting is about.

My definition of clutter is anything in your life that's no longer serving you.

So that could be a tangible thing.

It could be an activity.

It could be a particular relationship.

It could be the way that you see the world.

Anything that doesn't support you doesn't fit you.

Doesn't serve your nature.

It diminishes you.

And when you remove the clutter,

You come alive again because clutter restricts us.

And when we find something that doesn't serve us and we remove it,

Then we grow.

We come back to life.

And so today I want to talk about how to declutter.

How you can approach,

How you can take that curious look at your life and discover the things that are clutter and how to remove them.

And I use the word simple and kind because I found that's the best approach.

There's no harshness here.

There's no pushing yourself,

Chiding yourself,

Anything like that.

It's a curious look and curiosity is very kind.

Curiosity is filled with wonder.

There's this feeling,

I wonder what I'm going to find that no longer serves me.

And it's part of us.

Deep down,

Everybody has their own way of being curious.

And once you start to use it,

It comes to life more and more.

And it becomes quite a valuable tool.

So the best way to start to declutter is to realize that it can't all be done in one day.

And I say that because sometimes people will tell me stories about how they,

You know,

Some clients will tell me a story about how they wanted to,

They thought,

All right,

I'm going to do this on my own.

I'm going to get it all done in one day because they were so frustrated from living under clutter.

And that makes sense.

You know,

That makes sense.

It's like,

Oh,

My God,

This is painful living this way.

And I want to remove the source of the pain so I don't feel pain anymore.

You know,

And it takes it takes more than a day.

And it helps to know that it takes the time it takes basically.

And it's a healthy approach to have that.

No.

Everything worth doing takes some time.

And you know,

It took some time for the clutter to build up.

And over time,

It became a habit.

So we're talking about dismantling those things as well as the habit.

And the kindness and the compassion that you can have for yourself during this process will help with the healing.

Because the healing does happen.

When you start to look at the clutter and start to look at the things in your life and you're discovering what's clutter,

It's a very loving action because you're first off,

It's like I love myself enough to remove the things that are hurting me.

That's quite a beautiful act.

Very bold,

Courageous and loving act.

And every time you go through something and you ask yourself,

Do I love and use this or not,

You're going to yourself as the source.

And that's a very loving way to live.

What got us in this situation?

Well,

You know,

Because everybody is clutter.

It's not like sometimes people will say like,

Am I am I your worst client or they're embarrassed to have me work with them because they're afraid I'm going to be judgmental because they think that they're the only ones with clutter.

But everybody has clutter.

It happens.

Clutter happens.

You know,

We bring things into our life thinking this is going to make a difference.

And then some things do and then some things don't.

And the things that do,

You know,

Because we're changing,

They have a certain lifespan in our lives and then they no longer serve us.

So they turn into clutter.

So it's natural that there's clutter.

And also,

Too,

You know,

We've all been brought up to think that things are more important than us,

That we're not enough on our own.

You know,

Advertising is constantly telling us that you're not enough.

You're hurting in this way.

So if you get this product,

You get this service,

Everything's going to be so much better.

You're going to be fulfilled.

We've been trained.

And so naturally,

We protect things rather than ourselves.

We protect things over ourselves.

And I like to call that in question.

And I like to put the idea out there that you're more important than your things.

And I'm saying all of this as a preparation because it does help to be prepared when you're about to declutter.

It helps to put yourself in the right state of mind.

When I'm working with clients,

They'll come across something that they no longer love and use or maybe they never loved and used it,

But they don't want to let it go because maybe it costs a certain amount of money or maybe someone gave it to them as a gift and they feel it's wrong to let go of a gift.

They keep coming back to,

But do you love and use this?

And they'll say no.

And then they might go,

But what if one day I do?

But it all comes back to this hurts.

This thing hurts.

And if something hurts,

I get to say no to it.

And that's what clutter busting is all about.

Saying no to what hurts.

And maybe we didn't know it was hurting.

We can get used to pain.

Day by day,

If something's painful,

Eventually at some point we don't notice it anymore.

So it's not our fault for living with something that hurts.

That in addition to all the things I was talking about before about how we're trained to think that things are more important than us.

So having all this in mind really helps.

So basically I'm preparing you.

I'm introducing these ideas and you listen to them and then they sink in and they go into your heart.

From there,

Great things can happen because our hearts are great leaders.

Our hearts can take us through difficulties.

Our hearts can take care of ourselves.

So when you're beginning to clutter bust,

You have all this in mind.

And you can even tell yourself,

You can put your hand on your heart and say,

Like,

I'm going to listen to you.

I'm going to put you first.

I'm going to go through my things piece by piece and ask,

Do I like and use this or not?

Do I love and use this or not?

And see what I feel when I ask myself that question.

You're using yourself as a guidepost.

Like if I gave you a plate of food and you took a bite and you're chewing it,

You're tasting it,

And I ask you,

Do you want to keep eating this or not?

Do you like it or not?

And it's pretty clear,

Like,

Yeah,

This tastes good.

I want to keep eating it.

Or no,

This doesn't taste good.

I don't like this at all.

I don't want to eat it.

And that's basically what you're going to be doing during the Clutter Bus.

And you might feel,

You might feel like you might have memories come flooding back of when you first purchased something or when something first came into your life.

And again,

That could be a tangible thing,

An activity,

A person,

Like,

Oh,

There's that excitement,

Something new.

And you remember that and you get those feelings when you reconnect with the item or activity or person.

And you may want to hang on to the thing because of that remembrance feeling.

But that's not today.

It's an echo,

An echo from the past.

That's why I encourage you to ask,

Do I like and use this today?

Is this part of my life today?

Because you're looking to see whether something's an experience for one thing.

Do I actually interact with this regularly?

I mean,

Maybe I do it four times a year and that's good.

Or maybe I do it,

You know,

This thing every day or every other day.

But is it a fresh part of my life?

Is it an active part of my life?

You're looking to see that and then you're looking to see if that's the case,

Then what's my experience with this thing like?

Does this feel good?

Or do I not like it?

Sometimes there'll be,

I like this,

But it also hurts in this way.

It's a mixed bag.

And sometimes we'll side with the good part,

The good feeling and push away the feeling.

Oh,

But you know,

The shoes are so beautiful,

But they hurt my feet.

But they're so beautiful.

They're so beautiful.

They're so,

So,

So,

So,

So beautiful.

Pushing away the,

You know,

And I've had clients like that.

I mean,

This one client,

She had these particular shoes that she'd like to wear at her job.

She liked them because she felt they were the right shoes to wear.

She looked good in them.

She looked powerful in them,

But they also hurt her feet.

And she thought,

Well,

You know,

I have to wear these.

And I said,

Well,

Your job is to take care of yourself.

And if something hurts,

To remove it from your life.

So that if you want to have to,

That's a good have to,

You know.

So she decided to get rid of the shoes.

So you're curious about your reaction to things as you go through them,

As you explore.

Open curiosity.

You know,

I want to see how I react.

It's funny.

Sometimes people will say,

Oh,

I don't need to go through that particular thing because I know I like it.

It's perfect.

I love it.

I don't need to go through it.

I go,

Yeah,

Let's still take a look.

Because if you look and it's clear that,

Oh,

Yeah,

I do like it today,

I love and use it today,

Then great.

Let's hang on to it.

You know,

This isn't about things are bad or activities bad or people are bad.

Those things support you great.

It's wonderful.

You recognize,

Oh,

I'm grateful that I have this in my life.

But if you recognize it hurts,

It's a great opportunity to remove something to get your life back.

So oftentimes people will look at those things like,

Oh,

Yeah,

I don't need to look at this.

You know,

I'll get them to look at it,

You know,

In a general way.

And then they realize,

Oh,

I don't care about this thing anymore.

That's so bizarre.

So really checking in with ourselves,

You know,

And it's something a lot of us haven't done.

We've done all these things in our lives and we assume they're part of our lives.

But,

You know,

We change over time.

Our needs change over time.

So when we're doing this clutter busting,

We're discovering in what ways we've changed and which of those things that we have in our lives still serve us and which don't because we're different.

Because we don't want our lives to be a history museum.

You know,

This is the these things are the artifacts from my life,

The museum of my life.

Because museums tend to be dead things,

Things that are in the past,

Representatives of something that once happened.

As long as you're alive,

You're here today and you're experiencing things today.

So there's no room for a museum.

What serves me today and what doesn't?

And when you do this,

You do this clutter busting,

Which can't be done in one day.

It takes the time it takes.

But first time you do it,

You set aside a doable amount of time.

There's the ambitious amount of time like,

Oh,

I want to spend six hours doing this,

You know.

But what often happens is it can wear us out.

It's very emotional sometimes to go through decluttering can be exhausting.

And then you're exhausted.

You don't you won't want to do it again.

So what's a doable amount of time?

That's something you can ask yourself.

And everybody's going to have a different amount of time that suits them,

That serves them.

I mean,

This is part of the decluttering.

If I work an hour,

That serves me.

If I work seven hours at decluttering,

It's clutter.

It hurts me.

It doesn't serve me.

It exhausts me.

So everybody's going to have a different number.

One person could be five hours,

Another person,

It could be 15 minutes.

There's no right or wrong.

We all have different natures.

Sometimes we lose touch with what our nature is.

And we try to adopt other people's natures,

Which is natural because we're biological creatures.

We watch others to see how to live.

We learn by others.

But everyone has a different nature.

Your nature are the things that serve you.

Like I like to declutter.

I like to write.

I'm creative.

That's my nature.

I'm not good with numbers.

I'm not good at playing sports.

You know,

I'm not really good with politics.

But these but these other things,

They serve me.

So sometimes we try to adopt somebody else's nature because it looks good.

They look happy doing it.

And we,

You know,

By decluttering,

You discover your nature again.

That's what I'm getting to.

You realize all these particular activities,

I don't really enjoy them.

I remember this couple,

They had all this exercise equipment in their garage.

Quite a lot.

It was a big stack and a lot of it was still in the original wrappers that hadn't been opened up.

And I asked them about it and they said,

Well,

You know,

We really need to exercise.

So we bought all these things,

You know,

And I said,

Yes,

Of course,

You want to exercise.

That's a good thing.

But I noticed that a lot of them are still in the packaging.

So it seems like you're not using them.

And then they kind of felt like bad about themselves and that respect.

I said,

There's nothing to feel bad about.

It's noticing I'm not really using these things.

And they kind of went back to,

Yeah,

But we should be using them,

You know,

Just kind of get ourselves to use these.

They didn't say they didn't sound happy at all because it wasn't their nature.

They weren't using these things because it wasn't their nature.

So I asked them because I knew they had two dogs,

Or three dogs,

Actually.

And I said,

Do you take your dogs for a walk?

And they go,

Yeah,

Twice a day.

And I said,

Well,

How do you do it?

And they go,

We go up into the hills.

They have these hills behind their house.

Go walking in on these paths for about a half hour to an hour.

So I said,

Well,

That sounds like exercise.

And they said,

Yeah,

Yeah.

I said,

Do you enjoy that?

And they go,

Yeah,

We love it.

So that was their nature.

So as you're going through your things and you're looking through them,

You're discovering what,

Who you are,

Basically.

It's a beautiful way to discover who you are.

So you set aside a time that fits what feels like is your nature.

Maybe set aside 15 minutes and you realize,

I'm still feeling good at the end of 15 minutes.

Maybe I'll add another 15 minutes on it.

And then,

You know,

Like,

All right,

I feel like I've done enough today.

You stop.

And if you set aside two hours and at the end of an hour,

You're exhausted,

Then you stop.

Because you're looking for ways again to be kind to yourself,

To treat yourself well.

Again,

It can be very emotional to go through your things.

It can even seem wrong in some ways,

Because again,

We've been taught to think that our things are more important than us.

So it seems blasphemy to look through our stuff.

If I get rid of some of these things,

I'll be less,

I'll become less in my own eyes and the other people's eyes.

So these things come up,

You know,

With that open curiosity that you have by doing this quality best student in this particular way,

You discover these things as they're happening.

Like,

Wow,

You know,

I have all these books that I feel like I can't get rid of them,

But I'm not reading them.

And they're sitting there collecting dust,

You know,

Like,

That's so interesting.

Like they're sitting there.

I feel I should get rid of them.

I should keep them at the same time.

I feel tired when I'm looking at them.

You know,

You discover this,

Like,

That's really interesting.

Let's see what happens if I if I move towards removing these things.

And the bottom line,

Really,

The whole thing that this is all about is it's not like being right.

Like,

The right thing to do is like,

Oh,

Clutter.

You know,

It's like,

It's just nothing.

It's really all about how good it feels when the clutter goes.

Because clutter is exhausting,

The presence of it,

Even if we don't see it,

Even if it's under our beds,

Or in the back of a closet or in a storage locker 50 miles away,

Or in our parents house 2000 miles away.

It still affects us.

There's a string that's attached to everything that we own that goes through our heart.

And it affects us in a positive or negative way.

And that's all we're trying to find out.

Is this affecting positively today,

Right now,

Or not?

And so that's what you're doing.

You set aside that time and you go through you stick in one area because sometimes people will get overwhelmed in one area and then move to another because it's it's just seems like I just want to get away from this thing that's hurting me,

You know,

This particular thing that I'm considering.

But I think it's good to stick with this thing is hurting me.

And I'm curious about it.

And I want to ask questions about it till I decide like,

You know,

If it's hurting you,

I encourage you to let it go basically.

But it's you're noticing this hurts.

And deciding like I want to take care of myself.

So at the end of the session that you do with yourself,

You throughout the things that can't be donated,

Put things to recycling things and things in trash that can't be recycled or donated.

You can have a box or a bag for donation,

But not too big.

Because it's great if you can take that that day or the next day and drop it off at the charity.

Because sometimes people will have seen that with clients,

They'll hang on to something,

The charity stuff,

And it will sit by the front door for weeks,

You know,

Because there's still that feeling of wanting to hang on to it.

I say that because it's insidious that feeling of wanting to hang on to stuff.

Even though it doesn't serve us to recognize that pull to do that,

The attachment to things that don't serve us.

To notice that,

You know,

And see how it feels.

Be curious about the feeling.

And then when you're done with that session,

You schedule another session for yourself.

Again,

In a way that serves you in a doable way.

So does that mean like the next day or the next weekend?

No.

It's going to serve your nature.

And one of the last things I'll leave you with is that when you let go of clutter,

You really do get your life back.

I see it in people's lives over and over again.

It's like before starting the clutter bus,

There's this tension,

This heaviness,

This restriction that you can feel inside of them that comes from being around the clutter.

And as they start to let it go,

You can see that heaviness drop away and their eyes become brighter and their voice becomes stronger and their posture becomes stronger.

You can hear them breathe like breathing comes deeper and that's getting your life back.

So you're trading things that are hurting you in one way or another.

And you're getting your life back,

Which is the greatest trade ever.

The greatest trade ever.

And you're worth it.

If you're listening to this,

You believe that you're worth it because you wouldn't be listening to this if there wasn't a part of you that felt.

My life is worth more than the things in my life.

So I wish you the best with your decluttering.

There's other audios that I have available at Insight Timer that you can listen to if you want more additional stuff or you can re-listen to this.

This kind of has everything in it that I could think of in this at this time.

As you do it,

You'll discover your,

You know,

You might even discover some things that I haven't even mentioned.

And anyway,

I wish you the best and take care.

Bye.