You walk in your house from a long day, you are tired and there is crap everywhere! You feel like you are the only one that picks up anything in your house. Loads of junk: shoes everywhere, piles of papers on the table. No one's unloaded the dishwasher. You are tripping over your kids crap. Does anyone actually know where the hamper is located? I mean, come on... What happens next will also be terribly easy to recognize. Someone asks "What's for dinner?" YOU FEEL LIKE SCREAMING! Confronted by this disaster of clutter, you give up on cooking dinner and get take out instead. You are overwhelmed. Think about it - when you are coming from a place of stress and being overwhelmed, do you feel like you are very likely to make a healthy food choice? Or do you even care at this point? You can't find your kitchen underneath all this clutter, so the thought even reaching the counter top, let alone making a healthy dinner, just adds to the stress. And then you'd have even more of a mess to clean up after cooking. Have you been there? This scenario came up several different times with my clients during the last week so I think it is important to address these real life situations. Guess what? The clutter in your house may actually be blocking your health and happiness. As a busy working mother, I can barely keep up with the demands of daily life, let alone piles of laundry! Groceries! Deadlines! Work! Date night! Soccer! Workouts! Meditation! Green smoothies! Are you kidding me? I don’t know about you, but I find it near impossible to work when there’s clutter around. Any kind of clutter: physical, mental, emotional or psychological. I promise you will feel better about yourself, you will make healthier choices and you will feel lighter if you start de-cluttering your home.
More than one of my clients this week made the connection between de-cluttering and shedding weight. "As I kept working on de-cluttering my life, literally clearing out years of unwanted stuff from my home, I noticed that I was also eating more healthily." And this, lead to the perfect topic for this week's newsletter.
The fix to seeing instant results? De-clutter and create space for your health.
Create areas of your world that are open, clean, and simple.
Clear out every square inch of your physical and energetic life including your home, inbox, pictures, clothes, toys, old magazines, garage, projects that you might do next year, finances, books, calendar, pantry, cupboards, refrigerator, future projects, computer files, project list, daily tasks, medicine cabinets. All of it!
Start with your physical environment. Start with one room and finish it. Set a timer to stay on task and don't get sidetracked.
Make it fun. Light a candle, put on some fun music or invite a friend to come help.
Choose one physical area to clear out, like a closet, and go to town.
Don’t stop until you can’t possibly throw away or donate another item.
Don't get sentimental and hang onto things just in case.
What remains should only be what you absolutely love and must have.
If you hold something and it doesn't give you joy, get rid of it.
I have a bag that I add to weekly, taking some to charity and selling some online.
Break it down into small tasks. Start with the fridge. If you can't stand to look in your fridge because it's dirty, food is expired, the fruit isn't washed and in nice containers then why would you expect that you would want to eat anything in there? Eating starts visually. Make it look appealing.
Organize your pantry. I love to have matching glass containers.
Have a system with your paper work. The touch it once rule. Then it gets filed, the bill gets paid, or it gets thrown in the trash.
And don't fool yourself. Sticking things in a "junk drawer" or a closet still has an affect on your energy. Throw that shix away!
P.S. I do NOT recommend doing this with your child around. If like mine he as a very hard time letting things go. EKKK!
Everything is energy! Purging feels sooo good! Absolutely everything is energy. The way to create the life and the health you want is create from a place of joy. Think about it: you come home, your house is a mess. You feel overwhelmed & you can't keep up. When your energy is coming from a place like that would you be more likely to make a healthy meal in your messy kitchen or say screw it and grab take out? We make choices from a place of a vibrational match. Get your energy in the right place in your home and you will make healthier choices. If you are surrounded by clutter the energy you vibrate is the feelings of being overwhelmed, anxiety, loss of control, exhaustion. This will reflect in your choices. You will eat mindlessly and out of control from this place of energy. When your diet is suffering it's because you are out of control; likewise, your weight accumulates because we don't have control over it.
Think of the stuff in your house like you would your eating patterns and your self sabotaging beliefs. Even though we know they are unhealthy, we have a hard time letting go. Your home is a reflection of your state of mind (aka your body). When your kitchen is out of control, it's highly likely your eating habits are also out of control. Your weight is so much more than counting calories and doing a plank everyday. Weight is about how you live. Only have what gives you joy in your home! When you fridge and pantry look amazing you will want to make choices that cause you to feel amazing.
Feel out of control? Re-evaluate your lifestyle and your environment.
If your home is in turmoil, if you can't find your tennis shoes are you really going to make it on that morning run? If your son’s art projects takes up your kitchen work surface, then you won’t be chopping vegetables on it. A cluttered atmosphere just isn’t conducive to cooking and eating well. It’s chaotic and disordered — or, put differently, it’s simply unhealthy.
If our homes reflect who we are, a cluttered one means it’s unlikely its owner will be organised and disciplined about food. But if the feeling of being out of control is utterly overwhelming you, it is possible to get things back on track. Start by systematically working through the clutter in your life and you’ll see immediate results. When you control your clutter you will begin to take better care of yourself and your family. Your attitude will improve, your energy will rise, you will make healthy choices in your food, activity, relationships, your life. The choices we make daily are what shapes our life. Find a balance. Just like with your wellness journey. 80/20. 80% of the time do what is best for you. Exercise often make healthy food choices. The other 20% relax, eat whatever you feel like. Live your life in balance. If you have so much stuff that it drags you down you can't live fully in the present. Let it go.
Don't misunderstand me. This is not about living in a perfect clean house all the time. It's about letting it go. That means letting go of thing that don't bring you good energy and letting go of the illusion of it all being perfect all the time. That means don't sweat the small stuff. Your list will never all get done... ever.Your life, your house your family you are imperfectly perfect just the way you are.
I remember a story I heard after 9/11. A wife that was always angry with her husband because he would leave his socks everywhere. He never would put them away or fold his socks. When he was killed in 9/11 she found one of his socks months later tucked in the cushions of the couch. She would have done anything to be able to yell at him one more time for that sock not being put away. Remember to smile and have a moment of gratitude when you see a lived in house. Keep making space for your health. Let go. Free up your life and watch your life and body get lighter, and maybe your butt a little smaller, too.