When passing through the rooms of your home, do you feel inspired and energized, or do you feel frustrated and drained? Is it easy to immediately see or find everything you need, or do you have to sort through a visual cacophony of assorted items? Are you pleased with the overall look of a room, or is it more of an eyesore? It is no surprise that clutter negatively impacts both the look and feel of our home, but certain types of clutter can be more emotionally draining than others. This is because objects affect our energy based on the meaning they have in our life.
If there are objects present that cause you to feel anything less than happy or peaceful, then there is probably a connection to some unresolved situation. We cannot underestimate these energetic connections when we realize that we are affected in some way. Cleaning our home to clear out clutter not only frees physical space and implements order but lifts unresolved expectations and experiences off of our shoulders when suspect objects are removed.
Spring Cleaning: Evict Emotionally Draining Possessions
The northern hemisphere’s Spring Equinox is on March 20th this year. That means the sun will pass directly over the equator that day and continue northward in its position until it peaks on the Summer Solstice in June. That also means spring has officially arrived, at least from a calendar perspective. Though March weather often revolts with one last mutant snowstorm, the beginning of spring generally indicates when we can more easily and comfortably spend time outside in warmer weather and spend less time indoors.
The tradition of spring cleaning allows us to shake off the dust of winter and prepare for spring with a fresh home space. Take advantage of this last week of winter to do this before it gets so nice outside that you can’t possibly stay indoors any longer! To really benefit from spring cleaning, we need to go about the process in a more meaningful way than simply shaking out the rugs and dusting the windows. In addition to scrubbing and vacuuming our house, we need to clear out objects that carry stale energy and drag us down.
How Objects Affect Our Energy
Blaming inanimate objects for impacting our mood may sound like some obscure voodoo, but it is actually a simple and logical notion: we form mental attachments to places, songs, people, and things, depending on what sort of overall experience we remember from them. If the primary focus during any given object’s position in your life was dominated by an overarching emotion, then that object will continue to remind you of that emotion unless you continue to use it while evolving into a new and better dominant emotional state.
In other words, if you were in a sour relationship during a period of your life when you purchased, say, a wall decoration, then you may continue to experience a bit of that disastrous relationship’s aftertaste whenever you look at the decoration in the future. This is not the case for every single object – typically less significant or noticeable objects that are more functional or used more regularly will not continue to carry such weight, but many things do affect us depending on the circumstances surrounding when you acquired them and what was going on at the time.
This experience with energy is especially true for music, and even more so for HSPs (highly sensitive persons) since we absorb everything. Aside from smells, music may be one of the strongest experiences to carry us back to the time and place when that specific music was ever present in our life. I don’t listen to most of the music I listened to in my late teens and entire twenties for that very reason. There were so many good memories, but overwhelming challenges were so real and raw and negative emotions were so unmanageably intense.
Like music, physical objects affect our energy because they can carry the same emotional weight. Once we realize this, it is easier to purge what is no longer serving us. Start with the room in which you spend the most time and then work through each additional room until every space in your house feels alive and welcoming.
The Sunroom: Lessons for Removing Unused Items
My sunroom is a case study for how different a space can look and feel when cleared of unused and un-helpful objects. It is a bright and beautiful room where everybody enjoys spending time. However, until I cleared it of some art supplies that I’d been keeping in there for years, I couldn’t bring myself to spend as much time in there alone. I just felt kind of down, like I was trying to reclaim a lost part of myself that seemed more and more elusive. Primarily, I felt like a failure.
Don’t Hold Onto Objects for the Unlikely and Unforeseeable Future
I kept thinking I would revitalize my painting practice after having a baby, and then when baby came I quickly realized I would have very little time to do much of anything – and much less than during my previous busy life periods. After enough months post-partum, we learn to restructure our expectations and priorities and modify our space accordingly. It was time to give up unrealistic expectations of myself. That was hard to do because I had always identified myself as an artist and I felt like I was a less accomplished person without pushing myself to practice and improve in this area. We tend to tell ourselves such things.
Clearing my space of art supplies that I no longer used and letting go of my expectation to hurry up and start using them again was difficult because I painted prolifically in my past, especially in my early twenties. I painted whatever came into my head, and I also painted my friends. I really enjoyed it and it felt so natural. Over the years, I spent less and less time on creative hobbies as I got older and busier with work, additional responsibilities, graduate school, and even more time-consuming work.
Unfortunately, this tends to happen to many adults when we lack time to nurture the hobbies of our youth. Lack of adequate spare time played a huge role but it was also the quality of my spare time that impacted how much I painted. It was the lifestyle change that came with moving to a new place in a new state where I was around different people and places and in different circumstances.
Lifestyle Changes Can Ignite or Extinguish Our Hobbies
Where we live can really impact our motivation and ability to pursue our hobbies. In my hometown, I lived in more dangerous but much more fun neighbourhoods where I could walk anywhere and see my friends easily and regularly. I was surrounded by so much more creativity and my inspiration never ran dry. Moving to a smaller town in another state in my later twenties introduced an entirely different suburban lifestyle, not to mention loss of a huge social network.
I had to start from scratch to make friends since older college friends from the surrounding area were already enmeshed in their own lives at that point, and while it is not difficult to make individual friends, it can be nearly impossible to piece together a common group of friends. Social gatherings tended towards more structured, low key and individual settings. Everything becomes much more planned when you cannot just walk to where you want to hang out. Ultimately, my creative inspiration gradually died over the years until I found myself in a sunroom surrounded by art supplies that I kept swearing to myself I would pick up and revive until I got tired of waiting for that opportune time.
Don’t Measure Your Worth by How Much You Invest in an Activity
Objects affect our energy when we feel dependent on them for some sense of identity. I had been holding on to a younger phase of my life and what truthfully felt like a crucial part of myself. If I didn’t paint, how could I continue to be an artist? It felt like I had to admit defeat, but I was really just confusing my passion and talent with the medium with which I expressed it. It got to the point where I accepted that I would not, in fact, get back into painting any time soon because it would continue to be a long time before I regularly had stretches of multiple hours to invest in that hobby.
For years, I would get a rare and spontaneous burst of creativity from some inspiration or another but it only seemed to occur only while I was driving, at work, or involved in something else that didn’t lend the time I needed to paint until long after the inspiration had died. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned about passion and motivation, it’s that it is important to keep inspiration alive if we want to actively exercise our creativity. It’s pointless to push ourselves beyond a natural cycle of a specific activity, and to then hang on to the objects we used only during that time.
Accept Your Current Life Stage and Modify Your Space Accordingly
The heaviness of what felt like admitting defeat to my current lifestyle, which didn’t facilitate the creative freedom I had in my younger years, was alleviated when I gave my art supplies a new life with a younger girl. After learning that my neighbours’ daughter enjoyed painting and did not yet have an easel, I happily gave her the easel that had served me well for a decade but had long since been awkwardly taking up space in a corner of my sunroom. She also accepted the many acrylic paints that had occupied a shelf for years, as well as extra brushes, canvases, and other supplies – several of which I had never even used.
I did keep some paints, brushes and canvases because my art has evolved into crafting with shells on occasion when I have the time. However, I now keep them stashed in a known and accessible location in a closet, instead of on an open shelf, since they are not regularly used and remain something of an eyesore. I felt good about the fact that the rest of my art supplies, which had served me so well and which still carried memory and meaning, were not just thrown away but were passed along to someone who was actually going to use them.
What a difference clearing out unused objects makes. Our sunroom looked and felt remarkably better after relocating and re-gifting the canvases, paintbrushes, paints, easel, and other supplies. These things had been left in open sight for years simply because I wanted them available for easy access in case inspiration ever struck at the opportune time. I knew that if they were tucked away in a closet, I would not be as likely to use them due to the extra time to set up the easel and prepare my workspace. However, a workspace untouched for that long is a sign that it is time to make a change. The sunroom became a much more inviting space once I cleared it of the clutter that not only made the space busier and less appealing, but that reminded me of a passion that I no longer had time to nurture.
Don’t Limit Your Identity to Any One Life Stage
Our space should reflect our passions, but without encouragement, passions go dormant. It is important to dig within ourselves to get to the reason we feel less than good in a certain place, around certain objects. I realized that seeing the dormant art supplies made me feel like a failure because I let my painting passion die. I felt like I was letting myself and others down for not being who I used to be. I have since learned that it is absolutely okay and usually quite healthy to not be who you used to be. This is not only true in regards to our interests and lifestyle but also our hobbies and passions.
Our identity is not contingent on what we do with our time or what we physically manifest in the world. Our identity has nothing to do with the paraphernalia we have lying around our house. Our identity is much deeper than that and stays important regardless of our accomplishments in life. We may know this intellectually, but if anything in our house draws us down energetically, then we need to assess the culprit and figure out what it is we need to let go of and re-envision.
Embrace Change and Revise Your Possessions Accordingly
It is okay for something to be a phase in your life. It is okay for objects to be temporary fixtures in your life and home, too. You don’t have to indefinitely continue to do something with your time, energy or resources. You aren’t letting the world down if you give up a sport simply because it doesn’t give you the joy it used to bring. Just because others expect something of you doesn’t mean you need to uphold that expectation. Apart from obvious exceptions like providing for a family and nurturing a healthy relationship, others’ expectations should have no effect on how you live your life or who you are. We let expectations affect us all too easily, but it is to our detriment. Others are responsible for managing their own expectations. We only need to manage our own and realize which are unrealistic.
If you have trouble letting go of something physical that you no longer use, find someone else who can happily benefit! Or, if you cannot find anyone to take it, donate it to a thrift store where someone who is interested can buy it for an affordable price. It isn’t worth keeping things around that only remind you of something you may never revive. When objects affect our energy in such a way, it is time to let them go. Even if there is a later period in your life when you may likely revisit a particular hobby or lifestyle, you can always buy new supplies. It is worth the possible cost – not even guaranteed – of buying something new, years later, in order to free up space in your present life. Clutter has too much of an impact on our mental health to let it linger in our living space.
Clearing Out Draining Items Opens a Space Magnetically
The sunroom is now my favourite room in the house because in place of the removed easel are some of our most beautiful and luscious plants. On the shelves that used to hold art supplies are smaller plants, and the floor space where I had canvases standing against the wall is now clear and much airier (and easier to vacuum). The room is inviting and there is now space for a chair in which someone can relax (the other chairs are hard wood and tucked under a table).
The chair is my husband’s favourite improvement to the room. He immediately noticed the difference when I rearranged it last year, and he wasn’t even originally impacted by the disappointment of unused art supplies – he simply appreciates the lack of clutter and the more welcoming aesthetic appeal. For me, the improvement includes that as well as the freedom from unrealistic self-expectations. I feel lighter and more confident and capable.
Comb Through All Your Belongings and Re-Gift Appropriately
Consider every area of your house where you could clear objects in a similar manner, as needed. I re-gifted a nice guitar that was originally from our father to my brother because he wanted one and, since I never practiced anymore, I felt equally disappointed at my ‘failure’ to continue that hobby. I re-gifted some of my very favourite dresses to my best friend who not only better fits in them but has the social lifestyle that provides more opportunities to wear them. These were very meaningful things I had been holding on to but hadn’t used in so many years, so it made sense to give them to other close family/friends who could give them new life.
In re-gifting neglected but originally-important possessions, I freed up space and expanded the fresh energy in my home. I donated books that were incredibly meaningful to me at an earlier time, but which no longer serve me because my viewpoints have changed. Hopefully they will benefit someone else the way they helped me at an earlier stage. Going through and incrementally removing what you no longer use and what is therefore simply taking up space, not to mention tormenting your ego, will generate more life and freedom in your home than you could ever imagine.
Assess the inventory of your home. What are you still holding on to that you are unlikely to use again in the near future? Is there a large piece of exercise equipment that you don’t use and which only reminds you of how much you aren’t exercising? If so, consider the likelihood of your using it anytime soon. Don’t purge useful items that will serve you well and that you are likely to use again soon. If you want to have another baby, don’t get rid of all your baby items. Nobody wants to have to re-purchase things they wished they had kept! You may not end up having another baby, and then you can donate those items, but hang on to them if there is any remote possibility.
Anything that served your lifestyle previously but no longer serves your current one, or anything that you are unlikely to use, needs to go if it is in the way or does not give you happy feelings. You could opt to store it in a closet or other area, but unless you insist on keeping it for some reason and have lots of un-competing storage space where you can basically forget it exists, there is no point in keeping it. Let it go and take a breath of fresh air. Objects affect our energy and life is just too short to let things drag us down!