De-clutter Your House, De-clutter Your Mind?

Have you ever considered, that the state of your house, is directly related to the state of your mental health?

Imagine: Piles of laundry continually growing that resemble something similar to a sloppy version of Everest. A wardrobe moments away from exploding, even though you don’t even wear half of the clothes stuffed carelessly in it. Books strewn everywhere around the house in the hope that one day you’ll sit down when everything is ‘done’ and can finally move that bookmark a few more pages in.  Bills and paperwork that have been left in the last place you picked them up to examine them, only for you to sigh, and put them back down to tackle at a later date.

Now think about how you organise and sort the thoughts that you have every day. Your ‘Mind House’ if you will. Are they just as chaotic, sloppy, unstructured and overwhelming?

Think: Anxiety, overthinking, waves of overwhelm, panic attacks, negative self-talk, depression.

Not much fun, right? And neither of them feel like a good space to be in, do they? The actual cluttered house OR the cluttered mind. It makes you feel ‘meh’. It makes you feel overwhelmed. It makes you feel like a failure. It makes you feel pathetic. It makes you feel heavy and weighed down. It makes you feel disconnected. It makes you feel shitty…

So how can you begin to shift the energy in your house and your mind, to create a more balanced, calm and stress free zone in both your home and your head?

Enter: Marie Kondo – the author of the Japanese sensation - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying.

When I first picked up this book I thought ‘Geez, that’s a bit of a stretch…’ I’ve always considered myself to be a tidy person and I take a lot of pride in my home, so what could this book possibly teach me that I don’t already have down pat?

Short answer: A LOT.

You see, in the society that we live in today, we have this expectation, that in order for something to work, be beneficial and considered effective, it needs to be SO complex and difficult to understand. So much so, that when we are presented with a simple solution to the problem that we are facing, we laugh it off and think ‘Yeah, right! If it were that simple, why isn’t everyone doing it?’ Um, because they are stuck in the same paradigm as you, with the expectation that if it doesn’t sound difficult, then how could it possibly work?

And how is that working out for everyone? Ha, yeah, it’s not….

So I guess the question is: Are you willing to open your mind and not underestimate the power of simplicity? Are you ready to understand that everything that we do/say/think has a direct connection to our physical reality?

If you’re not, that’s fine. You do you.

But if you are ready? I suggest that you read this book - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondo. Begin to implement the very simple concepts at a pace that feels right for you. It will be hard not to notice how the little changes that you consciously make to improve your surroundings, flood into your subconscious and start to improve the state of your mind.

How do I know? Because I’ve experienced the magic myself.

- Emma