Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui (Revised and Updated)

by Karen Kingston

  THE SKIN

  Skin is amazing. Each square inch consists of about 19 million cells, 600 sweat glands, 90 oil glands, and 65 hairs; it is serviced by 19,000 nerve cells and 19 feet of intricately woven blood vessels, and populated by tens of millions of microscopic bacteria.

  Functioning at capacity, our skin is designed to eliminate one third of the body’s waste products, but in reality most people’s skin functions poorly. Synthetic toiletries clog the pores and synthetic fabrics (latex, nylon, polyester, and so on) severely inhibit this natural process, particularly undergarments, because they are worn close to the skin. Far better to wear natural fabrics—pure cotton is the best, and linen, silk, and wool are also good—and avoid washing them with harsh biological liquids or powders, the residues of which are absorbed through your pores. Laundry balls and dryer balls are much more environmentally friendly alternatives to detergents and fabric softeners. They also cost far less in the long term, and don’t infuse your fabrics with cheap artificial scents.

  To help the skin, exercise, take saunas or Turkish baths to sweat out toxins, and do daily dry skin brushing to remove dead skin cells, clear out lymph, stimulate the glands, and prevent premature aging. This is best done in the morning before bathing. Always brush toward the heart and use a natural bristle brush. It feels fantastic!

  If you have physical clutter in your home, you will also have clutter in your mind. Here’s what to do about some of the most common forms of mental clutter.

  STOP WORRYING

  I once heard it said that worry is like a rocking horse—no matter how fast you go, you never move anywhere. Worry is in fact a complete waste of time and creates so much clutter in your mind that you cannot think clearly about anything.

  The way to stop worrying is first of all to understand that you energize whatever you focus your attention on. Therefore, the more you allow yourself to worry, the more likely things are to go wrong. Worrying becomes such an ingrained habit that you have to consciously train yourself differently. Whenever you catch yourself fretting (and ask those close to you to point out when you’re at it again), stop and change your thoughts. Focus your mind more productively on what you want to happen, rather than on what you are worried might happen, and dwell on what’s already wonderful in your life, setting up a resonance for more wonderful stuff to come your way.

  Make a list right now of all the things you worry about so that you’ll spot them next time they turn up in your mind for a free rocking-horse session.

  STOP CRITICIZING AND JUDGING

  This is another total waste of time and energy, especially when you realize that everything you criticize and judge about others is something you don’t like about yourself. The greatest criticizers are those who deep down believe, for whatever reason, that they themselves aren’t good enough. Change these inner insecurities and the desire to demean others will magically melt away.

  Another important thing to understand is that we humans see only a segment of reality in the greater cosmic scheme of things, so we are really never in a position to judge anyone or anything. A low-life street drunk may in essence be the kindest, sweetest soul you could ever meet, but if you judge him simply by appearances or get on some high moral platform about his behavior, you will miss that quality completely.

  Don’t clutter your mind with these pointless poison arrows. Instead, tune in to the highest aspects you can of everyone you meet and be amazed at how they in turn respond from the best of themselves.

  STOP GOSSIPING

  Stop constantly titillating yourself by gossiping about others. Gossip clutters your psyche and only shows how little of consequence is happening in your own life. Live and let live. Refuse to indulge in or listen to gossip or scandal in any form, and make it a point of integrity that you never say anything about anyone that you would not say to their face.

  STOP MOANING AND COMPLAINING

  Moaning, complaining, and blaming everything and everyone else for what is happening in your life clutters your speech and thoughts in such a way that most people don’t even want to be around you. Focus on what you are grateful for and the gods will heap more goodies upon you. Keep moaning and groaning and you’ll be on your own.

  STOP MENTAL CHATTER

  Psychologists estimate that the average person has about 60,000 thoughts per day. Unfortunately, 95 percent of those thoughts are exactly the same as the thoughts you had yesterday. And these are the same as the thoughts you had the day before that. And so on. In short, most of your mental process is unproductive, repetitive chatter going nowhere.

  Another problem is the constant babble of external stimuli that is so prevalent in the Western lifestyle. Too many people have the TV or radio constantly turned on “for company,” or spend their time reading trashy novels, aimlessly surfing the Net, and so on. Then suddenly one day, you are old or sick, and you realize you have done nothing with your life. All your thoughts are other people’s thoughts, and you have no idea who you really are or what the purpose of your life might be.

  When is the last time you had a genuinely new, completely original thought? The sad fact is that many people just continue day after day in the same old groove, filling their minds with the mundane clutter of day-to-day existence.

  Make it a priority to have clarity in your life and fine-tune that clarity daily. Learn to meditate and experience the states of sublime stillness that it can bring. Quiet the chatter and open yourself to high spiritual connections that you can’t possibly feel when you are a sea of noise and agitation.

  TIE UP LOOSE ENDS

  Get into the habit of tying up loose ends as soon as you become aware of them. For example, suppose you are talking with a friend who has a useful telephone number to give you. He or she knows the number, but offers to phone you with it tomorrow. It’s astounding how often people put off until tomorrow what they can quite easily do today, and how much of an energy drain it is having to remember loose ends. Take the phone number then and there, and that is one less thing you have to do tomorrow.

  Tie up other loose ends such as repaying any money you owe, returning any items you have borrowed, doing any errands you have said you would run, and anything else that is nagging away in the back of your mind to be done. Every unfulfilled promise or commitment has a call on your energy and pesters you to do it. If you know you can’t keep your promise, it is far better to contact the person and let them know rather than just let the situation drift.

  Here’s an interesting thing I have learned from my own life experience, as a result of having dumped the word “should” from my vocabulary. Suppose I have promised to meet a friend on Thursday evening to go to a movie we both want to see. As Thursday approaches, I feel less and less inclined to go out that night. I can do one of two things: I can keep my promise and go because I said I would and therefore “should,” or I can call my friend and cancel or postpone the date. I have found that on 90 percent of the occasions I have canceled or postponed, the other person was also wanting to do the same but had not wanted to let me down, so it worked out perfectly for both of us. The other 10 percent of the time people get a bit put out, but if they are honest with themselves, it is not usually me that has upset them. The problem is generally their inflexibility or the triggering of a memory of a much deeper upset from the past. See the next chapter for an understanding of upsets.

  CLEAR YOUR COMMUNICATIONS

  How many people do you have unresolved issues with? Think for a moment. Imagine yourself in a social setting. Who in your life, if they were to walk in the door, would immediately change your level of physical comfort? Who would make you feel that the room wasn’t big enough for the two of you because of tensions between you? You may not consciously remember these people. In fact, you may actively try to keep them out of your thoughts. But your good old subconscious mind keeps track of them. Having unresolved communications in your life depletes yo
ur energy levels immensely.

  If you sleep with someone, make especially certain that you keep your communications clear. Otherwise you will be fighting psychic battles with each other all night and will wake up feeling like you need a good night’s sleep.

  KEEP YOURSELF UP-TO-DATE

  When everything is up-to-date in your life, you live in present time and can experience a feeling of surfing with the energy of life. Do whatever it takes to catch up with yourself and then keep it that way. You will have more energy than you ever believed possible. Children are like this. They live in the moment. And we all know how much vitality they have!

  HANDLING INFORMATION OVERLOAD

  How much information is there? The units of measurement themselves are awesome. We’re not talking humble kilobytes (KB), significant megabytes (MB), or impressive gigabytes (GB)—one gigabyte being approximately the number of books full of information it would take to fill a pickup truck. We’re not even talking terabytes (TB)—one terabyte being the equivalent of about 50,000 trees made into paper and printed. Or petabytes (PB)—200 petabytes representing approximately all the printed material on Earth. We’ve even exceeded exabytes (EB), which is 1,000 petabytes. Annual global Internet traffic is now measured in zettabytes (ZB), which is 1,000 exabytes. Beyond that is yottabytes (YB), and probably there will soon be a new unit called something like squiggabytes (SB?).

  The point I am making here is that there is a lot of information in the world. It’s on the same scale as what Douglas Adams says about space in his introduction to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: “Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is.”

  Neuroscientists have coined the term “infovore” to describe the natural appetite humans have for new information. They have discovered the same pleasurable neural pathways are used when learning new facts as are activated by taking drugs such as heroin or morphine. In the same way that some people get addicted to Internet pornography, online social networking, gambling, or gaming, so do others get addicted to the “high” that comes from gathering information. Some infovores will spend hours and hours online searching for meaningful data, to the extent that it becomes a form of obsessive-compulsive behavior.

  If this is part of your lifestyle, the question to ask yourself is, has this activity become a substitute for experiencing life firsthand? Are you living in a world of your own, with less and less real communication with people? And do you find that a large proportion of the material you are acquiring is not immediately useful but of the “just in case you need it” variety? If so, it is as much a form of clutter in your life as the physical kind that people keep for the same reason, and you need to engage in some form of therapy to discover the cause of your addiction and address it.

  DECLUTTER YOUR MIND FOR RESTFUL SLEEP

  If you lead a busy life and have lots of “things to do,” you may find it difficult to switch off and relax. In particular, you may find your mind full of stuff when you want to go to sleep.

  Here’s a good tip: keep a notebook and pen by your bed and just before you go to sleep, scribble down all the things you have to remember to do. Then just forget about them and go to sleep. If you wake up in the night with more things on your mind, just open one eye, scribble them down, and go back to sleep. At first, you may need to keep a small flashlight next to your bed. With practice you can learn to write in the dark with your eyes shut. After a while you’ll learn to get your whole list on paper in one go and sleep through the night, undisturbed by thoughts or worries.

  The busier you are, the more important it is to completely relax and take time off to rest and regenerate at night. Learn to do the “night practice” technique described in Samuel Sagan’s book, Awakening the Third Eye. This allows your higher subtle body complex to separate from your physical and etheric bodies, giving you the best night’s sleep of all.

  Most people carry some form of emotional baggage. It prematurely ages us (I looked ten years younger after doing an intense year of personal work to clear out some of mine), and it gets in the way of everything we want to do.

  UPSETS

  If you’re ever feeling upset about something, that’s one of the best times to go and clear some clutter. Don’t bother to pull yourself together before you begin. Just go to the cabinet with tears streaming down your face, bawling your head off if necessary, and pull everything out and begin sorting it. You’ll be amazed how easy it is to sort clutter when you are in this condition. It almost seems to sort itself. You look at things you have been holding on to for years, and they seem so unimportant and obviously obsolete that there is no emotional tug at all as you sling them in the trash. You will also be amazed how sorting the clutter helps to calm you and gives you a new perspective on what was upsetting you. The act of letting go of the clutter also allows you to let go of your stuck feelings.

  One teacher I studied with for a while used to say, if ever anyone was upset, “Will it matter ten years from now?” You get to see the issue from the viewpoint of your future self looking back with hindsight, and the answer is nearly always no.

  You could say the same about most clutter. “Will I have found a use for this within the next ten years?” For most things you have been holding on to for a long time, the answer is nearly always no.

  GRIEVANCES

  One of the worst forms of emotional clutter is the type that results from grievances. Look deep within yourself to see who or what you need to forgive.

  Sometimes people become so entrenched in their grievances that they refuse to even talk to each other. I have come across instances in families and married couples where these prolonged silences continue for days, weeks, months, years—even for decades. Some people actually go to their graves with these feelings stuck in their bodies, and it’s a pretty sure bet that’s what finished them off.

  Sometimes these stuck feelings escalate to the level of disputes between whole families, groups, or nations, which create cancers in the emotional fabric of society. Attempts to resolve the situation by physical violence continue until one of the protagonists is brought to their knees, or a third and greater power steps in (called “diplomatic intervention”) to bring them both to their senses. Diplomacy in this context can be defined as the art of harmonizing stuck emotional energy.

  If you are the silent sulky type, understand that this may hurt the other person as you intend it to do, but it hurts you even more. Take a course in human relationships and learn a better way to handle your problems. Forgive and forget. Let go of your grievances and get on with your life.

  CLEAR OUT YOUR FLAKY FRIENDS!

  Do you know people who it always feels like an effort to talk to or who drain you when you are with them? Do you groan when you know so-and-so is calling you on the phone? I’m not talking here about good friends who are temporarily going through a rough patch or having a bad week. I am talking about negative people who are seriously past their “sell-by date,” those you would like to be rid of but haven’t had the guts or time to do anything about it.

  One fascinating thing I’ve discovered is that just about everyone has a few of these unwanted “friends.” I spent an entire dinner party once listening to the story of “the houseguest from hell” who turned up uninvited year after year and foisted herself on these people. For some inexplicable reason they never felt able to tell her how unwelcome she was, so year after year they endured her awful cooking and overbearing behavior, then complained about her ever after to everyone they knew.

  Take a minute now to make a little list of people you’d really rather not know anymore. I’ll pause the book while you do this…

  Here’s the interesting thing: if you have a list like this, and everyone else has a list like this, then—whose list are you on? Now there’s some food for thought! Wouldn’t it be best if we just got honest with one another about this and stopped
these silly games?

  There are billions of people in the world and you are free to choose whom to mix with. Choose kindred spirits who uplift and inspire you. The wonderful thing about having the courage to clear out all your moldy old friends is that it creates the space for you to attract wonderful, vital new relationships, providing you have made new decisions about what you will and will not have in your life. Eventually you will find that flaky people, energy vampires, and seriously negative individuals will not be in your life because your energy field feels too incompatible with theirs—they know that their chance of getting a free energy feed-up at your expense is nil, so they don’t even bother trying.

  MOVING ON FROM RELATIONSHIPS

  Sometimes you realize it is not just an acquaintance who has become clutter in your life, but the person you thought was your significant other. Perhaps your lives have diverged and moved on to different paths, or maybe you never were compatible in the first place. The truth is that you have become clutter in each other’s lives, although sometimes only one of you can see this at the time.

  You now have two choices: do nothing, and wait for the relationship to crumble or explode apart on its own; or have the courage to act, to either repair the situation or leave it. If you still love, respect, and are good for each other, the chances are high that you can find a way for the relationship to continue, even though the form is sure to change in some way. Be sure to give it every chance of success. If it is time for you to move on, you will know in your heart that this is so.