Why decluttering is good for your overall wellbeing

Its usually around this time of year that many of us feel weary, tired and weighed down by the intense pressures that this year has brought. I’ve even had a few conversations with people in my own circle that have said they can’t wait for this year to be over. And the honest truth is I can’t wait either. So I got down to thinking about how 2017 is going to be different and how I was going to kick this weighed down feeling altogether.

So the first thing I did was, I started thinking about the things in my life that was no longer serving me that I was holding on to either out of guilt, obligation or trying to please. And this is not just material things in my living environment, although that is usually a good place to start. I started with asking questions like “What is it that is weighing me down?” and answers started to flow through.

I started to look at all the areas in my life I was feeling weighed down in and then made the conscious choice to let go of the things that are taking up space and serving no purpose.

With material things, I started with my closet for one, getting rid of the things I thought I would wear one day but have still not gotten down to. What a liberating feeling of donating stuff I take for granted to a worthy course. Just having done that one exercise made me realise that there are some many areas in our lives that we hold on to clutter and we don’t even realise it. Physical clutter is one thing be it clothes, kitchen stuff, books, furniture, home stuff etc.

But then I started asking myself what about the other clutter, the mental and emotional clutter we hold onto long after the incident. For example, we think about the things that happened two years ago and still hold onto that emotion or story. What about the mental clutter we expose ourselves to on a daily basis from the bombardment of media, advertising and all those companies that want a share of our headspace. Then I started thinking about how on a daily basis we just pick up clutter from our environment, even of its not ours. For example, the clutter of somebody else's drama. And as I started becoming more conscious of the ways in which I was allowing clutter to come into my life I started to feel a shift within me when I realised I had a choice. And now as the weeks are going by I am feeling a lot less weighed down as I let go of things, emotions, incidents, traumas, people and stuff that no longer serve my highest good.

For me personally decluttering was a great way for me to recharge and create space in my life. 2017 after all is looking to be much more exciting now that I let go of baggage that was weighing me down. So the next time you feel weighed down, tired and exhausted try decluttering and creating more space in your mental, physical and emotional worlds and notice the different. I did!