Time to Declutter

As the year winds down, if you’ve been feeling overloaded, I encourage you to keep reading. I hope this essay on decluttering offers helpful insights and inspires you to lighten your load and recharge.

Does this sound familiar?

With the holidays just around the corner, it’s so easy to give in to the temptation to buy more: fun gifts for the kids, your parents, friends, and a few treats for yourself.

I can definitely relate. Every time I walk through Target or Trader Joe’s, I’m drawn to those cute Christmas ornaments, festive holiday mugs, and imported sweets—cookies, chocolates, marzipan, you name it. Add the holiday music in the background, and I find myself with the urge to buy, buy, buy! You know the feeling! Along with the impulse to indulge, I also feel weighed down by the clutter I’ve created. So, I’m resisting the urge to accumulate more. I’d like to share some insights that continue to inspire me whenever I feel overloaded.

Before Marie Kondo’s joy-centered The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, there was Karen Kingston’s energy-centered book, Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui, first published in 1998. Kingston, originally from England but living in Bali for 20 years, became a well-known practitioner of clutter clearing, space clearing, and feng shui.

Kingston teaches that clutter is stuck energy. The word “clutter” comes from the Middle English word “clotter,” which means “to coagulate” or “clump together.” Clutter accumulates where energy stagnates, and in turn, energy stagnates when clutter piles up.

Clearing your clutter will free you on numerous levels,
bringing new energy and clarity that you’re seeking.

Kingston advocates living with less baggage—physically, emotionally, and mentally. Her approach helps you focus on making the most of the present by:
• Completing unfinished tasks
• Quieting mental chatter and anxiety
• Improving concentration
• Communicating effectively
• Sleeping better with a clear mind and spirit
• Staying current.

Kingston defines clutter in four categories:
• Things that you do not use or love
• Things that are untidy or disorganized – not in their proper place
• Too many things in too small a space
• Anything unfinished.

According to Kingston, clutter can affect you on numerous levels:
• Keep stuck you in the past
• Drain your physical, emotional, and mental energy
• Pose a health or fire hazard
• Cost you financially
• Distract you from important priorities.

Kingston suggests the reasons people retain clutter include:
• “Just in case” mentality: A lack of trust in the future.
• Identity tied to possessions: An attachment to things as a way of defining oneself.
• Security through possessions: A belief that things provide happiness and stability.
• Keeping up with the Joneses: A need to measure one’s worth by competing with others.
• Inherited clutteritis: Growing up in an environment where clutter was normalized, often passed down from parents.
• Using clutter to suppress emotions: Filling space to avoid feelings of discomfort, such as unease with emptiness, free time, or solitude.

Thanks to Kingston, I went through an extreme “edit.” I gave away things I had kept just in case, let go of unfulfilling connections, and worked hard to resolve outstanding issues. Though I’ve embraced a decluttered mindset, I realize that purging is an ongoing process because it’s human nature to accumulate.

Even as I try to clear things out each month, what ends up in my closet always seems to outweigh what I manage to remove. The other day, when I went in to grab my Christmas tree ornaments, I was hit by the overwhelming weight of it all. I can already feel how the clutter is draining my energy, and I’m ready to do something about it. So, this month, I’m carving out time to tackle the mess: shredding outdated paperwork and donating unused clothing and books.

I hope Kingston’s insights provide a fresh perspective—or perhaps a helpful reminder—and inspire you to carve out time to declutter.

What tasks—whether material, physical, emotional, or mental—will you tackle to make room for new ideas and opportunities in the new year?

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