The Why Behind Our Clutter

The last couple of years I have been focusing on decluttering. For those that know me, this may sound odd to you because I live pretty simple, we don't have a lot of things in our home and we are pretty tidy. But the reality was that I actually did have an excesses of things. What do you mean by excess? Excess is having more than what you need. For example, when you open your refrigerator, is it filled to the point that the contents more than feed the people in your home and will most likely go bad before you can use them? Did you extreme coupon and now have a pantry filled with shampoo and conditioner that is in abundance of your need and will expire before you can utilize it. With excess, you have the space for the stuff, but you don't need it.

And excess is clutters best friend. As you accumulate more and more, clutter starts to take over. So now, the food no longer fits in your fridge. The pantry is overflowing so you are storing things in your basement or another room in the house. The cycle continues until you are overwhelmed with clutter. Do you reduce or eliminate the clutter or succumb to it? If you succumb to it you may become numb to it and simply not care or you transition into a state of addiction - and can't live with out it.

Excess in clutter can come from material items, it could be excess of projects or work, or an excess of a substance (i.e. food,drug, alcohol). It can also be an excess of emotions and thoughts in your head. And we all manage excess and clutter differently. We learn it, our personality and DNA dictate it, or sadly a source of trauma leads us down this path. Understanding what your clutter is and the why behind it is so important in how you address it.

What is Your Clutter?

Material & Substance Clutter

As a mother, I started teaching and emulating simple living to my daughter. When she out grew things, I gave them to friends or donated them. When she was older, I would include her in the process. We would go through toys together and she would make her piles of things she no longer played with. Now as a teenager, she does this on her own. She goes through her clothing a few times a year and gives away the things she is no longer wearing. Many times handing them down to friends who need them.

Do you remember how you were taught to cope? Or was it something you had to just figure out on your own? Learning to cope is a very big key in substance excess or consumption. Sadly, for many of us, we saw drinking as how to cope with life. We saw over consumption of food as celebratory or as a way to ease pain. The truth is living without material and substance excess can be learned and taught.

Our personality and DNA, that we have been blessed with and have less ability to alter, do play a role in our ability to learn to live without excess easily or more difficult. For those of us who do not easily attach to things, it is much easier for us to let things go. For those of us who see value in everything, it is much harder. Maybe we have a note from our first boyfriend from 30 years ago that we just can't let go of because it is important to us, even though we have been happily married for 20 years. The harder it is for you to learn to remove excess in your life, the easier it becomes to put more value on things. Similarly with substance consumption, some of us could care less about ever having a drink, or our bodies trigger us to stop when we are full. While others have to work harder to only have one drink or not have a second helping. The excess of food or alcohol is more important to us than our health.

Sadly excess of material items and substances can turn into addictions. Many who experience this level of excess in their lives arrive here because of trauma. The addiction brings them comfort by burying or disguise the trauma. They are so consumed with avoiding the discomfort they continue their addiction. As an addict you have a choice to come to terms with your trauma and your addiction, or succumb to it, losing yourself, family, friends, or possibly your life.

Work Tasks & Other Projects

Learning project and time management skills is the best way to avoid excess in this area of your life. Having goals and creating task lists to complete and reach targets deadlines is the best way to ensure you don't have too much on your plate.

I have always wanted to do everything. There is not very many things I would say no to, cause I want to experience everything. This is part of my DNA and my personality. Now, add stress and unhappiness to this equation and BAM, you have more work and outside projects to do then most human beings will have in their lifetime. When I started to lose my happiness in my work, this is what happened. Why? Because I lost control of something in my core values (happiness) and figured if I had control on all this other stuff I would be fine. Guess what I wasn't. I finally ended up walking away from that company and slowly recapturing my lost happiness.

This behavior for me stems from trauma in my own life. I lost my dad at a young age, we struggled financially for years, and I had people in my life who never thought I would amount to anything. My way of controlling my life has been throwing myself into as much as possible to not be in that position in life again and to prove everyone wrong (avoidance). Continuing down a path of excess work can lead to serious health issues that can lead to death.

Emotion or Thought Based

One of my favorite techniques has been learning how to journal. It may sound funny that I say learning, but the truth is there is a process to doing it. For some of us, it is not innate for us to pick up a pen and write our thoughts and emotions down to reduce clutter in our heads. This technique is very helpful to learn to sort everything out that you feel and you think about.

I find it especially helpful because I am an ENTP. My personality as defined by Myers-Briggs essentially makes me that human being who's thoughts go faster than can be articulated. I can barely keep up sometimes. And what happens is I end up with a lot of words coming out of my mouth that make no sense to anyone but me. Some of us just naturally over think everything which builds up excess in our heads.

But just like the other excesses in our lives, trauma can also be a cause to our excess thoughts and emotions. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a great example to this. With PTSD thoughts of a tragedy consume your mind which make it difficult if not impossible to function in the world.

Understanding the excesses in your life and the why they occur or exist are the key to your accountability in properly managing them. A little excess is not harmful. Let's face it, I will always have more shoes in my closet than I will ever need. But when excess starts to become clutter it is time for you to evaluate what is going on and seek support, guidance and help as needed.

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Disclaimer: If you are finding the excess and clutter in your life is causing harm to yourself or others please ask for help. Finding a partner in your health and wellness is important to me and all of those in your life.