Yes, Clutter Is Bad for You

Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui we got as a gift from Lani Inlander, Stylist Extraordinaire and author of last week’s PixieTips. She dropped this little gem into our hands as the first of many many gifts of knowledge and expertise. It is packed full of everything you need to know about getting rid of clutter. Period. Here is the Amazon review:

Clutter is stuck energy that keeps you stuck in undesirable life patterns. Therefore, you can “sort out your life by sorting out your junk.”… More than just junk, clutter is all those things that have negative symbology and that collect stagnant energy. This latter can also apply to bodily, emotional, and spiritual clutter, all of which Kingston describes with characteristic passion.

In terms of personality type? Organics, Classic Freedoms and Fun Freedoms can easily get on the stuck energy bandwagon and frankly as an Organic Freedom, I can feel the bad mojo that clutter creates. It always annoys me on some level. Does that mean I don’t have any? Nah. I’m married to a Smart Freedom who I truly believes creates clutter in his sleep. So, it’s a battle I haven’t been able to win, yet. But there have been times in my life that I have won and there is no better or freeing feeling than clearing all the junk away.

My favorite parts of the book are all the stories about how people’s lives changed after they cleared out the junk and started to live clutter free. These kind of cause and effect examples might appeal to all those logical thinkers out there who need some empirical evidence before they jump on the “energy” bandwagon. Personally, as a subjective thinker, I love the spiritual message that the book imparts and I dig the inspiration. I felt good after finishing it, even if I was still surrounded by clutter.

Now I do believe that ALL types can benefit from this book, but I don’t think that Fun Structures, Classic Structures or Smarts will buy the whole “stuck energy” mojo. I’m sure there are those who are open to such things, but since Smarts need to have stuff out in the open to know where it is and Classic Structures and Fun Structures are too practical to throw anything useful out, it’s going to be an uphill sell for you guys.

Regardless, it’s a good gift to give anyone who you believe has some clutter issues. Seriously, the whole Feng Shui aspect throws off the possible judgement the gift receiver might think (rightly) is coming their way. Plus its a great introduction to Feng Shui, with a clearly practical benefit for all types — no more crap cluttering up your view.

Originally published November 9, 2010