Brooks Palmer - Clutter Busting: Letting Go of What’s Holding You Back

Before I even finished this book, I had to start implementing some of the recommendations. By the time I read the last page, not only my home but also my family dynamic and my career were unrecognizable. It was like a miracle.

Before reading Clutter Busting I was a clutter collector: on my desk, in my basement, and in that dark cave I call my closet. I have needed this book for years, and I loved it! Brookss advice helped me clean up this clutter, which gave me more time, energy, and creativity. We should start a clutter-busting club wed all be better off!

Brooks Palmer offers solid advice for those wanting to clear the clutter from their physical and mental spaces. Palmer makes the important connection between internal and external spaces and shows how clearing one area positively affects the other. A great resource.

Copyright 2009 by Brooks Palmer

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

The material in this book is intended for education. It is not meant to take the place of diagnosis and treatment by a qualified medical practitioner or therapist. No expressed or implied guarantee as to the effects of the use of the recommendations can be given nor liability taken.

Text design by Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Palmer, Brooks.

Clutter busting : letting go of whats holding you back / Brooks Palmer.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-57731-659-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. House cleaning. 2. Storage in the home. 3. Orderliness. I. Title.
TX324.P33 2009

First printing, March 2009

ISBN 978-1-57731-659-6

Printed in Canada on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper

New World Library is a proud member of the Green Press Initiative.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CHAPTER ONE
You Are Sacred Your Things Are Not

CHAPTER TWO
We Assume False Identities in Clutter

CHAPTER THREE
Clutter Keeps Us Living in the Past

CHAPTER FOUR
Clutter Represents Fear of Change

CHAPTER FIVE
Clutter Is an Addiction

CHAPTER SIX
Clearing Clutter to Make Room for Clarity

CHAPTER SEVEN
Inner Clutter Creates Outer Clutter

CHAPTER EIGHT
Mental Clutter

CHAPTER NINE
Clutter as Punishment

CHAPTER TEN
Using Your Discriminating Tools

EPILOGUE
What Really Matters

I ts time for you to take out the trash.

Currently you live in the most expensive type of trash can. The trash in your home (or work environment) consumes precious space and zaps energy from your life. It is time to make the place you live your home again. Its time to renew your energy. Its time to take out the trash. What trash, you ask?

Trash, or clutter, includes the things that you hold on to that are no longer useful to you. These things may be worn-out or brand-new, but they are trash because they have lost their value. Such things no longer serve a purpose, and they certainly dont add to your quality of life. They are barriers to good, powerful, and necessary change.

The clothes you no longer wear, the papers choking your desk and files, the electronics youve replaced, the extraneous and unused items stuffed into your kitchen cabinets and drawers, the CDs you no longer listen to: all the various things that clog up your home, office, and garage constantly trip you up in every area of your life. Whether or not you realize it, these white elephants are the reason you no longer enjoy your home; they are behind that feeling of I just cant get anything done and general feelings of unhappiness, illness, and disease. Collectively, they are overwhelming your senses. Nothing motivates you anymore. You can never get organized. Tasks go unfinished; projects get left behind. You feel buried, unaccomplished. You feel as if you need something to feel better.

What do you need to feel better? How do you start to make changes? How can you begin to take care of yourself and your surroundings if you havent done so for months, maybe even years?

This book is about what I call clutter busting: actively breaking through barriers and letting go of the unnecessary clutter that crowds your life. Clutter busting helps restore clarity and insight. When you clutter bust, you find yourself. You remove the impediments to a happy life. You naturally replace lack of motivation, anxiety, and unhappiness with peace of mind, certainty, and acceptance of change and progress.

It is your clutter. It is your decision. Your things are beneficial only when they improve or enhance your life in some way. This book will help you decide what stays and what goes!

The process will be easy if you are open to letting go. If you struggle with letting go, dont worry. I will advise you along the way, providing plenty of examples from real-lifes clutter bustings. I will give you the necessary tools for you to reclaim your life. Youll find yourself tossing the trash into the trash can, where it belongs. Its time for you to take back your space and your life!

Wow. You certainly have a lot of things. Maybe these items seemed exciting in the store or on TV, but once you brought them home and tossed them into a pile with all the other crap youve already amassed, you suddenly found yourself buried alive. Your job is to recognize that youre still alive under all that stuff! You can stand up. Movement in a positive direction has a way of knocking down walls. This is about breaking free, about breathing again. Ill help you decide what is important in your life. Your powers of discrimination will return.

Society and others tend to dictate what should be important in your life. Thats why you have so much clutter there are so many conflicting opinions bombarding you every day, so many things you think you need to keep, depending on whom you ask. Imagine the space that this excessive information takes up on your hearts hard drive. No wonder you keep crashing! Now