Melva Green - Breathing Room: Open Your Heart by Decluttering Your Home

Advance Praise for
breathing room

With clarity, compassion, and humor, Lauren Rosenfeld and Dr. Melva Green help us see the deep connection between living space and heart spaceguiding us toward freedom and ease within both. With both spiritual lessons and easy to do exercises, this book is a perfect blend of theory and practice. Readers of Breathing Room will soon find themselves rejoicing in the wide-open spaces of both home and heart.

Joan Borysenko, PhD , author of Minding the Body, Mending the Mind and Inner Peace for Busy People

Breathing Room is a fascinating blend of the spiritual, practical, and personal stories about how we can all declutter our lives. The book provides a clear guide to accomplishing the inner work you need to do not only to declutter your physical world but also to accomplish this in mind and spirit.

Matt Chan , creator and executive producer of the A&E series Hoarders

This book is genius. If you shut down when faced with your clutter, if clutter is stopping you from living the beautiful life that is your birthright, read this book! It has what you need to change your relationship to clutter forever!

Jennifer Louden , author of The Womans Comfort Book and The Life Organizer

Breathing Room puts the om into your home and the grease into your elbows! This is where the spirituality of clutter meets practicality with a big dose of compassion. Well done!

Tisha Morris , author of Mind Body Home

Who knew that clearing your physical space of unnecessary clutter could be a path of self-reflection and deep learning? Well Lauren Rosenfeld and Dr. Melva Green, thats who! In Breathing Room , these two wise women guide us in how to learn from the spaces where we live and create rooms that reflect a nourished and nourishing heart. With compassion and humor they help us find a way to let the beauty we are shine through the inevitable messiness of being human.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer , author of The Invitation

A compassionate guide to clearing out your clutter and inviting space, light, and peace into your home and heart.

Francine Jay , author of The Joy of Less, A Minimalist Living Guide

This year Ive embarked on a serious decluttering journeyfreeing space for myself, my family, and my workand this book has become central to that process. It has helped me deeply understand that clearing space is not just about the stuff in my house, but, more importantly, the stuff in my heart. With the help of this book, Im finally getting to root stories about my life that will enable me to live in this new space with great intention.

Patti Digh , author of Life Is a Verb

I love this book! Born with a passion for cleaning and organizing, my office and kitchen counter can still morph into disaster zones during my busiest times. With this beautiful, insightful book, I feel a great sense of relief about how to stop the madness. I am already breathing easier.

Linda Silvertsen , author of Generation Green

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Copyright 2014 by Lauren Rosenfeld and Melva Green

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever without prior written permission. For information address Atria Books/Beyond Words Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

Managing editor: Lindsay S. Brown

Editors: Gretchen Stelter, Anna Noak, Emmalisa Sparrow

Copyeditor: Claire Rudy Foster

Proofreader: Linda Meyer

Design: Devon Smith

Composition: William H. Brunson Typography Services

First Atria Paperback/Beyond Words trade paperback edition April 2014

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rosenfeld, Lauren.

Breathing room : open your heart by decluttering your home / Lauren Rosenfeld and Dr. Melva Green. First Atria Paperback/Beyond Words trade paperback edition.

p.cm.

1.Spiritual life.2.OrderlinessMiscellanea.3.Storage in the homeMiscellanea. I.Title.

BL624.R672014

646.7dc23

2013041861

ISBN 978-1-58270-457-9

ISBN 978-1-4767-3946-5 (ebook)

The corporate mission of Beyond Words Publishing, Inc.: Inspire to Integrity

For Jamie, whose love is a treasure that shines on the mantel of my heart.

LR

For JB, whose Divine presence ignites the remembrance in me that I was born to fly.

MG

W e knew from the start that we were soul sisters: two womena medical doctor and a spiritual intuitiveboth on winding and wondrous life paths, stepping with mindful gratitude in our work, while managing the innumerable details of our families. The two of us just got each other. And that was all we needed to know.

We are both mothers running households, so we understand how important having a decluttered home is to freeing up space in the heart for spiritual freedom. Lauren is a married mother of four active and imaginative teenagers, who are wildly creative clutter-producing maniacs. She lives in the heart of a spiritual mecca in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where the buzz of cars and the sound of bongo drums and strumming guitars are constant companions. Lauren is a spiritual declutterer: an intuitive guide who helps clients see the spiritual lessons shining in their natural messiness. She offers help to clients who feel overwhelmed with the business (and busyness) of life and helps them see that within every struggle is a miracle waiting to be born.

Dr. Melva Green is a single mother with one beloved son who is a born philosopher and gifted musician. She travels between the broad and wild beaches of Costa Rica and the cultural and intellectual feast that is Berkeley, California. She is a board-certified psychiatrist who is best known for her role on A&Es hit show Hoarders , where her compassionate care, forthright advice, and brave willingness to combine the science of her professional training with the intuition of spirit have endeared her to clients and television viewers alike.

In the summer of 2009, I had the privilege and honor of going with my husband and four children on retreat with author, poet, Zen master, and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh. On the second day of the retreat, he delivered a talk about creating a breathing rooma room that serves as a retreat within the home for seeking peace, solace, compassion, and reconciliation. In the twenty-first century, he said, every home needs such a room. And he began to talk about how such a room could be created. And he was talking to me. Literally. It was not as if he was talking to me. He was actually looking at meand I felt that he was telling me to go home and create a breathing room.