Messiness and Clutter

I don’t mind cleaning.  I’m not lazy.  So how is it that messiness and clutter reigns in my house?

When I walk into the house, there’s a pile of half unopened letters on the dining table, notes for groceries and chores next to the plants I still have not potted.  I see snacks and supplements crowding the kitchen counters, left out for convenient access.  In the living room my latest art project all over the coffee table, books I’m reading lying here and there.   In the entry way, the vacuum cleaner left out because I was interrupted and didn’t finish vacuuming.

Self-help can take you part of the way.

I read books like “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” by Marie Kondo, that helped me prune my wardrobe and kitchen items down to what I actually use and enjoy.  “Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui” by Karen Kingston taught me about clutter zones and how setting up a basket for mail and file cabinets for the mail/letters that we keep, prevents clutter from building up.

These books provided good guidance and advice but somehow, I just could not implement the advice and make it stick.

Meditation helps uncover the real problem.

I practice a meditation method that has taught me how to do deep introspection, and really get at the roots of the problems in my life.  One day as I was meditating about life in general, I realized something that totally shocked me:  I don’t feel that I deserve a beautiful, organized and clutter free home.

I looked around the rooms in my home and for the first time, saw the mismatched furniture and the $20 IKEA end tables that I paired with my expensive couch and chair.  Looks like I don’t allow myself to go all the way and buy nice things that all match either.   I remember buying the couch and thinking that I can’t afford the matching end tables.

I didn’t realize it at the time but I felt undeserving and guilty about buying such an expensive couch and chair.  What gives me the right to own these beautiful things when so many people don’t have groceries?

So, one way to be able to accept the nice things in my home is to create a mess.  The mess brings it down a notch and makes it more along the lines of what I felt I deserved.

As I continued to do my regular meditation, other things surfaced around this area of messiness and clutter.  Turns out that I also felt that I don’t deserve to have things without expending a lot of work and energy.   I don’t deserve them if I have not earned them past any reproach.

So, if there is some messiness on the kitchen counters, that somehow lowers the value of my large beautiful kitchen.  Somehow having that lower value makes it more attainable.  It signals that I have worked enough to have earned it.   It’s a silly idea but I felt that I would lose the things I have not earned.

These crazy thoughts only existed in my mind.

These crazy thoughts were once running around inside my mind keeping me from having a neat and clutter free home.  Luckily, there is a way to both identify and get rid of these crazy, false thoughts.

This meditation practice gets rid of those thoughts.

Meditation has helped me to round up these false thoughts, beliefs and fears and permanently get rid of them.   Today, I no longer feel guilty for doing well or undeserving of the nice things that come my way.  Today, I find it easy to organize my home and keep it free of clutter and I don’t mind when a little clutter happens either.

The lesson here is that good advice will take you a long way, but until you get all the stories and experiences that are recorded in your mind, cleared out, you won’t be able to fully implement the advice. So don’t hold on to these crazy things in your mind and start this meditation practice.

Irma/ Suwanee Meditation