Closets hold more than our wardrobes and knick knacks, they are the keepers of our fantasies and secrets but unfortunately, this also means sometimes, holding on to unfulfilled dreams and chaos. In my work as a clairvoyant and meditation teacher, I support people during emotional transformations but often times, when you change your energetic vibration, it often leads to changes in all aspects of your life. When clients start to ‘work on themselves’ the first step is often a personal one; maybe it starts with building confidence towards opening their hearts to love and romance or a different job.
When I started working with Adriana, she was a successful banker with a successful career, multiple houses and a closet full of designer clothes, shoes and handbags. Her guest rooms overflowed with seasonal clothes as well. The living room, kitchen and hallways were chock full of serving dishes, champagne flutes and all the accouterments required to throw the best annual Oscar Parties, holiday soirees and summer BBQ’s. One always wanted to be invited to stay with her in Central Park or her cottage in The Hamptons. While beautifully designed, and tastefully decorated, every closet, drawer and cupboard in both abodes was overfilled with redundancy — doubles and triples of everything — there was never quite any space for your own personal belongings, even if you were a lucky guest.
One weekend, while I was visiting her, we did a clearing meditation because she wanted to make room for love in her life. She also wanted to work on her health and shed some extra pounds she had gained during a dark moment in her life. After an hour-long guided meditation to release negative self-love, we loaded her up with positive self-images and loving affirmations.
During the session, she followed my guidance to determine a litmus test to gauge her intentions and use a personalized litmus test to decide what items were part of her negative self-love and which items resonated with her new image of self-confidence. Through a series of questions and answers, we came up with “Light, sexy and free” as a personalized mantra.
We then did a walk-through of her home and started to casually Marie Kondo-ize her place. Marie Kondo is a professional organizer and a NY Times Best Selling Author of The Magic of Tidying Up. Kondo’s main premise is teaching others how to live minimally by keeping only things that “spark joy.” I personally used her tips and completely transformed my own life and wanted to help Adriana with a few areas in her own life. One thing led to another and suddenly, the editing process became a ten day power-cleanse.
Starting with Adrian’s NY apartment, she and the penthouse were ready for a designer make-over. We literally went through each item in her wardrobe, kitchen, living room and office and removed anything that didn’t feel “light, sexy and free.” We put them into 4 distinct piles to sift through.
Pile 1: Ready to Discard or giveaway
Pile 2. Sell
Pile 3: Reassess — this one requires a secondary editing process and more intimate or gentle scrutiny. This is where your emotions or dark shadows might be hiding. Sometimes, things are held because of some outdated image of ourselves or false image of ourselves. This is really detrimental with clothes and self-image and self-worth, actually. If you hold onto something and it makes you feel farther away from your intention, then it goes in the bin. But if it makes you feel closer, then keep it. For example, which bin do you think the following two statements fall into (Keep or Don’t Keep):
A) I love these shoes but they hurt my feet every time I wear them. They were so expensive.
B) I love this magical carpet, it’s very colorful and it reminds me of the time I went to Turkey with my Ex, who is now married with kids. I can’t believe he married someone else.
C) I knitted this sweater 5 years ago when I was really depressed, I learned how to knit and it kept my mind from going nuts. But I never wear it anymore.
(Answer, get rid of all of them!)
With the help of a stylist, we paired down her wardrobe to things that supported her ‘light, sexy and free’ mantra and discarded items that didn’t fit that vibe. We made big piles for resale, giveaway, repair and throwaway. This was a grueling process. We actually had to do many, many edits because there were SO many emotions when trying to ascertain whether this dress was something that she should keep until she lost 10 more pounds or whether that dress was actually holding her back. There were so many nostalgic sentimental items from friends who were actually frenemies and many photographs of loving moments from old boyfriends (who were now with other women). These items are basically dead weight and prevent new relationships from forming!
When we opened some kitchen and pantry cupboards, the emotions we unpacked were that things were “shoved in, crammed in, and stuffed away.” So we cleared the energy of self-abuse and removed those harmful energies and reorganized her kitchen especially to be efficient and convenient for healthy living. We also uncovered about 40 salt and pepper shaker pairs! When we discussed this, we discovered that she wanted her romantic love to be like salt and pepper shakers — quirky and cute pairings. But the energy of these was that her ‘love life’ was reduced to small miniature couplets. While adorable, it didn’t give her quite the room for BIG LOVE so we edited more than half of those to make room for true partnership to evolve.
After ten x eight-hour days, about 70 boxes and 40 bags of extra stuff, both her NY penthouse and beach house in the Hamptons were edited and curated. A little less than a month later, an old friend sparked an unexpected romance with her. While this relationship has run its course, what she’s learned is more self-compassion and self-worth and she’s working towards building upon those new images of herself. When you make room for yourself, you have more room for new dreams and experiences.
What are the steps for your own journey of self-discovery?
Step 1: Set an intention for how you want to live your life. This can be a few words or feelings or it can be a big goal.
Step 2: Set aside time to go through the areas of your life that need to be updated.
Step 3: Set aside time to go through each section of your home that needs to be edited. Do each room in 2–4 days maximum. It’s a focused job! Stay the course!
Step 4: Use your intention as a litmus test while editing to determine if the thing should be kept or discarded.
Step 5: Don’t give up. There will be moments that will be hard to ‘let go.’ Put those things aside and mull them over for 24–48 hours max.
Step 6: Keep editing!
Step 7. Notice in that 24–48 window frame, how you feel about moving forward with your intention and notice what holds you back.
Step 8. Keep editing!
Step 9. If your pile is really big, go ahead and take it to the garage or invite your friends to pick things up. (I gave away my entire apartment before I knew I was actually moving abroad — by unloading my furniture, it allowed me to be free to make decisions).
Step 10. Keep editing till it feels liberating and joyful. You’ll know when to stop when things feel right. If you have doubts, repeat from Step 4.
I did this process personally for 1 week at a time, first with the kitchen, then the office, then the living room and then my bedroom. Then it became a month-long process of going through ‘old boxes’ and then I would stop for a few months and see huge changes in my life. I originally started with getting rid of a few office supplies and pieces of furniture. Then it turned into getting rid of my perfume collection. Then it turned into editing aspects of my business that weren’t really in line with my values anymore. When I could see clearly that I no longer wanted to manufacture perfumes, I was able to sell through a huge amount of inventory by an unexpected retailer. I was finally able to cut my storage unit in half and get rid of 5 pallets of inventory!
At the same time, by becoming more clear with myself, I could see other areas in my personal life that were no longer supporting me. This included ending a very unhealthy romantic relationship. I started to see so many broken areas that I was really eager to let go of rather than try to fix. I had to address some really deep core issues. When I did this, it was an incredible shift! I could see that what I thought were things that were keeping me together were actually things keeping me from my freedom. After I cleared my belongings, I spent a week in Napa, California doing the Hoffman Process to address and clear childhood patterns. I highly suggest this (after doing some elementary spiritual homework).
I then had an incredible opportunity to travel the world, unencumbered. I rediscovered my passion for traveling and designing events around ceremonies as well as continuing my meditation teachings. Instead of having a warehouse full of stuff, I travel the world now with my laptop and one roller bag with scuba gear and bikinis while leading meditation retreats and teaching people how to run their energy.
