It’s Time for some Emotional Decluttering
Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.
-Sigmund Freud
Yes. Emotions need to be decluttered, on a regular basis. Or else they just keep on piling up. One after another they keep on adding. Unfortunately they don’t just die with time.
It’s said that time is medicine. Well, I feel time is like an antibiotic. It gives us temporary relief by making our conscious mind forget the emotional hurt. Time doesn’t heal the emotional pain. In fact the pain is hidden deep inside our subconscious, occupying our mental space.
Have you ever bought a piece of furniture or a showpiece because you loved the way it was beautifully displayed in the store? However, once you bring it to your home you realize that it doesn’t look as beautiful as it appeared in the shop. You realize that its charm is lost due to all the clutter in your house. After you clear some of the clutter, make a proper space for the beautiful new thing that you’ve just bought, only then it seems to fit in your home.
If we keep on buying new things without getting rid of old, broken, worn out, unused stuff, before we know our house seems out of control, untidy, messy. The same way, if we don’t declutter our mind, let go of certain unwanted and hurtful emotions then no matter how much we try to fill our mind with beautiful feelings like joy, happiness and gratitude, our life will still seem messy, even out of control.
However unlike physical clutter, emotional clutter is extremely difficult to let go of. We can’t just collect the emotional clutter in black bin bags and recycle it. Neither can we hold a garage sale, donate it or sell it online. No one wants our clutter as everyone has plenty of their own.
So how to declutter those ugly, hurtful emotions and memories that occupy the precious space of our mind? How to let go of the feelings that hold us back, keep us from living our life to the fullest? Well, I must say it’s not easy.
For years I had been an emotional hoarder.
I used to believe that covering up a painful emotion or turning my back towards it was the way to deal with it. What I didn’t understand was that, this massive amount of emotional rubbish was gradually taking over my life without me even realizing it.
To let go of our emotions they need to be expressed. But expressing emotions is not as simple as it sounds. Sometimes it becomes difficult to reach out, to be vulnerable, to say what’s really bothering us. And many times the emotional clutter is so much that even though it occupies a large amount of our mental space, we are not even aware of it’s existence.
However something needs to be done about it, right?
No matter how many resolutions we make every year, no matter how many exciting and wonderful moments we experience in our life, if our mind is cluttered with negative thoughts and memories, all the positivism will be lost is this mess.
So let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work.
Let’s make some space for the beautiful memories we will be creating in this year and all the upcoming years.
But where do we begin?
How can we eliminate the clutter that has been piling up for years?
1) Clear Out the Trash — Maintaining two journals.
For years I had been wanting to maintain a journal, however was never consistent in my efforts. Last year though while I was going through a stressful patch in my life, one day I opened up my word processor and began writing down my feelings.
I couldn’t believe how good it felt to just pen down my thoughts. It was honest, raw, unedited and real. I expressed my anger, my frustrations, my fears, my dilemma, my insecurities. As I typed away I felt as if a huge weight had been taken off my mind. At one point I slowed down. My thoughts were staring back at me in the form of words. Suddenly, I began looking at them in a new light, from a different perspective. I felt calmer. And then something amazing happened. I found the solution to the problem I was struggling with for so long. I found the answer I was looking for. Once I dumped all the negative thoughts that were gathered in my mind stressing me out to my core, I felt free. I felt lighter.
I call it thought dumping.
From that day I have been thought dumping regularly. However, I never go back and read my dumped thoughts. Just like we would never open a trash can to check what’s inside. We know that whatever it is, it’s smelly, it’s bad and we don’t want it anymore.
So never re-read what you have written in your ‘ Trash journal.’ I maintain two journals now. One is filled with beautiful memories that I would love to cherish and look back from time to time and other one is ‘Trash.’
No matter how beautiful our house is, a trash can plays a very vital role in our household. Only after we clear our the smelly and useless trash, we can truly enjoy the other marvelous things in our home.
The same way, keeping a trash journal is equally essential. If we try to stuff our mind with gratitude and joy without first clearing out the waste, the end result is going to be nothing but messy.
So to sum up, clear the trash daily and never ever peek in the trash can.
2) Declutter the Chatter — Meditate and put everything where it belongs.
Okay, now that we have taken care of the trash, we can deal with the chatter clutter. It’s the clutter of constant chatter that’s controlling our mind. It keeps us from being present in the moment.
Staying in the moment can be really challenging, especially when our mind keeps on dragging us to the places we don’t want to go. For instance, we are on a family vacation but our mind keeps on chatting about our pending work back home. Or we are driving but our mind is reminding us of our mean boss or obnoxious colleague. Our child is doing something really cute but we are not able to truly appreciate it, as our mind is still thinking about the goal we haven’t yet achieved.
I don’t know about you but this happens with me a lot and I have to bring my mind back on track from time to time.
Practicing regular meditation helps me to emotionally stay where I am. Meditation is nothing but wholeheartedly being in the moment. Just like any other skill, meditation also requires a great amount of practice. I still have a long way to go but meditation has definitely helped tune down my mental chatter. Meditation isn’t necessarily closing our eyes and chanting mantras. Meditation can be done at any place any time.
The moment I catch chatter clutter piling up in my mind, I just focus on my breathing and bring my mind back on track.
It can be challenging at times especially if up until now we’ve let the chatter clutter dominate our mental space.
Completely getting rid of the chatter might require a lot of time and patience. But practicing regular meditation and mindfulness can help us declutter the chatter.
3) Organizing your Emotional Library
Life is like a library owned by the author. In it, are a few books which he wrote himself, but most of them were written for him.
— Harry Emorson Fosdick
Our life stories are the versions that we ourselves have created. Everything we experience in our life gets documented in our mental library. There are different sections in this library of ours. Every section has the books of memories. Some books are of love, some of laughter, some of kindness, some of generosity, some of adventures.
Then again there are books that have feelings like sadness, anger, rejections, hurt, betrayal or fear documented in them. Often unknowingly we go back and refer to these unpleasant books and keep on living our life by the version of stories these books tell us.
These stories create nothing but clutter of negative emotions in our mind. If referred individually they are of no help at all. They just remind us of the pain we experienced in the past. Unfortunately we can’t erase these memories but what we can do is organize these negative memories into a new section called ‘Life’s Lessons.’
We should ask ourselves a simple question. ‘What has this experience taught me and how can I improve myself from the lessons learned through this experience?’
When we say, ‘This is who I am’ what we actually mean is this is what I think who I am. We are just narrating the biography we and others have written for us. The good news is we have the power to change and re-write these biographies at any time. Once we organize each experience of our life in a neat pile, only then we can discover our true potential.
4) Clean the guilt clutter and discover your true self
“The Japanese say you have three faces. The first face, you show to the world. The second face, you show to your close friends, and your family. The third face, you never show anyone. It is the truest reflection of who you are.”
The third face is our real thoughts, feelings, actions and intentions.
If the third face, the face that we reveal when no one is watching, contradicts a lot with the other two faces, then the clutter of guilt piles up in our mind. Because that sneaky inner conscience of ours is always observing.It might give us a pass once or twice but if we don’t maintain the healthy habit of following what we preach and walking the talk, the conscience will soon release the guilt clutter within our mind that will eventually make our lives miserable.
So it is extremely necessary that we minimize the layers of masks as much as possible and be the kind of person we expect others to be.
However, that’s just one form of guilt clutter that takes up our treasured mental space. The other form is the irrational guilt that occurs when we are too hard on ourselves and expect nothing but perfectionism. Being a mom I experience this ‘guilt’ every now and then. The feeling that I am not doing enough for my kids, not feeding them enough healthy food, not spending enough quality time with them. The guilt that shoots up in our mind every time we snap at our kids, don’t read them bedtime stories, are too tired to talk to them or don’t feel like playing with them, can become a severe cause of stress if not dealt with from time to time.
It’s not just in motherhood but in any place where we expect nothing but perfection, the guilt clutter of not being good enough can emerge.
It’s very important to understand the fact that we can’t do everything right. We are first humans and later a parent, employee, boss, wife, husband, son or daughter. So whenever such doubts begin to pile up in our mind it’s very important to say to ourselves, ‘I am trying my best and I am enough.’ Identifying the categories where our guilt clutter belongs to, can stop it from exploding and corrupting our mental space.
5) Eliminate the Clutter Monsters and think before adding new stuff
Imagine going to a dollar store to buy some disposable plates for the weekend barbecue party and instead spending $100 just because you couldn’t resist the temptation of having the things displayed on the shelves.
They are so cute, attractive, unique and so cheap. How can you not buy them right?
But when you bring all these items home you realize that you are not sure where to keep them.
You begin to wonder, ‘Why didn’t I think this through? Where on the earth am I going to put them?’
Many of these unwanted items never find the right place in your home and soon add up to your clutter.
The same way emotional clutter monsters such as gossip, comparison, jealousy, self loathing and greed can overtake our mental atmosphere. These clutter monsters eat up the valuable qualities like creativity, productivity, aptitude for knowledge and imagination.
We must stay away from these clutter monsters as much as possible. Any kind of negative news, negative words, unwanted gossip, discussing someone behind their back and unhealthy competition gives birth to such clutter monsters. So no matter how tempting or attractive it might seem at that moment , it’s not worth including in our lives.
6) Decluttering our Relationships
“Don’t let negative and toxic people rent space in your head. Raise the rent and kick them out!”
― Robert Tew
Fear of being alone can sometimes force us to tolerate negative and toxic individuals in our lives.
Bad friends are better than no friends at all — This is the policy some people follow. One would have thought that this mentality might change after a we become ‘mature’ but unfortunately sometimes the urge to fit in and be surrounded by lot of ‘friends’ doesn’t die with age.
On top of that social media constantly fuels our need to feel validated and approved. ‘If my post gets just 50 likes but my friend’s post gets 200 likes that means people approve of her more than me.’ This is what we subconsciously feel. No matter how much we deny, those 300 or 400 friends on our social media unknowingly become the part of our lives. We might not have spoken to them in 20 years or might not have even met them in person but still we get a sneak peak in their lives so frequently that the fine line between virtual and real relationships becomes invisible. This can give birth to lot of clutter monsters such as jealousy, comparison and unhealthy competition.
Limiting social media usage as much as possible and striving to build real face to face relationships is the key to get rid of this unwanted mental baggage.
However not all people we meet in our daily lives can be good for our mental health and sanity. Some people do nothing but add the clutter of stress and negativity in our minds. Still we put up with them cause we don’t want to be left out. What we fail to understand is that by maintaining relationship with such toxic people we are betraying the relationship we have with ourselves. By putting up with their nonsense we are in fact disrespecting our own selves. When dealing with a toxic relationship we must ask ourselves one simple question, ‘Is this person adding value to my life or cluttering my mind?’
The honest answer will let you decide whether to keep or let go of that relationship.
However, there are few relationships which you can’t just break or let go of. They might be difficult and might clutter your mind with stress and sadness but still you know you can’t just give up on them. Think of these relationships as valuable items that haven’t yet found a right place in your home. We might have to work and take some extra efforts to build that perfect spot for such relationships so that they fit beautifully in our lives.
7) Declutter regularly
Last but not the least we must implement the same rule for decluttering our mind that we follow for our home — Declutter regularly.
I try my best to keep my mind free of all the negative clutter however at times in the hustle bustle of daily routine I fall off the wagon and stop decluttering altogether. The result is, once again I have to deal with a lot of clutter and start back from scratch.
But if this ever happens just remember one thing. Don’t lose hope. Take a big breath and deal with one corner at a time.
So, to sum up, before we plan to add any new stuff in our beautiful mind, let’s put on some music, grab those boxes and markers and get started with some emotional decluttering.
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