"Help, I'm Desperate"

A WEAK AND SCARED VOICE on the phone said, "I'm desperate. I'm overwhelmed by the junk in my house. Can you come over right now?" She sounded like she was trapped in a well, crying out for help. Many of my clients are at the end of their emotional rope by the time they call me.

I immediately went over to the family's mansion in the Hollywood hills. Though it was nice on the outside, it was becoming strangled by the clutter inside. I could see this as I pulled up in front of her house and found they had to park their three cars in the driveway because the garage was too full of stuff.

My client looked as though she hadn't had a good night's sleep in months. She was frantic and nervous. As soon as I arrived, she handed the clutter-busting reins over to me. It's great working with desperate people because they are starved for change and very open to it. Their lives have just not been working. Perhaps you can see yourself in this light, if you try.

I took a quick tour of the home, which I do with all my clients. I go strictly on feeling. It's the best way to get the big picture, and it allows me to find the root of the clutter. Once I take care of that spot, the rest of the clutter goes pretty quickly. The root of this client's clutter was her office. It was a tiny room, and most of it was taken up with the queen-size guest bed. In the corner was her messy, overflowing desk. The TV blocked the door, making it difficult to get into the room. Her kids' video games were spread all over the floor and bed.

It was obvious to me that her life was out of control. I knew that once she had her own space, her sanctuary, she'd have stability, and then she could save the rest of the home.

I told her we had to get rid of the bed. It was a billboard for going to sleep and was not conducive to work. She was very happy to hear my words, which signaled that she'd already been feeling that but hadn't done anything about it. This is the pattern for many of my clients. They know what is wrong but are afraid to do anything about it until I confirm that it's okay to. Since I may never get to your home, I'll just let you know right now that it's okay to toss those things!

We dismantled the bed and put it outside by the curb. I suggested that we move the TV out of the room and make her office off-limits to her kids. She felt that would be poorly received, since they used it every day for the Internet and video games. I told her it was her room and that if she didn't take charge of it she would remain overwhelmed and unhappy and her family would suffer. She was the heart of the household. It was clear she got a lot of fulfillment from being a great wife and mother. If she was feeling strong and stable, the family would blossom. I was speaking to her strong, compassionate side. She finally agreed. We moved the TV out of her office, and she went to the kitchen and told her kids. They reacted negatively and said they wouldn't allow it. She was discouraged. I took her outside and told her she had to be strong because she and her family would benefit.

She went back and told her kids with strength and certainty that it was her room and that's how it was going to be. They were surprised but went along with her decision.

The woman was glowing. She went to the garage and got three framed paintings that she had bought herself a long time ago and had hidden away. She brought them to her office and we put them on the walls. In an hour's time, this woman experienced a dramatic transformation. She had changed just a few things but was reaping huge rewards. She took back her space and the power that she had given to others. Her dynamism was the evidence of her return to clarity. The nervousness and anxiety were gone. Peace of mind took their place. She now had determination, and over the next week we clutter busted the rest of the house.

Get reacquainted with your space. Give yourself the patience and time to do the work. Identify the areas that feel most personal to you.

As you take a closer look you begin to feel that there's a string tied to everything you own, the other end of which is triple-knotted around your heart. Subconsciously, you are pulled in many directions by the things you own. You become overwhelmed and lose your clarity. This is one of the main reasons so many people are agitated and stressed. While you are in that state of mind, it becomes impossible to separate what's clutter and what is now. By going from item to item, you're able to cut one string at a time. That's what makes this process doable.

Exercise

At your home, do what I do when I first come to a client's home: take a tour.

Carry a little notebook and a pen. Walk through your place as if you were taken there by a real estate agent and you're considering buying or renting the place furnished. Be sensitive to the environment, as if you've never been there before. You now have sensors that will alert you if something doesn't feel right. Be aware of rooms or areas of a room that feel uncomfortable, places where you don't like being. This is an absolute sign of clutter.

Notice whether some object keeps grabbing your attention, if something feels out of place. If so, it is clutter. The reason may not be apparent, but as with the fridge analogy, you know when something's spoiled.

Mark the items in your notebook and, when you're done with the tour, go back and clutter bust them. Or remove the items when you see them.

Start feeling the benefits now. I figure that 75 percent of the things in a person's house are clutter. It helps to keep this in mind during the clutter-busting process.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

MY CLIENT WAS A SINGLE MOTHER raising a teenage daughter. The mother had a tower of clutter. Her bedroom was crammed with clothes and lots of other stuff. I couldn't imagine how she was able to fall asleep amid the noise of all her things. The mother wanted her daughter to be involved in the clutter busting.

The daughter had her own clutter habit. Her room was a jungle of odds and ends that were made to look like art. On one wall were hundreds of photos of her, charting all the "important" moments of her life, from babyhood to the present day. It was like a movie of a character's life showing on five hundred screens at one time.

The daughter's closet was so full that clothes were spilling out onto the floor. However, the daughter wasn't interested in clutter busting and declined the invitation. So I went to work with her mother. We began by clutter busting the mother's clothes closet. While she was letting go of her things, the mother was rabidly complaining about how she'd been asking her daughter to clean up her room for years.

I said, "By the looks of your own bedroom, maybe you were actually saying it to yourself." The mother stopped and took in a deep breath. She started to laugh.

She said, "I taught my daughter all she knows."

I said, "When you're hard on your daughter, you're being hard on yourself. Maybe as you let go of the clutter, you can let in kindness. It's much easier to live with."

Amazingly, as the mother clutter busted, the daughter was off in her room, spontaneously doing her own clutter busting. A few hours into the busting, the daughter surprised us with three bags of clothes she had tossed on her own. The mother had released her clutter of being obsessed with her daughter's life and focused on her own life instead. This had a resonating effect that allowed real change to happen. When you take care of your life instead of trying to care for the rest of the world, life becomes simpler.

Exercise

If you have a child, invite him to help you clutter bust. If you don't, ask a friend if you can "borrow" her child. Tell the child that in the same way we clean and renew ourselves each day, we also need to clean and renew our homes. We need to take an honest look at what we have and decide what no longer fits us - like the shoes we wore when we were two.

Have the child ask you questions about the value of your stuff. Let his observations reach you. Follow his advice.

Make sure to pay the child when you are done. In this way he will learn the value of helping people and of service. Plus, this process will help you appreciate your child's voice.

What Matters in Your Life?

ON THE AVERAGE, most people own more than a thousand things. Yet you can use only one item at a time. This struck me one day when I was getting ready to go for a drive and went to my CD collection to pick out some music to play in the car. I had more than two hundred CDs. I looked at the throngs of CDs on my two CD towers and was overwhelmed. There were too many choices. The choices blocked any real clarity about what I liked. I was looking at the result of impulse buying. That day I thinned out the music collection to twenty-five essential CDs. The criterion for keeping a CD: I would be happy to listen to it at any time.

Clutter busting is about doing the opposite of acquiring everything you think you want and need. It is about putting a stop to the unhealthy process of acquiring things with the idea that they will make you happy. But I'll say it again: No thing is going to make you happy. You may think it will. But the mind is not reliable as a source of good solutions. It bases its decisions on fantasies, repressed desires, and fears of the future based on past events. It is basically impossible for the mind to see the current moment for what it is.

To stop acquiring and start assessing is key. Look at what you have and ask, "Does it help make my life better, or can I let it go?" It's not about standing in an empty room and finally being happy. It's about deciding what matters in your life. What's important to you? Not to anyone else. There's no room in your life for other people's opinions. Self-reliance is crucial. That's why it's important that you question what you want. That's why I ask my clients, "Do you need this, or can we let it go?"

There's so much more flow in this reverse process. It is physically and emotionally easier to adapt to change than to resist it. Most people don't realize this. There is great joy in living a life that is always fresh and new. But we are told, through advertising and brainwashing, that it is not enough. We are hypnotized to believe we need things, that we must have "joy enhancers." I am telling you to go the other way. To live with, rather than to resist, change will give you continuous contentment and joy.

Are You Buried Alive Under Paper?

A WRITER HIRED ME to clutter bust his apartment. I was amazed at the amount of paper that greeted me when I arrived. There was paper everywhere, creating hills and valleys over the floor and furniture. It looked like a piece of environmental modern art. The disorder was so intense, it was hard to think. My thoughts became jumbled and chaotic, and it wasn't even my stuff. I imagined what my client must have been feeling. He told me that he'd had "major writer's block" for six months. He could write nothing creative or coherent. This is a symptom of clutter. He knew I could help him clean up but didn't see how I could help with the writer's block.

We started with the sofa, which was covered with layers of junk mail, receipts, fast-food wrappers, and pizza boxes. We went through each thing, piece by piece, tossing every item. He was surprised it was so easy to let these things go. Sometimes it takes another person's eyes to help you see. By reading what I've written to you, you now have a second pair of eyes to help you see what is in your way.

When we got to the bottom, we saw that the seat of the sofa had caved in. The spring was broken, and he had piled paper on it to cover it up. "Hey, if you don't see it, it's not there!" Imagine what your hidden clutter is doing to you right now.

We agreed to toss the sofa and carried it out to the sidewalk. The amazing thing is someone came by and took it after we went back to his apartment. Next we ventured to the floor, which was a mess of fast-food wrappers and boxes. Confident now that he had tossed the sofa, he easily let the floor clutter go.

His "desk" was the next remarkable item. He had his computer monitor set on a cabinet of drawers. The monitor was precariously hanging over the edge. There were papers stuffed under the monitor and spilling onto the floor. It looked like the computer had been giving birth to paper.

He had an old dented and rusted filing cabinet next to a cabinet, and this supported his printer. He informed me that this haphazard computer formation was where he spent most of his time. No wonder he had trouble writing! He was writing in a garbage can. He had allowed the clutter to paralyze his creativity.

I told him, "You'll never create anything worthwhile until you appreciate your skill. Writing in filth diminishes your capabilities. It's time you admit you are worthwhile and have gratitude for your life." I suggested that he get a proper desk and clean up the papers.

He agreed, and we went through the papers. He didn't care for any of the writing, and he threw it out. We then went to an office supply store, and he bought a three-tier computer desk. We brought it back to his place, cleared a space, and assembled it. He put the computer and its accessories on the desk. He was transformed - like someone who threw out the same dirty clothes he'd been wearing for ten years and was wearing a brand-new colorful outfit. His place was cleared and clean, a blank slate, and he had a new direction. I left him to explore the new terrain.

When I called my client a week later, he told me he was able to complete a writing project he had been working on for months. He also had some great new creative ideas and was excited to see where this new momentum would take him.

Exercise

Find the place in your home where you have layered clutter. Clutter attracts other clutter, and where there is some, there is often quite a lot more hidden underneath. There are things in this pile you have been putting off. Over the long run, putting something off causes much more pain. It's as if you bought something on sale with a very-high-interest credit card and spend five years paying it off, and it ends up costing three times the sale price. Now is the time to use your new discriminating eye to find and toss the clutter.

Since you have gotten this far in the book, I know you have the momentum to do this. Go through each item in the pile with a discerning eye. You have been living in a trash can. You have hired yourself to find and toss the trash.

© 2009, Brooks Palmer, All Rights Reserved
Excerpted from the book Clutter Busting. Copyright 2009 by Brooks Palmer. Reprinted with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. www.newworldlibrary.com or 800/972-6657 ext. 52.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Brooks Palmer's Clutter Busting business took off by word of mouth when people began calling, usually out of sheer desperation. He has since been featured in The Los Angeles Business Journal and Daily Candy, and on Living Live and the CBS Channel 2 Nightly News. Brooks travels between Chicago, Florida, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City, working with clients and offering seminars on getting rid of the clutter in our lives. He lives in Chicago. His website is www.clutterbusting.com.