Clear clutter in the kitchen before you travel!

I just finished working with a women who leaving on a trip tomorrow. We have learned that it really helps her to schedule an organizing session with me right before her trips. She is a single mother with four children between 12 and 20 years of age. And, she is a physician who has to be on call quite frequently. Whew! What a full plate!

So, what do I do for her? My goal is to help ground her at a time when she is planning to rip up her roots and leave home for a period of time. We usually start by creating order in her bedroom. Her bedroom is an outward extension of her inner self. If it’s a chaotic place, she’ll be affected by that energy and find it difficult to think clearly and make decisions about what to pack.

Next I clear clutter in the kitchen. Women tend to center out of the kitchen. And, it’s the heart of the home. When it’s clear, clean and organized, interactions between she and her children are likely to be positive. Clutter emits a negative energy that can lead to irritability and misunderstandings.

I also act as a second brain, helping her think through what she’ll need to pack, making sure she doesn’t forget an essential item. There are times when the overwhelm of all the details of a trip for herself and her four children make her loose sight of the big picture. As an objective observer, I give her feedback and help her prioritize the tasks that must be done.

When I left today, I knew my client was in good shape for an important adventure with her children. I love making things easier for wonderful women and their families!

I’m sure many of you who have been following me for some time think I am a broken record with my constant urging to clear clutter. I can’t help myself! Almost every time I work with a client who allows me to help her clear a significant amount of clutter from her home, I get a report of the concrete benefits of clutter clearing. It’s one of the best, most doable things you can do at home to reduce stress and move your life forward.

This week I worked with a special woman who is ready for a new chapter in her life. She wants to reconnect with her inner artist and reclaim making art as a way to feed her soul. Her biggest obstacle to making art is not having a space set up to do the work. In the process of claiming a space to do art we began clearing and organizing two large storage closets in her finished attic. Great quantities of outdated financial documents were released as well as old frames, camping equipment, books and other belongings. The day after our clearing I happened to call this client with a question. With enthusiasm and high energy she thanked me for my help the day before and said, “I’ve just been so focused today!”

Are you wanting to be able to focus on what is really important in your life? One way to get more focused is to clear out anything you no longer love or use. The energy of those useless items communicates with you whether you are conscious of their existence or not. When you remove them from your space, you are eliminating their distracting energy. Try it! Clear clutter to clear those distracting energies. You may find you can better focus on what is most important.

© 2012 Clearing Clutter for Good Online Program | Debbie Bowie

“Author, Organizing Expert and Feng Shui Practitioner, Debbie Bowie, is a leading authority on clutter clearing to attract more of what you want in life. If you’re ready to clear clutter and move your life forward, get your FREE TIP SHEET, “Feng Shui Tips for Instant Success” at www.letcluttergo.com.

Is house hunting in your plans for the new year? Looking for just the right new home is an overwhelming task! There are so many considerations, so many things to think about that it’s easy to get distracted and not notice features of the home and its location that could be problematic. And, if you’re not very sensitive to energy, you could inadvertently buy a home that is a feng shui nightmare–a place where it would be very difficult to feel comfortable and thrive.

Following are some suggestions for insuring that your house has good feng shui.

* Look for a house with a square or rectangular floor plan. Houses with irregular plans may be dramatic and interesting to visit, but ultimately have serious energy challenges and may not be optimal places to live. Those with square or rectangular plans are easier to arrange, have better energy and fewer major energy problems.
* Look for a house that is set squarely on its lot so the front of the house is parallel to the road. Houses set at an angle to the road look charming, but a dissonance is created when the main axis of the house runs at an angle to the street.
* Avoid houses located at the end of a street. The road ends in front of the house, but the energy flowing down the road keeps coming and slams into the house with great force. The intensity of the energy can be harmful to the occupants.
* Avoid houses with the main door located on the side of the structure. The front door is the main mouth of life nurturing chi (energy). It is best if the mouth is easy for energy to find. A house with a door on the side is like a face without a mouth.
* If you are looking for a garage built into the house, a house with garage doors facing the side or rear of the house are preferable to garage doors facing the street. When garage doors are the main feature of the front of the house, occupants of the house find themselves on the go all the time.
* Avoid houses where a central stairway runs directly to the front door. Energy coming down the stairs rushes right out the front door, depleting the home of life affirming energy.
* Look for a house that is on level ground or slopes from the back of the lot down toward the front of the lot. Avoid houses where the lot falls off behind the house creating an energy sink and lack of support in the areas associated with wealth and prosperity, fame and reputation and love and marriage.
* Avoid houses that have heavy beams overhead. Unless the ceiling is extremely high, beams create a heavy negative energy, an uncomfortable weight overhead.
* Avoid houses with bedrooms that have slanted ceilings or walls built on an angle. Slanted ceilings, like beams, have a weight that makes restful sleeping difficult. Walls built at an angle tend to spin the energy of the space setting up the potential for the occupants to experience accidents. People sleep best in square or rectangular rooms that have a human scale, typically 8 feet high with flat ceilings.
* Avoid houses that are mostly glass. It is difficult to place furniture in those houses so that people feel comfortable. People are most comfortable and empowered when they can sit or sleep in spaces where they have a solid wall behind them and a full view of the main door of the room.

If you live in a house that has one of the problem features listed above or if you’ve found the house of your dreams and it has some of the above issues, know that in many cases there are actions that can be taken to mitigate the problems. Check out some feng shui books available in bookstores or hire a feng shui consultant to assist you.

Feng shui teaches that everything is alive with energy. Everything. That means that you too are alive with energy. What kind of energy are you? When I evaluate environments for good feng shui I look for a feeling of harmony and balance, a predominance of positive energy, and few sources of negative energy. The same criteria can be applied to people.

You’ve probably met people who immediately repel you by their looks, behavior, or attitude. And, you’ve probably met other people with whom you feel an immediate affinity or attraction. I like to describe it this way. When I meet people with whom I feel no connection, no desire to interact or even worse, the desire to get away from them, there is just no velcro. Nothing about their energy pulls me toward them. But, when I meet people with whom I feel an immediate connection and a desire to know them better, there is velcro.

What’s really exciting is that we have complete control of the quality of our energy. We get to choose how we think and act. Following are 12 suggestions for ensuring that you have good feng shui and in turn attract others with good feng shui into your life.

1. Be a positive light in your world. You can do this by looking for the positive in every person, exchange or circumstance. If you expect to find good things, you will. Even in the most difficult circumstances there are always gifts and lessons. Rather than focus on things that irritate you, look for something good about every encounter.

2. Learn the difference between criticism and feedback and refuse to criticize anyone. When you criticize you are shooting the person with word bullets. Criticism does more harm than good.

3. Refuse to be a blamer. Blaming is an attempt to make the other person wrong. It is also commonly used by people who don’t want to take responsibility for their own behavior. Look for ways to solve problems rather than pointing a finger at the person who caused the problem.

4. Be courteous and kind with everyone, even people who aren’t being courteous to you. What you put out comes back to you. Put out curt, discourteous behavior and you are likely to get the same in return. Respond to discourteous people with polite, friendly behavior and you’ve held onto your own personal power and you’ve done your part to have a positive interaction.

5. Become an expert at managing your anger. When you feeling angry and are likely to say hurtful things, shut your mouth and breathe. Walk away until you can cool off and can identify the true cause of your feelings. What you think you are mad about while angry may not be the real reason. Once calm, go back and respectfully discuss the situation with the goal of working things out.

6. Admit a mistake as soon as you are aware you have made one and do whatever it takes to correct it. Hiding mistakes is a form of dishonesty and therefore negative energy. When you admit mistakes and make things right, you flush out the negative energy and can start again with a clean slate.

7. Be a lifelong learner. When you continue to learn, you continue to grow. You then having interesting ideas and information to share with others. You become interesting to others.

8. Be interested in others. You’ve probably heard the saying, “People don’t care what you know until they know that you care.” Lead with curiosity and caring and you’ll find yourself attracting all kinds of wonderful people into your life.

9. Listen like you’d like to be listened to. Listening tells people that you care about them as a person, that what they have to say really matters. It is an incredible gift that identifies you as a giver rather than a taker.

10. Make service to others a way of life. What you put out there comes back to you. We are all meant to make a difference in some way. Serving others gets us out of the confusion of our own heads and is a way for us to participate in making the world a better place.

11. Refuse to take yourself too seriously. When you take yourself too seriously life is hard work and you feel burdened by the responsibility of trying to be perfect. What a setup! Work hard, but learn to go with the flow. You aren’t really in charge anyway! Life gives you exactly what you need when you need it. Why not take a breath, put a smile on your face and expect the best.

12. Develop a playful, positive sense of humor. People with a good sense of humor are like magnets in any situation. They provide relief from the seriousness in situations that threaten to hold all of us hostage from true connection with each other. Lighten up and look for the funny in every day, especially in your own behavior!

Are you good feng shui? Are you a source of positive energy in all areas of your life? It’s up to you. Being good feng shui is a choice that is available to everyone. Can you imagine what our world would be like if everyone had good feng shui?

Staying organized is not for sissies! Unlike getting organized it requires a commitment to DAILY ACTION to maintain the order you created when you got organized. That means, you must do the same actions day after day after day after day after day . . . in order to avoid the trauma of having to reorganize chaos all over again!

So what? What’s the big deal? All you have to do every day is pick up things, put them away, throw them away or give them away. That’s the simple answer for how to stay organized. No big deal!

The actions you must take are not difficult. In fact, they are pretty easy once you have established an initial order. But, they are boring and repetitive. For those folks who are creative, fun-loving and who crave variety and stimulation, the repetitive actions required to stay organized can seem deadly. But, they must be done if you want to stay organized and have a peaceful life free of chaos.

Here are 8 steps to learn how to STAY ORGANIZED:

1. Watch your behavior to identify actions that contribute to the problem of being disorganized and commit to changing problem behaviors.

Common problem behaviors include: dropping, plopping (choosing couch potato mode before taking care of business), avoiding and procrastinating.
2. Identify specific places in your schedule for daily organizing activities.

Work and school schedules create a structure around which to arrange routine organizing tasks. For example, there is usually a small window in the morning before leaving for the day that can be used for loading the dishwasher, putting in a load of wash, and cleaning up breakfast dishes. And, there is a window in the evening upon returning home where mail can be processed, voice mail checked, etc. There is also another window before bedtime for a final pickup of clothes and other items used during the day. People who are retired or self-employed sometimes have difficulty staying organized because they don’t have the structure provided by work and school schedules. It is even more important for them to consciously commit to specific times for getting routine maintenance chores done.

3. Incorporate the most important organizing tasks into routines.

Routines create a structure within which specific activities can happen. Repeating routines over and over again will make actions automatic rather than dreaded daily events. A morning routine might include getting up, showering, hanging up wet towels, getting dressed, eating breakfast, cleaning up after breakfast, checking email, leaving for work/school. An evening routine might include putting away any items you bring into the house (groceries, shopping bags, etc.), processing mail, checking
voice mail, making dinner, cleaning up after dinner, helping children with homework and cleaning up afterwards.

4. Reward yourself for changed behavior.

Commit to a new organizing behavior that you know will help you stay organized. Then repeat the behavior 21 days in a row. It takes repeating a new behavior 21 days in a row before it becomes a habit. Beware, you will resist new behaviors. You may have to start over again several times if you find yourself sliding back into old messy habits. When you reach the 21st day, reward yourself with something you enjoy, a special meal or purchase. Use email, TV or a phone call to a friend as a reward for finishing your evening chores.

5. Be willing to pay to get help if you haven’t been successful in your efforts to stay organized by a certain date.

Professional organizers and professional coaches can provide the structure necessary to hold you accountable to your goals to stay organized. (Admit it; you’d pay for help if you couldn’t get your car to start.

6. Hire others to do the things you hate the most and/or have the hardest time doing.

Consider paying for a cleaning service, a professional organizer, a person to pay your bills, a lawn service or a person to do your laundry/ironing. I pay to have my bills paid because I hate doing it, I’m prone to math errors and I want it done right. I also pay to have my house cleaned every two weeks. Again, I hate cleaning. And, it always gets done better than I’d do it. Having someone clean my house also gives me a deadline to pick up my house so I can get the most out of the cleaning!

7. Make staying organized a family commitment.

Invite family members to participate in the process of maintaining an organized, comfortable place to live. If you have a husband or wife, start with him/her. It is always easier to encourage children to participate if you and your spouse both consider staying organized a priority. Teach children early that picking up after themselves and participating in on-going organizing efforts is not optional; it is essential to having a rewarding, comfortable life.

It should be introduced to them as a normal part of life as soon as they are capable of throwing toys into open tubs. Be sure to reward them with praise for their on-going efforts even though they are expected to do them. Never use getting or staying organized as a punishment. And, remember, they will be watching what you do. You are a model for behaviors they need to learn like cleaning up after themselves and regularly getting rid of things they no longer love or use.

8. Have realistic expectations for the level of organization you can maintain.

It is fairly common for women to believe that they should keep a perfectly organized and clean house, even though they may work outside the home and/or have several children running around. That is an old standard that probably has NEVER been attainable without regular outside help. If you have children, especially under the age of 10, cut yourself some slack and shoot for relative order. As long as you keep picking up daily, regularly get rid of stuff, and you have all family members doing their part in the process, you probably can function without any major organizing challenges.

As your life changes, so too will the level of intensity of your daily organizing efforts. Efforts should intensify when raising children and become less intense when children leave home (if you haven’t replaced the obligations as a parent with other commitments). When you reach retirement, initially, you will have much more time to get organized and stay organized. But, you will also lose the structure provided by a work schedule. Resist the urge to drop helpful routines at retirement. Those who do find their homes in chaos and wonder what happened!

You will be rewarded for your daily organizing efforts with the ability to think clearly and accomplish your goals more easily, improved relationships and greater peace of mind. A few minutes every day is not a great price to pay for an improved life!

Last summer I went conference room shopping with a fellow speaker, Shirley T. Burke. Fortunately Shirley T. “gets” feng shui and understood that I would have some very specific requirements for the meeting room in which we’ll present our seminar, “Back on Track: Get More of What You Really Want From Life.” I speak best in spaces that feel good. And, I want the space to have a life-affirming energy that will complement our life-affirming message.

The first room was the right size and shape and was nicely appointed, but what really made it stand out from all the other meeting rooms we visited was it had windows with a view of green trees and shrubs. By comparison all the other spaces we saw seemed like lifeless boxes. Today’s experience reminded me of a similar experience I had several years ago. I attended an annual conference of the National Association of Professional Organizers in Reno, Nevada. It seemed like an odd location to have the annual conference of a group of left-brained, highly organized people, but I was willing to see what Reno had to offer us.

As I moved through the hotel lobby I found myself repelled by the glitz of the decor. When I ventured into the casino I felt disoriented by the cave-like space with the mirrored ceiling, busy carpet pattern, and noise of the machines. I was told that casinos are deliberately designed to encourage people to gamble. They are intentionally designed to be disorienting. What a strange place! I was most struck by the lack of connection between people. All around people were sitting alone at machines or focused on games at tables. It all seemed incredibly sad to me. I couldn’t wait to get out of the casino each time I had to walk through that space.

What a contrast it was to go upstairs to the conference rooms! Gone was the noise and glitz. It seemed like any other conference center – pretty lifeless. We spent time in windowless rooms and ballrooms divided by partitions. Although those rooms were clean and functional, they lacked natural light, color and positive energy.

After experiencing the casino and meeting rooms, two different types of impersonal and uncomfortable environments, both with no windows, both with no plants, it was such a relief to emerge into the lobby that offered beautiful views of the mountains in the distance through large picture windows. I stood at those windows and drank in the view. I felt like my soul was being nourished by the view. Never before had I been so struck by how depleting the man-made environment can be when it is devoid of elements of nature.

People can create all kinds of environments. Without having a consciousness awareness about how you are affected by those environments, you can spend enormous amounts of time in spaces that are not life-affirming. For most of us it’s not a casino, but our home or office. Spaces lacking views of nature or objects of nature are uncomfortable and will affect performance and productivity.

The natural habitat of a human being is the out of doors. Therefore, when you bring the outdoors inside, in the form of plants, rocks, shells and water; you feel more comfortable. When you feel more comfortable, you perform better.

If you don’t have windows that give you a view of nature, one quick way to improve the energy of those spaces is to bring the outdoors inside by adding elements of nature. Add a print of a beautiful landscape. Add plants and water features like fountains and aquariums. I was in a windowless bathroom recently that came alive with shell prints, real shells and a silk plant. Nature feeds our souls in ways that man-made environments cannot.

To bring the outdoors inside add:

* Live or silk plants
* Art with scenes of nature
* Water fountains
* Rocks
* Shells
* Driftwood
* Fabrics with plant patterns
* Blue and green colors
* Fresh flowers

Think about the last time you were all over the place, full of a free floating anxiety, bouncing from one task to another, reacting to people and situations emotionally in a way you later regretted. I’ve learned that when I feel like that I have become ungrounded, disconnected from my center, from my knowing that I am OK and all is well.

How do I get back to my center? How do I ground myself? Staying grounded requires daily attention and effort. Here are some of the ways you can stay grounded:

1. Make your bed every day. Creating order and peacefulness in the bedroom settles the energies in that space and those good energies affect the rest of the house and you.
2. Clean up your kitchen every day. Having a clean and orderly kitchen calms the part of the house most associated with nurturance and comfort, also calming you.
3. Have morning and evening routines that are made up of activities of self-care, like bathing, exercising, tending to pets, straightening up. Tending yourself is a powerful way to ground and center yourself.
4. Sort your mail daily to make yourself aware of tasks that need to be done and bills that need to be paid. Knowing your reality is more calming than the anxiety produced by not knowing.
5. Keep paper in no more than two main locations, for example, the kitchen and the home office. Avoid allowing paper to spread throughout the house. When it spreads, its negative energy pollutes whatever area it is in. Paper is usually associated with some kind of task that needs to be done, like deciding whether you need the paper or not, or deciding where the paper should go next. When you see it all over the place it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the message it is sending, “You need to do something!” When you are feeling overwhelmed your are not centered.
6. Maintain order by putting things away all the time. Avoid the temptation to just drop things. It takes much more energy to pick them up than it does to drop them. When items are just dropped they have a negative, chaotic energy that is anything but grounding. And, dropped things attract more dropped things!
7. Do at least one 5 minute cleanup per day. Either start or end your day with a quick cleanup. Put things away, move things to the part of the house where they belong, straighten your papers, throw out trash. Take that time to restore order to your space. One of the first things I do when I’m thrown off center by some bad news or a difficult situation is to establish order in my home. Some would call my behavior compulsive. I call it grounding!

As I wrote the above list it occurred to me that all my recommendations are the same recommendations I make to people who want to learn how to stay more organized. So, staying organized in your physical space is a great way to stay grounded!

Joan Borysenco, Ph.D, author of Inner Peace for Busy People writes of the benefits of being grounded, centered, “When I’m centered it’s easier to respond to people, to catch the nuances of their attention, and to let inspiration flow through me. Thinking of myself as an instrument that life plays, rather than the source of the melody, has helped me be a better juggler. The instrument needs to be cleaned and polished, treated with care. When I’m in balance, the unbalanced hodgepodge of things on the to-do list are accomplished more effectively.”

Treat yourself with care and stay grounded by committing to maintaining an organized space. That way when you are confronted with one of life’s challenges you can handle it from a place of clarity and calmness, centered and able to access your inner wisdom.