What’s interesting is that the current owner of Julie’s new house is an energy worker. I have always suspected that Julie is an energy worker in preparation. She is fascinated by Reiki , healing touch, feng shui, etc. So, the predecessor chi (energy left by previous owners) of the house is a good match for Julie!

Not only has Julie gotten a full price offer on her home, negotiated an acceptable contract for a lovely new home, but everything else seems to be falling into place. She had a camper and shed down at Sandbridge that she needed to sell. On a recent trip to the beach she easily sold both. All the arrangements associated with the move are being handled with relative ease!

Julie's New Home

Remember, Julie has been orchestrating this move by herself. She is a single mom of grown children pursuing a dream. How often do you hear of middle aged single women pulling up roots and setting off on an adventure? Not very often! I’m so impressed with Julie’s courage and determination! And, I’m impressed with what can happen when you get clear about what you really want! Julie got clear mentally, then got clear physically–by clearing her home of all items that she no longer loved and used. In so doing, she removed energetic boundaries that could have impeded her progress to follow her dream.

Julie’s journey still continues. I can’t wait to see where it will lead her. To her credit, she has managed to keep her fear of the unknown in check and take the necessary steps to keep moving forward. What is your heart’s desire? What do you really want, but feel unable to attain? If you don’t know what you want, or if you do, but can’t see a way to go for it, start by clearing clutter. Clear the energetic barriers that block you from having what you really want. Julie has demonstrated that clearing clutter can help make dreams come true!

Mom and Mark

Have you ever noticed that you can’t get some things done until you’ve leaped other hurdles? Some tasks take up so much psychic energy that they make any other task that takes some mental energy seem impossible. For example, I recently took my mom to Connecticut to visit my disabled brother, Mark. It was Mom’s first trip anywhere for almost four years. Even though I’d made all the travel arrangements and had made the trip many times before, this was the first time I was taking my mother to Connecticut since I’d become aware that she has some serious cognitive deficits. Because of her age and her deficits, I had no idea how she would do on the trip. Would it exhaust her? How would she behave? How would I handle managing Mark, whose brain injuries have left him with mobility and behavioral issues that can be challenging, AND my mother? After all, I was the conductor of the Connecticut symphony–the Mom and Mark visit.

I had no idea how big a psychic block that trip was until I got home. I felt so relieved! Even after a grueling nine and a half hour drive back, I had energy. After unpacking and settling back in to my life at home, I was excited and energized about getting back to my business, to writing and working to promote my new membership site, the 12 Month Clutter Clearing Community (www.ClutterClearingCommunity.com).

The same thing happened when I was preparing to give the “Move That Mountain: Clutter Clearing Tips for Staying the Course to Completion” speech the past few weeks. It was a new speech, and typically new speeches are tough to create and present. It’s a risk to step out of my comfort zone and present new material. It was as if I was getting ready to give birth to some new information, information that is near and dear to my heart, information that is difficult to present. I was feeling anxious about whether the way I planned to present it would work and whether I’d be giving my audience information they would value. That was big psychic clutter! I had some other important items on my to do list that I just could not focus on until I’d presented that speech. Once the speech was done, I rested briefly, and then was off and running again–tackling writing projects that had been waiting for weeks.

Have you got any big obstacles blocking your forward progress? What can you do today to move them out of your path? If moving them isn’t an option, know that when they’re gone you’ll likely enjoy a pleasant burst of energy from having leaped those hurdles.

© 2012 Clutter Clearing Community | 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 your life. If you’re ready to finally clear the clutter from your life and move your life forward, get your FREE TIP SHEET, “Feng Shui Tips for Instant Success” at http://www.clutterclearingcommunity.com.

When I think about how I came to be in this good place, I can definitely say it was not a straight line to get here. Each step along the way involved some challenge, some pain, and some learning. I think what made it possible for me to maneuver through all the obstacles to a more fulfilling and peaceful place was that I have been vigilant about maintaining an organized, comfortable home. The order I created and the hard work required to maintain it has grounded me through the tough times. When I run into a rough patch, my stuff is not part of the problem. I can focus on the current challenge, supported by the systems I have in place that help me maintain order even during the worst of times.

Do you love your life? If not, why not? What would you change? Start by clearing your clutter so you too can clear a path to a life that you love.

© 2012 Clutter Clearing Community | 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 your life. If you’re ready to finally clear the clutter from your life and move your life forward, get your FREE TIP SHEET, “Feng Shui Tips for Instant Success” at http://www.clutterclearingcommunity.com.

Attic Before Clearing

Do you have a dream? Are you having trouble figuring out how to make it come true? Guess what? You don’t have to figure it out. Just clear clutter!

You may be thinking I’m naive, that everything must have a step by step plan, or at the very least I’m being very simplistic about the process of dream catching. And, a voice in your head may be chattering, “This lady has lost her marbles.” But, I have proof. Let me tell you about Julie’s progress toward getting her dream.

Julie, a friend and client, has had a dream of buying a farm in the mountains near Asheville, North Carolina and raising alpacas. She’s held that dream in her heart through the years of being a single parent to two sons. Now her sons are grown and she took the first step to reach for her dream: She made her first decision by believing her dream was possible and setting her intention that 2012 was the year that she’d have her farm. The first challenge to be faced was selling her house in Richmond, Virginia.

For years she’s heard me talk about the power of clutter clearing, about clearing clutter to remove barriers to getting what you really want. Julie was very clear that lightening her load was essential to ensure the sale of her house. So, the second decision she made to make her dream come true was to hire me to help her clear out her house.

From January until early April Julie and I spent at least two hours most Fridays going through her house from top to bottom. We sorted everything in these categories: storage–definitely love it or use it items going to the farm; keep–love it or use it and staying in the house while it is on the market; donate or give away to specific people–not loved or used; trash–not useful to anyone. Carloads of stuff went to a local charity and the storage unit. Trash cans were loaded over and over again. Week by week Julie’s house felt lighter and lighter. Making all those decisions helped her hold her vision of what she really wanted, both for the sale of the house and for her vision of her next home. And, as things were moved out, Julie was pulling up her energetic roots in

Attic After Clearing

preparation for the move.

On my recommendation Julie also contacted Nina Newton a realtor with Long & Foster, long-time friend of mine and, in my opinion, the best realtor in Richmond. Nina let Julie know what she needed to do beyond clutter clearing to make her house sell quickly. Julie’s third decision was to trust Nina’s guidance and follow her recommendations. She hired painters to paint much of her house a buttery yellow and cover up wall colors that could distract potential buyers from the comfort of her home. She purchased new vanities for the bathrooms and had them installed. And, she removed a large pond in the backyard that could be seen as an annoying maintenance issue. That was no small feat because the liner and many rocks had to be removed and the large hole had to be filled in.

The fourth and final decision Julie made before her house went on the market was to hire Sylvia Diersen to stage the house. Sylvia arranged Julie’s remaining furniture and art, purchased a few items like throw rugs and towels, and made the house feel inviting and comfortable for prospective buyers.

The house was scheduled to go on the market on Sunday, April 15. On April 13, following the second showing of the house, Julie received a full price offer for her home.

Julie’s clearing removed barriers to the sale of her house. The clearing helped her think clearly and make good decisions about who to hire to help her prepare her house for sale. Does clutter clearing help you get what you really want? You bet!

Now, some of you are thinking, “but she hasn’t got her farm yet. . . “ You’re right about that, but the sale of the house will provide her with the financial resources to buy that farm. As the clutter was being cleared from her house, she was also finding resources like a realtor in Asheville and getting hands-on experience with people who raise livestock. Clearing clutter helped make space for those valuable resources to come into her awareness! Everything is moving in the direction she wants to go. And, it all began with a want, a belief and setting an intention.

Kitchen After Staging

What do you want? Just imagine what might happen if you held that want in your heart and believed that getting it was really possible. Allow that want, believe it’s possible and make a decision to go for it. Clear out anything in your space that you no longer love or use or that is incompatible with that want. Then, get ready for the ride that will take you to your dream! If Julie could do it with a want, a belief, clutter clearing and good decision-making, so can you!

© 2012 Clutter Clearing Community | 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 your life. If you’re ready to finally clear the clutter from your life and move your life forward, get your FREE TIP SHEET, “Feng Shui Tips for Instant Success” at http://www.clutterclearingcommunity.com.

I make that drive every weekend to make sure Mom is doing OK living alone since the her husband’s death in January. She has dementia, but is still able to live alone with a little assistance from me. I also want her to have company at least once a week, and I want to be available to help her through her grief. I’ve thought of it as a time to help her, but I too have benefitted from those trips. I play music I love and allow my thoughts to drift. As my thoughts drift, so do my feelings.

Like most people, I repress feelings during busy, focused times when dealing with them would not be appropriate. Most recently I lost my step-father after a very stressful period when I came face to face with the extent of my mother and my stepfather’s dementia. I couldn’t afford to grieve the loss of my step-father or feel the range of feelings that come up when beloved parents are declining mentally because I was the only person who had a good brain. I had medical care to coordinate, my mother to support and help, and eventually a funeral to plan. Did I mention that much of this difficult ordeal occurred during December when I was getting ready for Christmas?

Once the dust settled after my step-father’s death, I began making my weekly trips to visit Mom. I played music on Pandora (internet radio), choosing the type of music that suited my mood. Much to my surprise and relief I found that music that I associate with my parents helped me release old thoughts and feelings associated with my childhood. Country music love songs helped me let go of deep feelings of sadness about my step-father being gone from my mother’s life and come to realize how much I missed him. Most recently I found myself crying tears of gratitude for my dear husband’s support and tears of sadness about Mom’s mental decline.

The combination of music and time alone in the privacy of my car have worked well to help me release so much sadness, more than I even knew I was carrying. I’ve come to look forward to my trips for the opportunity to clear out any accumulated feelings. You might be wondering if all this crying and focus on losses is really a good thing. I found myself questioning whether I am being self-indulgent, enjoying the pain, a behavior that could keep me stuck in pain.

When I asked myself what was really going on, I came to the conclusion that I had inadvertently stumbled onto an effective way to release accumulated emotional clutter. How do I know that what I’ve been doing really is a good thing? After my weekly releases I feel better, lighter and open to receive good things like guidance, inspiration, excitement, and clarity about my purpose. Clearing old emotional clutter has made more room for joy! What a gift!

If you are normal, and tend to push uncomfortable feelings away, consider allowing those feelings to come up and out when you are in a safe place, either alone or with a safe person. Know that you will be clearing emotional clutter with each tear that flows. It’s often the emotional clutter that is the biggest obstacle to successful clutter clearing.

© 2012 Clutter Clearing Community | 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 your life. If you’re ready to finally clear the clutter from your life and move your life forward, get your FREE TIP SHEET, “Feng Shui Tips for Instant Success” at http://www.clutterclearingcommunity.com.

“It just doesn’t feel like my house anymore!” lamented Sally, a client who was in the midst of preparing her house for sale. Sally’s decision to pursue a life dream to buy a farm and raise alpacas necessitated her selling her split-level house, a place that she had made her sanctuary over a period of ten years. At this time when houses are slow to sell, it is especially important that they look almost perfect. Her realtor had advised her to paint the entire house in shades of buttery yellow. Gone was the brilliant blue office and the peaceful blue dining room. “I feel like I’m living in a margarine stick!” she railed.

Sally was also agitated because creating a peaceful, neutral space that a prospective buyer could view without distraction and easily picture himself inhabiting, had required that she move many of her belongings to a storage unit. Preparing her house for sale had also given her the opportunity to sort through her belongings and clear out anything that she no longer needed or loved. She was left in a shell of her former home, a place that she no longer recognized, nor did she feel comfortable inhabiting.

Sally was between selves. She had moved beyond the self who had painted those blue walls and had tolerated a packed attic, to a self who was prepared to make a huge leap of faith, buying a farm and finding a new job in a new location. When she began clearing out her house, sending things to storage, the trash, and a local charity, she was physically ripping up energetic roots that had helped her feel comfortable and grounded. She was adrift in unfamiliar territory. Painting the walls in colors not of her choosing effectively wiped away evidence of her individuality. Everything became neutral. Of course Sally had reason to rail against the injustices of the real estate sales process! She was feeling like a stranger in her own home. She was grieving the loss of her things and already grieving the loss of the home that had been such a comfort to her.

Is this a normal reaction? Absolutely! Preparing a house for sale is a stressful and exhausting process. If, like Sally, your home has been your haven, transforming it into a strange place devoid of evidence of your energy can only be disturbing. At a time of high stress you crave stability and familiar, safe places to retreat. Everywhere Sally looked was upheaval, strangeness and work to be done.

Was making all those changes imperative? Given the current real estate market, and given that Sally’s house has no special features like a water view or new garage, making those changes were the best steps to take to increase the probability of a fast sale.

Is there a way that Sally could have avoided the grief and stripping of her energy from her house? Unfortunately, change often comes with a cost. In Sally’s case, she paid the price by having to strip her home of specific evidence of her existence, leaving her feeling sad and mad and frustrated. To her credit she put words to her anguish, which helped her deal with her mixed feelings. What a healthy response!

Wouldn’t you be troubled if your influence was erased from your home and you found yourself living in a place of your own making that was not an outward reflection of your inner self? And, all those changes also came at great financial cost. They speak volumes about the price Sally was willing to pay to go for her dream!

© 2012 Clutter Clearing Community | 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 your life. If you’re ready to finally clear the clutter from your life and move your life forward, get your FREE TIP SHEET, “Feng Shui Tips for Instant Success” at http://www.clutterclearingcommunity.com.

Two weeks later I returned and was surprised to learn that my client had not only organized much of her Mary Kay products, but she’d also sorted and filed papers for over two hours. How remarkable! You see, this client had been diagnosed with ADHD. In the 13 years I’ve been helping people clear clutter and get organized, I cannot recall a single client who had spent two hours sorting paper by themselves after one of my visits, much less one with ADHD. ADHD is a brain disorder with deficits in executive functioning that make dealing with paper seem like an impossible nightmare. I was astounded. Paper is one of the toughest things to organize for anyone, and is definitely at the top of the list of organizing tasks that are avoided like the plague!

My client had no clue that what she had accomplished was remarkable. She said, “When the paper was all over the room, I couldn’t even begin to think about going through it. But, once it was all in one place, it was much easier to do.” That is the power of clumping. Once like items are all in one place, it’s much easier to deal with them, both psychologically and energetically. When items are all over the place, it’s as though their energy is calling to you from all different directions. It’s just impossible to wrap your brain around what to do with them. Put them all together and you’re ready for action.

So, the next time you are faced with an overwhelming organizing challenge, first clump like items together. Don’t make decisions about the items you’re clumping, unless it’s a no-brainer to discard them. Making decisions will distract you from clumping and slow the clumping process. Once you have groupings of like items, then go back to each grouping, working from the largest to the smallest items, and make decisions about what to keep, what to pitch and how to containerize items. Experience the power of clumping!

Following a recent speech a participant told me that he’d been hospitalized and almost died several months ago. He said he’s a confirmed packrat, that he just can’t get rid of things. And, he wondered if his clutter could have been a factor in his recent health crisis. He also shared that he’d slipped and had fallen when his foot landed on a magazine on the floor. Yes, his clutter is definitely a health risk for him!

If you wonder if your clutter could be contributing to health issues, consider this:

1. When a space is cluttered it is more difficult to clean, and dust and dirt accumulate. Dirty spaces become more and more toxic over time. Serious respiratory issues can develop in dirty spaces.
2. Cluttered spaces feel bad, negatively affecting both your nervous system and your immune system.
3. The energy and the air in a cluttered space tend to be stagnant, not moving. Stagnation is the first step toward death.
4. Spaces stay healthy when there is a regular flow of items in and out. Like the human body, homes become toxic when elimination ceases.

Use the following tips to maintain a healthy home.

• Make it a daily priority to keep your living space clear of clutter. Fifteen minutes per day devoted to maintenance tasks that keep your home clutter free adds up to 91 1/4 hours of clutter clearing in a year. Fifteen minutes per day is a small investment of time, but can be a big investment in accident and disease prevention!
• Make it a family priority to keep your living space clear of clutter. If you are part of a family, know that keeping your home clear of clutter is not a one person job. Everyone is responsible for addressing the messes they create. Even children as young as three can be taught to regularly pick up after themselves.
• Create and commit to creating and following a plan to tackle and eliminate large pockets of clutter in attics, garages, and closets over a set period of time. Even committing 30 minutes to clutter clearing per weekend can make a difference if it’s done 52 times. That’s 26 hours of clutter clearing.

Make the necessary changes to your obligations and schedules to have sufficient time to maintain a clean, clutter-free home. Your quality of your health depends on it!

As I was helping a client excavate her attic, amidst the boxes of useless stuff covered with pollen, dust and dirt, I found myself pondering attics. I thought, “If people remembered that one day they’d be going through the equivalent of ‘hell’ in order to sell their house, follow their dream, or move to a better living situation, they would be VERY careful about what they put up in attics!” But, alas, most of us live only in the moment when the attic seems an easy answer for storing things you aren’t quite ready to get rid of, or about which you are unable to make decisions.

I hate clearing out attics. Did I say that already? Well, I do. They are most often nasty, dirty places housing items of marginal value. These days it’s rare that I run into an attic that holds really interesting stuff. For example, a recent find by a client who was excavating her attic in preparation for a move was 6 boxes of miscellaneous junk that one of her sons threw into boxes, probably when he’d been ordered to clean his room, and hauled into the attic. The son moved away, but his litter remained. The only redeeming quality of that stuff was that it was quickly pitched into the trash with minimal effort and few tears of nostalgia. My thought was, “Why did it end up there in the first place!”

Here are my suggestions for maintaining an attic as a useful storage area instead of a toxic dump site:

1. Teach all family members that the attic is NOT a place to dump things they don’t want to deal with.
2. Store only items that have a high likelihood of being used again at a later date.
3. Attempt to store only the following categories in the attic: luggage, seasonal decorations, out of season clothing or linens, archived financial documents, furniture and household items that grown children will later use in homes of their own, camping/seasonal recreation equipment. Most other categories of items, like books and memorabilia, do not do well when subjected to the temperature extremes of an attic.
4. Once a year review the contents of the attic, clear out useless items and restore order.

And, remember, feng shui teaches that an attic is the area of your hopes and aspirations. No wonder so few people aren’t achieving their dreams! The area of their hopes and aspirations primarily holds the remains of old dreams and cast off items.

Treat your attic with the respect it deserves, and not only will it be a useful place to store items of real value, but you’ll be more likely to achieve your hopes and aspirations.

So, when I started noticing miscellaneous papers floating over the tops of three counters in her kitchen as well as her desk, I was at first curious, then alarmed. Something had changed. And, it wasn’t the quantity or type of paper that flowed into Mom’s house. When my step-father’s health declined and he eventually died, I finally felt I had permission to closely examine all those papers. Mom needed my help to manage her finances because her focus was on her husband and, I later discovered, because she really was not cognitively capable of doing so herself.

I had noticed my mother’s significant short term memory problems for some time, but I tried to explain it away as normal aging. My step-father’s health crisis made it very clear that Mom has dementia. During that difficult time she exhibited significant confusion, and it was obvious that she was unable to make decisions, cope in new environments and learn new things. The sea of papers was the most visible symptom of her cognitive decline in her home. Changes in her brain made it more and more difficult for her to make decisions about what to do with incoming mail and my step-father’s medical papers. Her way of not handling her papers was to drop them on an empty counter. Then she would look at them over and over again.

Mom’s sea of papers reminded me of what I so often find in the homes of clients who hire me to help them make peace with their papers, particularly those with ADHD. It is well known that those who have ADHD often have frontal lobe deficits. The frontal lobe is the area of the brain responsible for executive functions like short-term memory, decision-making and prioritization. I am guessing that Mom’s dementia has been affecting her frontal lobe for some time.

If you have always had difficulty managing paper, don’t leap to the conclusion that you have dementia. I share this information with you because you may know someone like my Mom who once was very competent at managing papers but who with age has become less capable of paper management. It could be an early sign of dementia. It’s easier to be helpful and loving with a person who is having difficulty with the details of life if you have some idea of a possible cause of the decline. Changes from previous levels of functioning are information you can use to determine the best way to be helpful to a beloved family member.