3 Ways Clutter Clearing Helps You Lose Weight
Is your home filled with too much stuff?
Do you constantly lose important items and spend precious time searching for them?
Does the thought of getting rid of old clothes—even when you haven’t worn them in years—send you into a panic?
Clearing clutter is one of the easiest things you can do to move your life forward. If you feel stuck in your weight release journey, get rid of your stuff to get back on track.
To become the lighter, slimmer version of yourself, you need to release the old to make way for the new. Have you heard the saying “nature abhors a vacuum?” What that means is as you create space by releasing clutter, the Universe naturally fills that space. Your energy field becomes open to renewed inspiration and expanded self-awareness that helps you live your best—and lighter—life.
Clutter Clogs Energy
Our homes reflect who we are on every level. Invisible threads of energy connect us to everything in it. When you hold onto too many things, especially from your past, your energy is scattered. Clutter also creates clogged energy that can dampen your mood. You may not notice how this affects you but once you let it go, you feel revitalized.
For example, have you ever noticed how good you feel after cleaning out a drawer or closet? That’s because when you remove energy blocks created by all that clutter, you raise your vibration. As your energy flows more freely, you feel lighter.
Changing yourself—including releasing weight—happens from the inside out as you change your thoughts and feelings. Change also happens from the outside in as you release objects that no longer serve your emotional and spiritual growth.
Here are three ways releasing clutter can help you release the weight:
1. You Feel More Secure
Extra weight on your body and extra stuff in your life often equal emotional protection. But the true source of your strength comes from within. As you release clutter and the security it provides, you build confidence. You feel more secure on the inside as you let go of things on the outside.
When I suggest my clients make clutter clearing a priority, I often hear:
“But I’m afraid once I get rid of it, I’ll need it.”
Here’s the thing: Holding on to something “just in case” reflects a lack of trust. When you keep unnecessary stuff around because you might need it “someday,” you validate feelings of scarcity and insecurity.
Expand your thinking. Trust your needs will be met. Stop draining your energy by holding onto old possessions to feel safe. Relax, exhale… and release what you no longer need in your life now.
Take your time and pace yourself. Start with one room, one closet, one shelf or one box. As you let go of your stuff little by little, you let go of that need for protection and begin feeling more secure and emotionally safe to also let go of the weight.
2. You Allow the New You
Ditch the “fat” symbols.
My client Marianne used to collect anything with hippopotamuses on it. Kitchen towels, pictures, t-shirts—you name it, she found it. It wasn’t until we explored this that she remembered being called “Hippo” when she was in grade school.
Collecting hippopotamuses subconsciously kept Marianne holding onto this painful identity. As long as she kept these images in her energy field, she was still that hurt, overweight kid. This stopped her from seeing herself differently.
At my suggestion Marianne began to let go of this collection. Remarkably, her identity shifted and she became committed to creating a healthier lifestyle. While she held compassion for the child she once was, she no longer needed to be that child.
Look with new eyes at everything you own. Get rid of anything that symbolizes a humiliating representation of being overweight. Get rid of the elephants, hippos and pigs. It’s not that there’s anything inherently wrong with these. It’s that everything you own symbolizes something about yourself. As you create a slimmer body, embrace those images that support—and don’t conflict with—your new self-image.
3. You Lift Your Mood
As a psychotherapist, I’ve seen the surprising results of clearing clutter to help relieve anxiety and mild to moderate depression. The simple act of clearing clutter—even a little bit at a time—opens energy blocks to offer some relief. As you release the heaviness of stuff suffocating your home, you feel physically and emotionally lighter.
Here’s a tip: When you feel triggered to eat for emotional reasons, take a moment to clean out a closet, cabinet or drawer. The lightness you feel afterwards can help minimize or eliminate that urge to eat. Try it and see.
Reducing clutter also reduces disorganization and the stress of not finding what you need. When everything has a permanent place, you feel calmer and more in charge of your life.
If you experienced a traumatic childhood or difficult times as an adult, let go of mementos from those periods. Even if something doesn’t seem to trigger sad feelings, the energy from that time is embedded in the objects and still surrounds you. Keep only what puts a smile on your face and let the rest go.
Keep Lightening Up
To support your weight release journey, make clutter clearing a lifestyle habit. Along with eating nutritious food and giving your body movement, make it a priority to clear the clutter from your home.
As you lighten your life this way, so, too, you lighten your mind, spirit… and your body.
Will you make clutter clearing a lifestyle habit? Start now and release one thing from your life today… okay?
Photo credit: Closet
At 71 I’m just experiencing the mixed emotions of having to go through things from my parents’ estate. I have not been able to go to the old home place, so my equally abused sister is picking up my things and bringing them to me. (I feel so conflicted about that, too.) Still, just seeing and holding the photographs from my youth is filling me with bad memories. My parents were professional photographers and my life is exceedingly well documented. The trouble is these photos, while beautiful to other people, remind me – sometimes very specifically – of my abuse. Even though I know others can’t see the pain behind my smiles, I feel like they might. Certainly, I can. Still, on one hand I love the photos of me on the beach or as a laughing baby with a bib on or in my stroller or virtually weekly until I went away to college. On the other hand I have bad memories even about that stroller. How can I not keep my history. How do I sanitize these photos in my mind so I can keep them for my child without being weighed down by them myslf.
Kay, your post really touched me. My question is about things… and the actual attachment of the energy of those experiences.
On the one hand, it does seem possible or likely that energy may attach itself to stuff, and so go on to transmit this in the future.
But on the other hand, I strongly suspect that our own psychology is responsible for playing a major role.
But what happens for instance, if I were to find your photographs in a shop and I looked at them and I loved that smiling face that I didn’t know was hiding pain. Would the energy of that pain still be able to reach out?
I don’t think so. And therefore I can’t see how the energy is actually there at all but rather the images are no more than a collection of triggers in your own memory.
Perhaps if you were able to somehow resolve your painful childhood memories those photos would be different.
I loved the article about clearing clutter and have taken this advice which I did find cathartic. A big problem for me is that years later I have missed stuff I had chucked out. I sometimes pine for things that I discarded and now can no longer ever find.
So out with the old to make way for the new – all well and good theoretically but I am a person who finds special value in ‘vintage’ stuff and treasure things found at autions for example.
I do have a problem with clutter though – so what the ultimate solution I wonder for someone sentimental who feels nostalgic about old stuff with a history?
I need to let go but there is an unmentioned art to just chucking it all out and knowing what to let go.
Its just not as easy to do (withou regrets) as you think.
Rowena, You make a good point about what happens if someone else sees a photo that causes one person pain and someone else sees happiness. Thanks for bringing this up.
Here’s the thing: Someone else looking at the photo won’t necessarily be affected by it. They don’t have a history with it so the energy doesn’t connect with them in the same way as it does with the owner. They bring their own perspective—and new energy—to the object.
But for some people with highly sensitive and attuned energy fields, they may, in fact, feel something unsettling about certain objects that others don’t feel or notice. That’s also why some people do space clearing upon buying a home or moving into a rental. They want to clear out the old, stagnant energies in the space from prior owners.
Thanks for posting!
Diane
Dear Kay,
Going through your parents’ estate right now is understandably bringing up a lot of hard feelings. You’re having to do so much at once that perhaps this isn’t the best time to get rid of things you’re just not sure about. It’s emotional enough as it is.
My suggestion is to release those things that feel clear you can let go of, give some things to your child that you know he/she would want, and put some of the other things away in boxes with the intention that in six months or so, you revisit this. After some time has passed and you feel some distance from this major task, it may feel easier and the answers clearer.
One suggestion with the photographs. You could take digital photos of them to store on your computer and give the originals to your child. Once they’re in a different form——and take up less space——it may create some distance that helps the happiness flow through without as much of the pain. Something to consider.
Wishing you all the best,
Diane
Hi–I was sexually abused by a family “friend” when I was a child. For a while, I just didn’t think about it, then, it hit me hard. I have had self-esteem issues, and now I am overweight and always depressed and stuff is piling up in my house. I can’t seem to get rid of it. It’s becoming a huge issue with me and my husband. Could this really be an effect of my sexual child abuse??? My daughter went through this too, and she is skinny and so Neat!!!! Any Comments you have would be helpful. I have gone to many psychiatrists and none have helped me, but Everything that you said today really affected me. I want so Badly to get UNSTUCK!!! Anything you can say or do to help me would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. I am very emotional and cry a lot now too…especially as my children are leaving for college. I am 57 and still having problems with all this.
Hi Debora,
We all respond to life in different ways. Your sister responded one way to the abuse, you another.
It seems you’re already dealing with letting go, aren’t you, with your children leaving for college. That can feel hard.
If you have a lot of stuff around and it’s hard to let go of things, start with at least organizing it all so it’s not chaotic. As you do that, little by little, you may discover you naturally feel ready to let go of some stuff. Start small. One closet, one shelf, one drawer. The important thing is to get started.
I suggest you——and others who posted here——to read, Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui, by Karen Kinston. It’s a great book that will help.
Wishing you all the best,
Diane
My daughter has NOT gone through ANY sexual abuse.
I meant to say MY SISTER!!!!!!! My Sister is the one who is SO NEAT, and THIN, and She seems to Never have any issues from all this!!!!
This man told us he would KILL our PARENTS if we told.
We were scared half to death!!!
We didn’t know what to do!!!!!!!!!!!!