18
Apr
Clutter Clearing for Painful Memories (and weight loss, too!)
2
It’s spring-cleaning season and a great time to clear the clutter from your life. An organized home filled with objects you love reduces your stress level and uplifts your spirit. And as unusual as this may sound, when it comes to emotional eating and weight loss, clutter clearing is your secret weapon.
Yes… that’s right. Reducing clutter from your life helps you reduce the weight from your body. They may seem unrelated, but releasing unnecessary stuff emotionally frees you to release extra weight. On an energy level, it’s all connected.
I’ve written before about the Three Ways Clutter Clearing Helps You Lose Weight and what to do with clothes that are too big or too small in Closet Clearing for Yo-Yo Dieters.
This time I want to go deeper and discuss objects from your childhood that hold memories of painful experiences. These may include toys, stuffed animals, jewelry, books, diaries, pictures—anything that keeps you connected to childhood pain and trauma. For example:
- Diaries filled with loneliness and sadness.
- Pictures of family members with angry or sad expressions on their faces.
- The end table dented when your drunken father threw a pot in a rage
- The music box your uncle gave you for your thirteenth birthday that your family oohed and aahed over—unaware he was sexually abusing you.
- The angel from your family Christmas tree that witnessed years of holiday arguments and fights.
Powerful list, isn’t it? I wonder if you can relate.
As surprising as it may seem, letting go of these things can help make your weight-loss journey an easier one. Let me explain…
The objects around you either raise your energy or drain your spirit. This can feel so subtle that you’re not consciously aware of it. But too much clutter can feel unsettling on a subconscious level. This underlying uneasiness may contribute to your urge to eat when you’re not hungry.
Objects from your childhood—especially reminders of painful experiences—can hold you hostage to your past. In the same way you keep visual images of memories in your mind, you also hold memories energetically. You can’t see them but they live on in your energy field.
This doesn’t mean you let go of everything from your childhood—although it can be liberating to do so. It means you look at your things with new eyes and release everything connected with past pain and trauma.
Jenna’s Diaries
Jenna was 70 pounds overweight and struggled with anxiety and depression. As a child, she endured emotional and physical abuse by her parents. She remembers first using food to comfort herself when she was five years old and hid candy under her bed. As an adult, anxiety-filled days and lonely nights often ended with Jenna eating herself into a food coma.
Jenna discovered that Milky Way bars numbed her pain. When her aunt gave her a diary for her 10th birthday, Jenna found that writing helped, too. Jenna’s aunt gave her a diary for her tenth birthday. Through years of silently enduring a lonely and abusive childhood, her diaries were a source of comfort for Jenna.
When I discussed with Jenna the power of clutter clearing, she got right on board. She began getting rid of clothes, books, kitchenware—anything she no longer found useful or brought joy to her life.
But then there were all those diaries. She’d saved every one. (more…)
Do you ever get discouraged about your weight-loss progress?
When you’ve tried every diet program out there, why is it still so hard to lose weight? You know you want to be slimmer yet the scale doesn’t budge. And in those rare moments it does, those pounds keep coming back.
Springtime clutter clearing can be a stressful time for people riding the yo-yo dieting roller coaster:
Have you been riding the yo-yo diet roller coaster for years?
Successful weight loss is so much more than counting calories, drinking “craving-crusher shakes” and following the latest fad diet.
