I live in a Rodeo. Literally. A 2004 Isuzu Rodeo, the last model of the Rodeo before Isuzu discontinued them. If I were an inch taller, it might be kind of cramped in there.
No sarcasm there (riiiiiiight).

I have been enthused, mesmerized, nay, invigorated and renewed by acts of clutter-clearing these past several years. A friend gave me Karen Kingston’s book, Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui, right before I officially left my last city of residence. It is such a simple straightforward little book, yet has taken me for-ev-er to work through and digest, because it’s so good! Each page is rich with direction and admonition that usually requires me to stop, journal, and then go act upon the energy that has just been inspired. It’s the kind of information that gets really real, real fast.

Since I living in my vehicle this past year, clutter clearing hasn’t been something I obsess over, but I still do a general tidying once a month. However I went through a bit of a life crisis recently, and those times make you want to do all sorts of drastic things like shave your head or marry a stranger in Vegas. Because YOLO. I chose the prudent path of buying a new pair of super dominant leather boots that you need a license to safely walk around in, and danced hard for 45 minutes in a GoGo dancer stage/cage fueled by complimentary gin refills. I blew out my knee that night and had head-banger’s neck the next day. Earth go hard, man.

When I got over the brash stages of catharsis and realized I needed less destructive coping mechanisms, I saw that I wanted to stimulate a change in my environment. 

***

Whenever I travel home to visit my mother, I make habit of clearing out a few drawers or one or two storage bins and taking a load of things to Goodwill. It’s not a dramatic overhaul, but it allows me to ritualistically release some of “the old” and make room for newfound degrees of freedom. Then one day I had the revelation that even though I didn’t live in a house anymore, my truck was still my house and had comparable function and flow. It still had a front door and a back door, windows, a sleeping area, a virtual “closet” where I fold and hang my clothes, a cooking setup and “pantry” where I keep my dishes and snacks, etc. 
Then the book led me to think about how well these areas of my “House” were functioning, if they were easy to access, if I kept my business-related items close to my head when I was sleeping, if entryways were easy to access or cumbersome… and then made suggestions about what that could be a physical reflection of in terms of my internal health and relationship to issues and people in my life. 

I know, it’s a little woo-woo for some. But if you take things as prompts and suggestions and don’t take it too seriously, it can be a fun and helpful tool to help you stimulate some conscious connections about what is going on in your habits and patterns and emotions.  

Here’s what I learned processing the Bagua principles from Karen’s book. I basically took note of whatever things were functioning well and which ones weren’t, and then noted what thoughts they evoked for me either based on my own ideas or (largely) from the associative prompts in the book:
-(Tip: free attentional focus is a helpful means to finding a flow with this practice)

• Dressing Table Tops: what are you trying to keep on the forefront of your mind? Fear of forgetting about things that need attention…
• the shocks on the tailgate window are broken, but they work half the time. When I am standing underneath it it often falls on my head and hurts like a mofo. It is unable to support itself, waiting to knock me unconscious, a trickster that sneaks up from behind, makes me look like a stooge. Looming threats, people in parts of my life that I can’t trust to relate with— headaches.
• Stuff piled in the sides of vehicle, ends up insulating me from processing emotion… like dense tissue, softened tissue, functional strong super tissue in my body.
• give away the clothes I don’t wear 80% of the time… hanging onto backup plans I don’t really believe in because I don’t trust my gut and true desires. Belief in lack.
• Standard of only wearing clothes that you feel good about AND feel good in!
  – changes your awareness and feeling of self worth!
  – also upgrades your vibration for attraction!! (pg. 71)

 

Clothes’ energy vibration:

• things I haven’t worn at mom’s house in years! Let it go! Outdated ideals. Hanging onto irrelevant ideas and false ideal of Self.
• Letting go of the “too small for me now but I will lose weight and fit into them later” clothes. Intention and Surrender. That future you is going to need something different than what the current you will do scrapping together from a mindset of scarcity… fearing not having enough money. When you let the clothes go, you release resistance, and then you can actually lose the weight. Or you can realize the contrived notions and desires behind wanting to hold onto the stuff.
• Basement: your past, your subconscious mind. Undealt with issues.
• Attics: clutter here = restrictions on your higher aspirations and possibilities… sabotaging yourself by creating false limitations. “Problems hanging over you,” and worry about the future.
• Junk Rooms: murky energy. What aspect of your life is the junk room connected to?
• Junk Drawers: Have ONE. Like a large intestine/colon that processes things to determine waste from nutrients. But!! must have regular clear-outs or else the stuff will clog the overall vessel and overflow into other systems, burdening and slowing down everything else.

 

ENTRANCES, DOORWAYS & PASSAGEWAYS: restriction or flow of opportunities coming to you and ability to progress in the world.

• my main entry doesn’t work… I have to go through side door… dependence codependence? Ability of door to open and close fully… remove straps. Is the entrance off-putting? repelling? not approachable or respectable, or easily accessible… Reflection of me not able to receive well?

 

Need to take into account my bedroom at mom’s house…. connection between my “dissociative” tendencies and lack of ability to be self-reliant/// always keeping a foot at home, never fully committing to the adventure. financial independence and growth.

• my living space causes me to have to CONTORT my body to be able to dwell there. [over-accommodating]
• drawers can’t open fully…can’t access resources or toxins to clear/utilize them because of need for rest… or tied to reasons of exhaustion
• back door! can’t function naturally like bowels, or like being able to get out when necessary, having something confuse me and knock me upside the head psychologically… like when I should have tried to leave but then got blindsided by ex-boyfriend’s response thinking he should’ve been there for support… having support leave unexpectedly when I know I shouldn’t trust someone who has ghosted on me multiple times before. Also one way function… “door doesn’t swing both ways.” 
• rearview mirror… skewed view of the past or can’t clearly see what’s coming up behind me. Hindered view of blindspots and hindsight is sabotaged… unwillingness to see accurately.

 

SO. There’s a blurb of vulnerable word vomit about what this processed evoked for me! Unexpectedly and additionally, this process gave me so much empathy for my mom… I had always criticized the irony that she cleans  houses for other people yet has a house full of “organized clutter” that only makes sense to her. But I had the revelation that she’s just trying to do this process or herself but there’s her own blocks getting in the way. It helps me not feel so uptight and also helps me acknowledge where she is in her process and how she is processing things. I hope she is able to break through in conscious awareness for the sake of her own freedom the way I experience this practice, but at least now I don’t feel myself getting  caught up in it when I go home. 

 

Happy clutter clearing y’all, and Live Adventurously! Let go of some clutter you’re scared to let go of and see what it brings up for you!