To free yourself from physical clutter, things in your home, has many benefits – how does more time, money and freedom sound?

In my experience, though, we forget to look at our lives more holistically, and solely expect our homes to give us freedom.

Did you know that we don’t only fill our lives with physical clutter? That is right, while breathing we also accumulate social, emotional and mental clutter. To feel utterly free, and to regain all the energy that our clutter draws out from us, it is a must to have a look at these areas as well. From my own experience, I know how all of these intangible stressors and drains can weigh you down to an unbelievable extent.

How does one know that their life is full of social clutter when it is not something we can see, but rather feel? Answer these questions to identify your social clutter:

• Do you have a family member or a friend that is exhausting to be around? That you have to prepare mentally to meet?
• Are your worries about a certain person keeping you up at night?
• Do you feel “stuck” with some people?
• Do you feel guilt when you haven’t seen someone in too long?
• Do you then meet them even if you, hand on heart, would rather be doing something else?
• Do you have a hard time saying “no”?
• Do you feel like a bad person when you do?
• Do you often agree to do favours whether it is convenient for you or not?
• Are you easily persuaded into activities?
• Do you feel responsibility for more people than you really should?
• Do people often come to you with their concerns? Do you guys focus more on their issues than yours?
• Do some people take more of you than they give back?
• Do you do more for others than for yourself?
• Do you rarely or never feel “I am enough”?
• Do you long for friends that just fit you perfectly?

Now, some of these questions can seem quite harsh, and that might be because they hurt. If the answer is yes to any of this, I am assuming that it is painful in some way to deal with. I am in no way encouraging you to treat relationships like items that you just throw away if they don’t serve you. My point is rather that maybe, just maybe, your life would benefit slightly from organizing relationships a bit differently. That maybe, just maybe, you have indeed taken upon you more responsibility for people than is needed and it drains you. Or maybe it is all about a certain kind of mindset that you don’t have. Yet.

When I started directing all my love towards my core friends and family, they really benefited from that. The rest of the people too, as that, ironically, allowed space for more like-minded people to actually enter their lives. Plus, I got space to bring in some acquaintances nearer to my core and get to know them on a much deeper level than I ever had time or energy to do before. And most importantly – I now have a better relationship with myself, full of guilt -free love and integrity.