How to Declutter your House and Clear Your Mind

Hi all and welcome to Sanctuary Sundays, a series focused on simple steps you can take each week to bring more peace and joy into your home! You know I love a beautifully designed and decorated space, but I believe the most important thing you can bring into your home is a joyful and peaceful spirit, so I wanted to share with you some simple ways you can declutter your house and in the process clear your mind and your heart.

Let’s face it,  true joy and a deep sense of peace are often hard to find in our world today.  With all of the demands, obligations, problems and stresses that we confront each day, how can we possibly feel that all is well?  It seems like most of us are barely making it through each week and then collapsing into a puddle when the weekend arrives.  Or maybe the weekend is when you really kick it into high gear with kids activities or home projects and you start every new week totally exhausted.

I know that feeling all to well!  I was the epitome of a “Do It All” girl with dozens of balls in the the air on any given day, holding my breath and hoping I didn’t drop one.  On the exterior it looked like I had it all together, but the reality was… 

I was barely making it through each week with my sanity intact, and I would not have used the words JOYFUL or PEACEFUL to describe my life.

Then five years ago, my life took a major turn and I went from careening out of control and feeling as though time was flying by, to living in a deliberate and meaningful way each day.  You can read more about that HERE, but I wanted to share with you the actual day to day steps that I took to turn my life around. 

Here’s Step One:

DECLUTTER YOUR HOME TO MAKE SPACE IN YOUR MIND & HEART

I don’t know about you, but for me the level of “clutter” in my home is a direct reflection of the level of clutter and chaos in my mind.  Now don’t get me wrong, I DO NOT have one of those perfectly organized, everything in it’s proper place, no dishes in the sink kind of homes that is so often represented in photos.  We definitely LIVE in our home and it is often messy.  What I’m talking about is CLUTTER.  You know, the stuff that has been sitting in the same place for weeks, months or maybe even years, collecting dust. 

The very first thing I did to change how I was living my life was to

FACE THE CLUTTER.

I have to admit, I was overwhelmed by it at first because honestly, we had a lot of STUFF! I had no idea where to start because there was so much to tackle so I made a commitment to START SMALL!  I literally started with a kitchen drawer and then a couple days later took another fifteen minutes to tackle another drawer. That was it…only 15 minutes!

I didn’t try to tackle it all at once.  Just one simple step at a time.

This gave me the confidence to eventually face the bigger things like the guest bedroom closet, which was literally overflowing, and finally the dreaded garage!  

What became evident to me as I went through this process, (which took me about 6 months) was that as I decluttered my home, my mind became clearer and my heart became lighter.

It was as if all of the “stuff” that had been accumulating in my house was also taking up space in my body.

As I physically sorted through “old stuff” and let go of things,  I was also clearing out years of things that were no longer of use to me mentally or emotionally.  It was an incredibly freeing experience! Every time I opened my new decluttered kitchen drawer, instead of feeling frustrated or stressed about it, I felt light and happy.  The same was true for every place where I cleared space…it cleared an equal amount of space in my mind and heart.

So where does your clutter live?  What spaces, closets, cabinets or drawers are filled with the things you don’t want to deal with? Wherever that is, I can guarantee you that your mind and heart are also feeling the weight of that clutter.  

My challenge for you this week is to pick one place to declutter.

Start small, and be fearless.  Take just fifteen minutes to clean out a cabinet or straighten a drawer.  You will be amazed at how good it feels to face your clutter and get rid of what no longer serves you!  The hardest step is the first, but I promise it will be worth it!  I would love to hear about what you decided to clear out this week and I hope this gives you some ideas about how to slowly and methodically declutter your house!  Leave a comment below!

To see the next post in this series CLICK HERE.

Have a beautiful day!