Making Peace with Someone Else’s Clutter

See transcript below video.

 

I back away from the room and shut the door. That’s what I need to do when I venture into my son’s room.

It’s not my room, mind you. Yet when I’m in his room my mind just goes into this tailspin and I have to fight the urge to fold, to tidy, and put away his stuff.

It doesn’t help, I know. I’ve been there. Done that. He gets annoyed that rearranged his stuff. (Not that he’s the type that knows where everything is, mind you.)

But I remember, it’s HIS STUFF. It’s HIS ROOM. And he’s a grown, young man. He needs his space.

So, that’s what a door is for, right?

I close the door and think, holy geezzzzz. If someone saw this room, that its in MY house. And I’m a feng shui expert?

So now you know. If you come to my house, save yourself the angst. DON’T go into my son’s room!

There. I’ve said it. But how do I cope you might ask?

So many people out there feel the way I do. In fact, you are probably one of them. There is someone in our home that doesn’t have the same feeling about clutter that we do.

I’m here to say, that’s ok.

This morning a friend was just telling me about her battle with the clutter in her home. She acknowledges that she is part of the problem, but her husband is a huge challenge.

Although my friend can sift through her stuff and edit (aka for throw out or re-home), her husband cannot. He holds onto virtually everything.

What to do?

I wish there was a simple cure, but there isn’t. It’s like the path to enlightenment or the journey to greater happiness, it comes down to our perspective, our thoughts, and our actions. No one else.

We cannot change anyone in our lives.

We know this simple golden rule, yet we go about our lives as if we do not.

Don’t think that you will find a way to magically get your spouse, your child, or your partner to throw everything out.

Here are three simple, yet profoundly difficult, suggestions.

Model good behavior. Sift through your own stuff, organize, and feel how good it feels to declutter your stuff.

Shift your words. Do not criticize them for their clutter. In fact, do not say a thing.

Change your thought patterns. To go even further, do not project negative thoughts about them and their clutter. Your negative thinking is felt by them and further entrenches them in their negative patterns.

Dr. Wayne Dyer had it right. “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

What I just outlined for you is not easy, I know. In fact, you may have already laughed and dismissed it. But, let me tell you, if you want the challenge, truly step into the process of these three steps and stick to it. See what shifts, because something WILL SHIFT.

But if there clutter habits still don’t shift, after a few weeks or months, then recognize that this is a situation that you have in your life to teach yourself something, whatever that may be.