An ancient Chinese art of placement, Feng Shui literally translates as ‘wind-water’. This science balances the five elements - earth, metal, water, wood and fire, correcting the flow of energy in your environment thus setting the stage for positive happenings. It has successfully been applied by companies like Walt Disney, HSBC, Citibank, etc.

The environment in homes and offices is constantly influenced by the ‘chi’, i.e. the energy that comes in. This has a direct impact on the occupants and various aspects of their life such as health, success and opportunities.

The goal of Feng Shui is to make certain that the chi is flowing properly in your environment. When the energy is aligned, occupants are more successful in their lives and businesses. Before getting down to the life changing process of implementing Feng Shui in your home or office, it is vital that you prepare for these changes to occur. One of the basic ways in which you can do this is by getting rid of clutter.

Clutter can be defined as possessions that you don’t use any more. These are often objects that we believe may one day be useful, broken items that we intend to repair someday and old clothes that we hope to fit into again.

Everything in your house has the potential to raise or reduce your personal Chi or energy. Each area of your home has a symbolic meaning with which you resonate at a deep level. Clutter and untidiness causes constriction and inertia in the corresponding aspects of your life.

Clutter blocks your progress in the areas of opportunities, wealth and relationships. Putting things out of sight is not the solution. The stagnant Chi will still be present. Cleaning the clutter from your environment creates a free flow of chi which in turn brings abundance into every aspect of your life.

The following are simple and powerful tips that anyone can implement in their environment without a consultant and reap the benefits immediately:

1) Sitting and sleeping in your auspicious direction will not only increase your abundance but will also have a positive effect on your health and well being.

2) Broken gadgets should be repaired or disposed off as these will cause the chi to stagnate. This in turn causes various aspects of your life to stagnate as well.

3) Washing the floor with salt water at least once a week will keep the bad energy at bay.

Make the Most of Your Living Area
1) The energy coming through the front door is an important factor that determines how happy and prosperous the occupants will be. Make sure that there are no obstacles in the path of the flow of chi.

2) Placing a frog with a coin in his mouth at the entrance of your home will invite abundance and opportunities for you and your family members.

3) While most plants, especially upward growing ones are auspicious in your environment, cactus plants should be outside your home.

Create a Comfortable Environment in Your Bedroom
1) A bedroom mirror that reflects the bed creates serious problems. From relationship problems to severe health problems, these are avoidable simply by removing the mirror or by covering it completely at night

2) Remove any water images from the bedroom. The same principles that apply to mirrors in your sleeping area are valid here.

3) Do not place your bed under overhead beams since this causes headaches.

Bathroom, Toilet and Corridors
1) Keep your bathroom and toilet doors closed and place a framed mirror outside the bathroom door to prevent wealth and opportunity from being drained out.

2) Placing a bowl of sea salt in your bathroom will eliminate negative chi from this area. The salt has to be changed every two days.

3) Use a six rod metal wind chime in the center of a long corridor to break the flow of harsh chi.

Enhance the Energy in Your Office Space
1) Keep your work desk a clutter free zone and deal with any outstanding back log of bills, memos, paperwork etc. Doing so will create opportunities and possibilities.

2) Position your desk so that you are able to sit with a solid wall behind your back to ensure that you have support in your business.

3) Avoid sitting directly in front of the doorway since the harsh energy will come straight to your table bringing a lot of problems and obstacles directly to you.

Things to Keep in Mind while Buying a House
1)Avoid buying a house facing railway tracks, located near a police station, hospital, open drains, graveyards, etc as these are inauspicious and bring in a lot of harsh chi. This causes severe health problems.

2) Bathrooms located in the middle of the house can cause your energy to drain away, leaving you feeling tired and lethargic.

3) Avoid buying a home with an entrance that is below street level. It is difficult for beneficial Chi to enter this type of building.

Author: Leo Velloz
About the author: Leo Velloz is a Feng Shui Consultant and founder of ‘Holistic Studio’ where he helps people achieve their goals and enrich their lives through Feng Shui, Aura Scan, Meditation, Healing . He has completed his Masters in Feng Shui under Lillian Too in Malaysia. You can contact him at leovelloz@gmail.com or visit his website at www.holisticstudio.com

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Author: Cindy Heller

Setting up backyard gardens is the surest way to invite butterflies into your home. If you happen to have a big space at the back of your home, it would be a good idea for you and your family to start planning for your backyard gardens. Buy some books and magazines about backyard gardens to help you and your family to design your gardens in such a way that it will look inviting to different species of butterflies.

Designing Your Backyard Gardens
There are many things that you need to consider when designing your backyard garden. First, you need to take into consideration the present condition of your backyard. If you backyard already have existing plants, you need to take an inventory of the plants and decide which ones you are going to keep and which ones have to go.

The second thing that you need to consider when designing your backyard garden is your budget. You need to ask yourself how you can afford to spend on your backyard garden. To know how much money you can spare for your garden, check your monthly income and savings against your usual monthly expenses. Make sure that you do not drain your finances just to make your backyard garden look beautiful. Yes, a beautiful backyard garden is important but you don’t really have to go broke just to create a lovely picture at the back of your home.

The third thing that you need to consider when designing your backyard garden is the type of plant that you need. If you want to invite butterflies into your garden, you need to use plants that are attractive to butterflies. Some plants that are attractive to butterflies are milkweed, aspen, chokecherry, dill, parsley, marigold, aster, lilac, cottonwood, pansy, clover and others. To attract a variety of butterflies into your backyard, try planning different types of plants. Add native plants into your list of planting materials. Native plants are good at attracting species of butterflies that are endemic in your area.

“Butterfly gardens can be any size - a window box, part of your landscaped yard, or even a wild untended area on your property. When planning your butterfly garden, the following pointers will help. Learn the common butterfly species in your vicinity and include both their adult nectar plants and caterpillar food plants in the garden. Adult butterflies will visit for a longer period if they find plants to lay their eggs on.” Butterfly–garden.com

Nothing signals the coming of spring more than butterflies flitting through your yard. Watching them waltz from flower to flower can bring endless pleasure. If you want to entice more of these colorful guests to your yard, consider planting a butterfly garden. A butterfly garden that is planned and planted correctly will bring a wide variety of butterflies to your yard year after year.

Butterfly Gardens Are Diverse
There are many types of butterflies in the world and each type prefers specific flowers to gain nutrients, lay their eggs, and feed their young. If you want your butterfly garden to attract many different kinds of butterflies, make sure that you plant many different kinds of flowers. Scientists aren’t sure why, but they have found that certain color butterflies prefer certain kinds of plants. Perhaps they are drawn to like colors for their camouflaging abilities or perhaps certain colored plants taste better to them than others. Whatever the reason, you will see many different butterflies in you butterfly garden, if you plant many different plants.

Some wonderful plants to include in butterfly gardens are coneflower, blackeyed susan, marigolds, butterfly bush, lantana, hibiscus, verbena, lilacs, lavender, and rosemary.

Butterfly Gardens Provide Shelter
There are butterfly predators in your neighborhood and as a result, butterfly gardens should contain suitable shelters for your winged friends. A butterfly hutch is the perfect safe resting place for the butterflies in your garden. You can purchase one at a local nursery or even make one yourself. You can leave it plain or decorate it in a whimsical fashion. The main things to look for in a good butterfly hutch are slits that are big enough to let the butterflies in but too small for nasty predators to gain access and an interior that contains pieces of bark for the butterfly to nest on.

Butterfly Gardens Give Nourishment

If you want a butterfly garden that will attract many butterflies and nourish your soul make sure you provide food and water for the many butterflies that will descend on your yard. Many of the flowers you plant will provide nectar for your butterflies, but you can also help nature along by providing feeders full of sugar water. You can even leave out little bits of sugar water in saucers scattered around your plants or place a piece of over ripe fruit in your garden to attract many butterflies. Butterflies also need water, so placing a small birdbath in your garden is a great idea.

“Butterfly gardens are a great source for your own enjoyment, photo opportunities, or an outlet for artistic talent. These gardens can also be extended to interest youth in nature, by providing a small window of native inhabitants of the local environment. On a final note, it’s important to conserve butterflies when possible since their habitat is constantly diminishing due to the increasing needs and consequent development of roads and housing.” How to Make Butterfly Gardens

About the author:
Cindy Heller is a professional writer. Visit one stop gardens to learn more about flowers and gardens for preschool children and other gardens with flowers

Links from the video:
Easyclosets.com
Shoji-living.com
Can-am.ca
Slide-lok.com
Brownjordan.com
Orecontainers.com

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Our hectic schedules are crammed with crises, to-do lists, issues marked urgent and overflowing in trays… Far away from everyday events, at your core, lies a place of quiet, calm, serenity, and stillness… Feeling connected to life and your core can be an everyday and effortless activity.

Should you meditate? The short answer is “Yes!” So if that’s all you wanted to find out, you can stop reading right now. But I hope you don’t because next I’m going to give you my take on the what?, why?, when?, where?, and how? of meditation.

First I’ll warn you that I’m not a purist when it comes to meditation, so if you’re looking for a lecture on Buddhist spiritual principles regarding meditation, you’ve come to the wrong place. I’m a busy, working parent who uses meditation to calm myself, to bring peace and happiness into my heart, and to bring awareness and clarity into my life. If you’re looking for an approach less wrapped in spirituality and more tailored to a modern, hectic life, then I hope this article helps you.

What
There are lots of formal definitions out there for what meditation is, but what it comes down to is a basic focusing of attention and quieting of the superficial thoughts of the mind. It’s becoming conscious of what’s going on in your head rather than being on auto-pilot as usual. Meditation is a chance to:

* get in contact with the inner stillness that exists beneath the level of your thoughts

* bring your calm attention to an issue or feeling you want to resolve

* stay calm at anytime under any situation

* relax your mind and body

* connect, on the spiritual side, with the creative energy of life.

And guess what - you already do a form of meditation all the time. You focus attention on replaying the argument you had with your spouse, or on how fat you are, or on how little money you have. These are the types of negative things that your mind turns to when you’re asleep at the switch, when you’re not consciously paying attention to what you’re thinking.

When you decide to meditate, you choose to be consciously aware of where your attention goes and you can choose to let go of thoughts that don’t support you in a positive way. When you decide to meditate, you can also choose to become quiet inside - something your thinking mind rarely lets you do.

Why
Here’s a short list of the benefits of meditation, although there are many more:

1. Reduces stress

2. Can help with depression, fears and conflicted emotions

3. Improves self-confidence

4. Helps cultivate peace and happiness

5. Slows aging, improves memory, helps with healing the body, strengthens the immune system, and relieves headaches

6. Allows you to bring calmness to any situation

7. On the spiritual side, many who promote meditation state that it is a way to consciously connect to the creative force of the Universe or God

8. Allows you to focus your creative energy to attract the things you desire into your life.

When and Where
Anytime! Anywhere! Yes, you can set aside a specific time for meditation and sit in quiet contemplation for an hour or more in a room that you designed using feng shui, but you don’t have to. I know that method certainly isn’t an option in my life right now, but I still benefit greatly from meditation.

You can meditate in the shower in the morning, when you’re in line at the grocery store, for 20 minutes during lunch, for a few minutes before bed, whenever - the options are endless.

Many meditation proponents suggest setting aside 10-20 minutes right when you wake up in the morning and right before bed. Those are good choices if they fit your schedule. Those times do not fit my schedule so I take 15 minutes during my day at work to meditate and I slip in “mini-meditations” throughout my day when I’m standing in a line or waiting at a traffic light or anytime I feel tension building in my body.

How
There are as many ways to meditate as there are gurus and experts to tell you about them. If you’re new to meditation, one of the most important things I want to tell you is that there are no rules except relax! Meditation is not a job or a competition. It’s a path to calmness, gentleness, kindness, and relaxation.

Years ago when I first considered meditation, one of the biggest obstacles I thought I had was the relentless voice chattering away in my head, the endless thoughts. I could rarely stop them so I thought I was a failure at meditation most of the time. I remember going to a two-day silent meditation retreat where a teacher guided us in meditations. By the end of the second day, I finally experienced a quieting of my mind. I went home feeling incredibly joyous and peaceful. But by the next day my doubts returned. If it took me two days in silent meditation to get to a point where my mind was quiet, how was I ever going to fit meditation into my life?

I’ve since learned that you don’t have to silence your thoughts to meditate. You can simply become aware of the fact that you are thinking and then let the thoughts float away. You don’t have to beat yourself up over the fact that you can’t stop the thoughts. In fact, it’s better if you accept the fact that your mind can be a busy place and just turn your attention to what you want to focus on over and over again when your mind starts to stray. With practice, you’ll find it easier to let go of the inner distractions and bring your mind to where you want it to be whether that’s to inner silence or to focus on a specific issue.

There is no specific way you have to sit or stand to meditate. Sit, stand, walk, lay on your stomach at the beach and watch the waves - whatever works for you is fine. Don’t limit yourself because you think you have to be sitting a certain way - that’s just an excuse for not meditating.

How to meditate will probably depend on your purpose. I vary how I meditate depending on what I want to gain from the meditation. If I’m stressed, I choose to focus on my breathing or on consciously relaxing different parts of my body. If I have a goal I’m trying to achieve, I focus on sending energy to that goal. If I want to connect with the inner peace that I know is somewhere inside of me, I focus on the silence in my mind and try to let all thought float away.

Here are a few different meditation techniques that I use depending on the situation and what I hope will be the result:

* Breathing meditation:
I like to put my attention on my breath as it comes in and out of my nose. I gently follow my breath and notice how it moves naturally into and out of my body. I find this technique instantly calming. Others suggest noticing your breath as it passes from your chest down into your diaphragm or belly and then back up. When my attention drifts, I gently bring it back. If I have some thoughts, I simply note that I’m “thinking” and shift attention back to the breath while allowing the thoughts to drift away. I use breathing meditation to calm myself, relieve stress, feel happier and more at peace, to clear my mind, and to connect with the stillness of the Universe. This can be done in a longer meditation session or in mini-meditations anytime during your day. If you find yourself getting upset at something, focus for a second on your breath and you’ll find it gives you some space in your emotional turmoil.

* Visualization meditation:
If you have an issue that you feel needs your mental and emotional attention, visualization meditation might help. Breathe slowly and use your imagination. If you have a goal, focus on the goal as if it were already complete - imagine how you will feel when it’s complete and feel this positive feeling inside of you. If you have a person who you’re angry with, imagine a positive energy inside yourself as a bright white light of kindness, and then surround an image of that person with the light while consciously saying “I forgive you for any pain you’ve caused me.” (When you forgive people and release your anger, it helps you release negative energy stored inside of you, it allows you to react more calmly to that person, and it allows you to find better solutions to any additional problems with them.) I use visualization meditations for goals, improving relationships, and energizing myself. If I feel I have low energy, I imagine that white light of positive energy flowing through my body.

* Awareness meditation:
This is simply the process of becoming consciously aware of your actions, your body, or your surroundings. This is an easy way to reduce stress, bring stillness to your mind, and bring calm understanding to almost any situation. It can also be done anywhere, anytime for a few seconds or for much longer periods. The technique is to simply notice what is happening. I like to use this when I need to relax or slow down, or when I start feeling worried or uptight about something. The point is to calm the mind and allow you to consciously decide where to put your attention rather than allowing your untamed thoughts to keep running the show.

1. If you choose action awareness, focus attention on exactly what you’re doing and how you experience it. If you’re walking, become aware of how the sidewalk looks and how it feels when you put your foot down to take a step. Become aware of the temperature of the air and the sounds in your environment. If you are washing dishes, become aware of how you hold the sponge and what the water feels like running across your hands.

2. If you choose body awareness, try to feel the energy flowing in your body. Can you feel the energy in your hands? There is life pulsing through your hands so there is definitely energy there! How about feeling energy in your legs or your shoulders? Can you locate any tension in your body and bring awareness to it? Notice how it feels.

3. If you choose awareness of your surroundings, notice where you are, what you see, what it sounds like, what the temperature is, and whether there is silence that you can find between the sounds.

Common Meditation Pitfalls

“I can’t stop thinking!” This is really common. You don’t have to stop thinking. Allow the thoughts to be there, return your attention to where you want it, and let the thoughts float away.

“My to-do list is running through my head and I’m coming up with things I don’t want to forget.” Keep a note pad next to you. Write down the item and then let it go from your mind. It will be on the pad when you’re done.

“I don’t have time for this.” Surely you have 2 minutes while waiting at the traffic light or in line at the store. In fact, if you do a mini breathing meditation while waiting in line at the store, you’re much less likely to get annoyed when the person in front of you is paying in pennies.

“I keep falling asleep.” Try changing the time that you meditate, your position (sitting or standing rather than reclining), or accept that maybe you need more sleep and go ahead and take a nap.

Adding meditation to your life can be truly rewarding and there is always space for it. It can help you become more peaceful, healthy, self-confident, kind, relaxed and creative. It can help you come to know yourself better and become more powerfully connected to your life. Take a few minutes, breathe slowly, and give it a chance!

About the Author:
Judy Braley is a personal development author, an attorney, and a parent. Her blog with free articles, resources, and information on inspiration for your life can be found at http://www.GrowFromWithin.com. Copyright © 2007 Wherett Inc.This article may be freely distributed if this resource box is attached.

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A healthy home is your refuge. It’s the place where you go to relax and be with your family. The place where you feel safe. However, your home may also be the place that most affects your health in a negative way.

The following list of tips will help you get started in making sure your home continues to be your haven for a healthier and greener lifestyle.

Keep your Indoor Air Clean The quality of the air in your home is often more polluted than the air outside. In order to create a healthy home environment, clean up your indoor air by making sure you have good ventilation. Try to keep your windows open whenever the weather permits. It is also a good idea to maintain a good humidity level by getting a quality humidifier for the winter and a dehumidifier for the summer.

Use Non Toxic Cleaning Products Check your cleaning products and pesticides for toxic ingredients. You may notice a variety of chemicals and warning labels all over each can. If you must use chemicals in your home, keep it well ventilated and ensure you are using them to the manufactures specification.

The better choice: Use natural cleaning products that are chemical free. You may find that normal household products like baking soda and citrus juices clean as well or better that their chemical counterparts.

Purify Your Water Did you know that tap water in many areas contains known cancer causing agents including chlorine and fluoride? Our water is our life source and should be taken seriously. Find an affordable water filtration system that cleans your drinking water at the very least. If you are really serious about creating a healthy home, purchasing a whole home filtration system would be ideal. Keep in mind that many chemicals found in water can transfer through the skin while showering or simply washing your hands, so be sure to plan for every application.

Create a Feng Shui Home Design Set up your home in a fashion that allows you and your guests to feel more relaxed. Make sure to remove excess clutter and mess. Keep live plants all around for air purity and for a feeling of well being. Most importantly, set your home in a pattern of colors and decorations that suits your natural style, while being inviting for those guest you may have. You may be surprised by the health benefits of these simple changes.

Go Green with Energy Conservation The peace of mind that comes with conserving energy and preserving your bank account can never be underestimated. Turn down your thermostat and use ceiling fans in the summer and winter by reversing the blades. This can lower your energy bills by up to four percent! Pay attention to the appliances you buy and look for the best Energy Star ratings for optimum energy efficiency. Additional solutions can be as simple as sealing the cracks and openings around your windows, and changing the filter on your AC/Furnace per the manufacturer’s specifications.

About the Author:

Alden Pennington is co-author of NaturalHealthLifestyles.com and has been a natural health enthusiast for many years. Alden graduated from the University of Kentucky and is currently a Human Resources Director with a keen focus on the company wide health and wellness program. http://www.NaturalHealthLifestyles.com

Buy the Book: Your Green Home

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As you may already know, the first step to obtaining a feng shui life is to rid your home and yourself of all the stale and dead energy around you by getting rid of all the clutter. One really good way to do that is by having a yard sale.

There are many great reasons for having a yard sale. Some people have yard sales before they move so they don’t have to pack and ship belongings they aren’t using. Sometimes they are updating the look of their home and sell their old belongings to make money and room for the new ones. Sometimes your children just grow like weeds and rapidly outgrow both their clothes and their toys. It could also simply be the desire to purge all those items you’ve held onto for so long, thinking you’d find a use for them but never did.

No matter what your reason, having a yard sale is a relatively easy goal to achieve and requires just a few hours of preparation and a few more hours actually selling your wares. You’ll reap both financial and emotional rewards from it. Getting rid of the clutter is your first step towards attaining a feng shui life.

Decide on a date for your yard sale. Visit your local liquor store for boxes or use heavy duty garbage bags to put the items for your sale into. Start by surveying the items you have. When you are going through your house, you will need to be brutally honest with yourself. If you haven’t used it, don’t like it, don’t see yourself using it or don’t know of anyone personally who could benefit from it, then it’s a yard sale item. Sort through every dresser and kitchen drawer, every clothes and linen closet, every cupboard and toy box you have in your house. Don’t forget your basement, attic, pantry, entertainment center, buffet and outdoor tool shed as well. Get your family involved so that if an item belongs to one of them you won’t be making the decision for them. Get their input before placing an item in your yard sale box. Regardless of the time it takes to sort through all your items, make the commitment to stick with it and remind yourself on a continual basis the monetary profit and emotional relief you’ll feel once your clutter has been cleared from your home.

Once the sale is over, make another commitment to yourself not to bring the unsold items back into your home. Make arrangements with your local charity thrift store to donate the items. Most will be happy to make arrangements to pick up large donations. If you don’t have a local charity who will pick up the items just use my method and put a big “FREE” sign out at the end of the day. You will not believe how fast those items will disappear and it will save you a trip to the second hand store or from being tempted to bring the items back into the house.

Once it’s all said and done, you’ll have a few extra dollars in your pocket, and can breathe an emotional sigh of relief that the clutter that’s been weighing you down for so long has been purged from your home. Renew your commitment to remain organized and to combat the clutter on a continual basis.

About the Author:

Visit my Alternative Medicine website featuring Feng Shui life and Herbal Remedy Medicines, Chinese Herbal Medicine and much more: http://www.AlternativeMedicineBasics.com Sign up for my newsletter at altmedbasics@ getresponse.com

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For those who are not familiar with the meaning of “feng shui“, it literally translates to mean “wind and water.”

Feng Shui is about how the “chi”, or the energy of the life force, flows around us and influences our lives. The main aspect of this energy is that it should be in balance.

There are five Feng Shui elements. There are no good or bad elements but each one has its own influence on the other. The five basic elements are metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. The Chinese believe that these are the basic elements of the universe and everything in our world is an amalgam of the five elements.

There are colors associated with each element. They are:

Element and Associated Color

Metal - White, Aqua blue
Wood - Green, hunter green
Water - Black, navy blue
Fire - Red, light purple
Earth - Yellow, light brown

Here are Ten Top Tips to Feng Shui your kitchen for better health and prosperity.

1. The kitchen should not be the first room you want to see when you enter your house.

2. The kitchen should not be located below a toilet or adjacent to it.

3. The kitchen should have several levels of lighting, creating an airy and spacious, clean, bright and welcoming environment

4. Keep the kitchen simple and do not overload it with gadgets.

5. De-clutter worktops and cabinets alike.

6. Fresh flowers bring uplifting energy to the kitchen. Place a bowl of fruit, a vase of flowers, or a living plant in your kitchen.

7. Always use bright Yang colors like oranges, greens, browns and bright yellows as this is the Yang sector of your home. Yellow (any shade) is very good for digestion.

8. The oven should not face the front door under any circumstances.

9. Fire and water should not be aligned side by side or directly opposite the each other. Separate the two with a partition made of wood if you don’t have a choice.

10. The kitchen is a perfect place to grow herbs and vegetables. Any green growing plant will vitalize your space; growing food increases your ability to generate wealth exponentially. Whenever you water your plant, visualize that you are investing in your future and caring for your financial needs.

We hope you enjoy your newly energized space.

by Ian and Jo Ludlow
About the Authors: Ian and Jo Ludlow have worked in the home improvement industry for many years. They can be contacted through any of the following websites. http://www.design-ideas-for-kitchens.com
http://www.home-and-garden-ideas.com
http://www.sales-and-management-training.com
Ian Ludlow’s background is in sales training and coaching with a specialization in supporting companies that sell direct to the public.

Buy the Book: The Feng Shui Kitchen
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Intuitively the link between decluttering and creativity makes sense doesn’t it? Creativity thrives in the land of new ideas and open thinking, while clutter tends to be characterized by clinging on to old ideas, attitudes, habits and possessions. In order to free yourself up to be fabulously creative, you often need to be prepared to let go of the clutter first. Inspiration is unlikely to emerge unless you’ve created a space for it.

Clutter generally builds up quietly and imperceptibly over time. The reason for this is that not all clutter starts out its existence as clutter. If you think about the clutter in your life at the moment, you can probably recognize that much of it was originally useful and meaningful. It’s the passing of time and the moving on to different phases of your life that convert many of your once-wonderful ideas, items and relationships into life clutter.

You’ll probably find that, strangely enough, some of your old clutter consists of items and ideas that were once your creative playground. Many of yesterday’s creative sparks evolve into today’s clutter. It doesn’t mean that they weren’t creative at the time or that they had no worth, simply that time has passed and they are no longer current. I like to imagine them as the creative stepping stones that have brought me to where I am now - I couldn’t have got here without them, but their value is now in the past and by clinging on to them, I prevent myself from moving forwards.

That’s why decluttering has to be a way of life, a state of mind and an ongoing activity. Particularly during the times when you want to produce creative output.

There’s an important distinction to be made between clutter and creative messiness, though. A reader of my newsletter wrote to me about her decluttering routine: “I am an artist and always clean my entire studio before beginning a new series of paintings. Sometimes this might take two days! I put everything in the correct place, vacuum, wash windows, rearrange the feng shui, etc. When I am finished, I bless the space and then proceed to totally mess it up with all my creative materials and energy!!!”

The space you declutter may be a physical or a mental one - the important thing is that it’s clear, and that’s what allows it to be a creative start point. It liberates you to get out all your colored pencils, all your bright ideas, all your interesting words… to throw them in, mix them around and to make a gloriously creative mess. Then comes that amazing flow experience of being totally absorbed as, from the mess of creative potential, a sense of focus gradually emerges.

Most times, for me, I don’t think the focus would come unless I allowed myself the creative messiness first.

In this context, then, clutter is the stuff that blocks you from having the clear space in which to get creatively messy.

It may be environmental clutter - physical things gathering dust and taking up your creative space. That’s generally the most obvious kind of clutter to spot and to do something about.

But it may be mental or emotional clutter. For example: the internal voice that says you should be getting on with something more important, or the fear of producing creative output that isn’t perfect first time. These thought patterns and emotions are clutter too.

To embrace decluttering as a way of life and turn it to your creative advantage, there are three key skills to develop:

= Recognizing clutter before it even enters your life and stopping it at source

= Acknowledging which of your previously useful thoughts, attitudes and items have now turned into clutter

= Being prepared to thank the clutter for its earlier usefulness, then let it go

What life clutter would you like to thank for its usefulness, before letting it go and freeing yourself up for new creative ideas and output?

About the Author:
Mary McNeil is an experienced, ICF-certified life coach, natural born planner and declutterer extraordinaire! She works with her clients on a variety of decluttering, success and creativity projects. Check out her 30-day home learning e-course => Declutter Your Way To Creativity

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