Mess in the house - only a reflection of our inner life. We are sure of it Melva Green and Lauren Rosenfield, book authors “Breathe freely. How clutter at home can help you sort yourself out. It is useless to study storage systems, it is not enough to be able to. In order for order to reign in the house, you need a careful analysis of all the accumulated rubbish, a leisurely cleaning, during which you can not only part with unnecessary things, but also create space for a new life.
At its core, getting rid of trash is a deep spiritual practice that helps you get closer to your loved ones and to yourself.
We have selected some universal tips from the book that will help you make your home cozy and find peace of mind.
Come up with symbolic words for each room
Any room in the house - it is not only a functional room where we eat, sleep, wash, work or communicate with household members and guests. It is also our little universe, the center of our unique life. There must be something special, attractive in it.
Before you start cleaning, the authors of the book advise you to choose at least three words-symbols for each room that describe the atmosphere that you want to create in them. For example, words for the bedroom - "rest, relaxation, love", for the kitchen - "creativity, inspiration, comfort", for the living room - "communication, light, appeasement." Such formulations will help in the cleaning process: after all, it is important not only to get rid of trash, but also to decide what exactly you want to achieve.
Creating an atmosphere becomes the goal of designers and architects. You should approach your home space in the same way.
Take a look at the interior
In order to clearly understand what items and things to get rid of, Melva Green and Lauren Rosenfield suggest doing some simple but very effective exercises.
For the hallway: walk out the door, and then enter as if you were a guest who came here for the first time. What is the first thing that catches your eye? What feeling comes over you? What prevents you from experiencing positive emotions? Remove those things that turned out to be “superfluous” and caused discomfort. Head out the door again. Do this until you realize that the hallway is filled with life, not rubbish.
For the kitchen: Grab your favorite cookbooks and plan a dinner that's a real treat. Do not deny yourself anything, think over each dish. After planning your menu, go through each recipe and get all the tools you need to prepare such a dinner: pots, bowls, blenders, spatulas. Lay out on the table. And pause. If that's all you need for the perfect dinner, why do you need the rest?
Throw away unwanted items with empathy
As with any business, the right attitude is important for cleaning. The authors of the book advise against treating the process as a life-or-death battle: “Under the influence of adrenaline, we cannot act intelligently and think rationally.” It is best to treat unnecessary things with delicate participation and even sympathy. You can even speak kindly to them, "How did you get here?", "Let's get out of here and get you back to where you should be."
When touching a thing, try to evoke in your soul the sympathy that you feel for a lost child. To some items you will say, “You are in the wrong room. I know where you'll be better." Such things are sent to the box "for migrants". You will address others with the words: “You have wandered too far. You don't belong here, but I know we'll find you a home." These things go in a "charity" box.
Avoid negative emotions
There are only two types of emotions - absorbing (negative) and replenishing (positive). The goal of decluttering is to watch for absorbing emotions and prevent them from materializing in the home.
How many things do you keep to yourself because of guilt, regret, anxiety, and fear? It is extremely important to understand how much space these emotions occupy in life. If we are going to get rid of them, we must know what power they have over us. Now take these things away: donate, recycle, send to the landfill. The choice is yours, but you must say goodbye to the overwhelming emotions that these things cause!
Leave no secret places
Everyone in the house has such places where mountains of rubbish are hidden from prying eyes. You must pull out the contents of all the caches, deal with it and never hide anything anywhere again. As much as you would like it. The house simply should not have "secret" places.
You need to rid your home and your life of dubious things. It's not enough to get them out of sight. They will remain in your mind. Even if no one knows about their existence, these things will consume you.
Don't be afraid of empty space
Most people are afraid of empty space in the house, even a small one: emptiness is perceived as a flaw. "I'm willing to bet that your house - whether it is a studio apartment of twenty-seven square meters or a huge mansion - filled with things - written by Melva Green and Lauren Rosenfield. - Every flat surface is lined with objects. Each box is filled with a different little thing. Every closet is full. Nothing surprising. From an early age, we see that this is how these spaces are used. It seems counterintuitive to do otherwise. We are so used to it that we instinctively fill in any empty space.”
And, indeed, if we find an unoccupied space, the first thing we do - find something to do with him or worse - mindlessly fill it up with a bunch of rubbish. But try to leave it as it is, loose and breathable. In the end, you make room not for things.
Stick to the idea that not every place has to be filled or filled with something.
What is clutter and how to learn to deal with the "mess" in the apartment? Quite often we see the mess in the house as a character flaw. But, do the features of our character affect the order in the room? In fact, the source of any disorder is the force of habit. It is habits that make us make the same mistakes, for example, scattering things, not hanging blouses on hangers, etc.
In most cases, it is not our character that is to blame, since we are just used to making a mess on the table, buying things in discount sections, not putting papers into folders. So, what to do if the diagnosis of "brothel" is confirmed? How to get rid of the habit of being sloppy?
In order to answer these questions, it is necessary to understand what the force of habit is. A habit is certain actions that we perform regularly, absolutely not noticing the process itself. Remember: breaking a habit is very difficult, almost impossible. The only solution is to replace it with a new one. For this, you need 21 days. This is enough time for a new habit to fully enter our lives.
So, how to deal with the diagnosis of "mess" quickly and effectively?
1. Always finish what you started. This is a very important rule. Unfinished business negatively affects the daily routine, as well as our emotional state. For example, you decided to read an interesting article in the newspaper, but suddenly got distracted by a phone call. As a result, the article was not finished, and in the soul and in the mind there was a feeling of incompleteness. Always try to finish what you have already begun.
2. Before buying important and expensive things, do a "test run". Have you decided to buy a new phone of the latest model, but you are not sure about the appropriateness of your purchase? Borrow a phone of this model from a friend and "test" it. Just one day is enough to understand whether a future purchase is right for you or not. This habit will allow you not only to save a significant amount of money, but also to understand what things you really need.
3. If you have unnecessary things, give them to friends or acquaintances. In every house there are always things that are absolutely useless, but it is a pity to throw them away. Throw a "junk swap" party and gift a cute trinket to your friend or acquaintance.
4. Forget about spring cleaning. Clean up every day, not on a large scale, but in the smallest quantities. Make a list of household chores that you need to do. For example, on Monday you wash the curtains, on Tuesday you sort out your wardrobe, on Wednesday you get rid of unnecessary things, etc. This method of cleaning will significantly reduce the loss of time and effort.
5. Say No to Impulse Buying! Learn to make conscious purchases. You should not buy the fifth boots, the tenth tube of cream, etc. In order not to make rash purchases, carry a limited amount of money with you.
But when in our time you go into a different house, you remember the old fairy tale. It is difficult to suppress a grin at the sight of many days of dust, unwashed dishes and scattered things. Probably, this family was created according to other principles of matchmaking. In another house, order reigns, which borders on such sterility that it is simply scary to move something or hurt something. It is difficult not to be glad for the well-being that reigns in the house and not to refrain from complimenting the hostess. And it happens that in a tidy house there is an atmosphere of discontent and tension. And in an uncleaned apartment, people are happy with each other and live in perfect harmony. Why is this happening?
The American psychologist William James believed that in addition to passions, beliefs and interests, the structure of the human personality should include what a person considers his own: things dear to the heart, everyday clothes that copy the shape of the body with folds, favorite books on the home shelf and more. The decoration of the house is an element of the physical self, and you can tell a lot about its inhabitants by looking closely at the dwelling. The first thing that catches your eye is disorder or order. What, from the point of view of psychology, disorder means, is a sign of general looseness, sloppiness and indiscipline. But the ideal order testifies to firm principles and spiritual harmony. But such an explanation is very simple to be true. Since at every step life tells us other ambiguous conclusions.
Parents of almost all teenagers complain about their sloppiness, that it is almost impossible to force them to keep order in the room. And the thing is that the interests of the younger generation are broad, directed to the outside world and little attached to the details of everyday life. Only when a teenager feels all the inconveniences that a mess brings, will he gradually become neat.
When phone numbers, such necessary ones, are written down on some scraps of paper, when you don’t know where you put the necessary thing, when a place that is intended for meeting friends or for classes turns out to be littered with some things, then you inevitably begin to take care of the order. But only becoming a mature person, a person acquires real accuracy.
Does it mean that the mess in the house indicates that the hostess or the owner failed to grow up properly? Can and will be so a person to live and act in everything, like a little child. But the problem here may lie deeper. We all, in the end, understand that throwing things around is not good.
If a person is not able to put things in order in his house, then this only indicates a serious internal conflict. The accumulated garbage, scattered clothes, and so on, speak for their owner that he is not able to put things in their places.
A full sink of unwashed dishes, dirty linen accumulated for weeks, an overflowing trash can, indicate that I do not know how to set and systematically solve problems, I do not know how to distribute my forces. If a person cannot organize his life, then serious tasks are not up to him.
Your affairs are not arguing, everything is not going as you would like, doesn’t it seem to you that serious life situations just got out of your control? Of course, I would like to overcome this unpleasant feeling. Start small, look at your home and find out for yourself where you need to clean up.
When you put your scattered things on the shelves, then you do much more, you learn to streamline your problems, that is, put them on the shelves. Bring clarity to your “physical self” and then the results will not keep you waiting.
There is another extreme. As psychologists have noted, a strong commitment to order and cleanliness is a symptom of self-doubt, a symptom of inner weakness.
Ordering his physical world at home, a person, as it were, seeks to protect himself from the chaos of the big world, which is terrible and too complicated for him. Thus, a vicious circle of tension arises: some thing put by someone from the home in the wrong place brings grief and annoyance. Housework takes a lot of time and effort, leaving no room for other important things. And then, in this scraped shell, a feeling of loneliness arises.
Such a trap can be set up for you by a script that was learned in the parental family, when order became an important life goal and at any cost. One can only feel sorry for such a person, whose main task is a shiny parquet and snow-white towels. After all, order in the house is a necessary condition, and not a goal, for solving real serious life problems. If we understand this simple truth, then we will find the golden mean, which distinguishes true harmony - spiritual and material.
Each room in the house has some kind of symbolic meaning, and has its own influence on your subconscious. Rubbish and clutter in every room causes stagnation and inactivity in certain aspects of life.
Mess in the kitchen
No wonder the kitchen is called the “heart of the home”. Here you eat, stock up on some energy, even if you dine on thawed semi-finished products in the microwave. A dirty and sloppy kitchen creates difficulties in supply and nutrition, on a spiritual and physical level. How you take care of the kitchen, you can tell how you feel about sources of abundance, energy supply, and your own nutrition. A neat and clean kitchen opens up space for the comfort and protection you so desperately need.
Mess in the dining room and living room
These are rooms in which you gather with friends, with family, with people close enough to you. Here you are in contact with the outside world when you are at home, arguing with friends about politics at the dinner table, reading the newspaper, watching TV. Clutter will turn this space into a lair, and you may be so dirty that you do not invite friends over for years. Maybe you are hiding from others in a pile of garbage?
Mess in the bedroom
Bedrooms for adults are a place of intimacy and for sleep, they must perform the function of renewing relationships and people. Clutter in the bedroom will not bring energy, but weakness. If you feel tired in the most intimate space, just clean up, and this will help you move away from stress and relax. And only then you can have a good time with your partner and have a sweet sleep.
Mess in the hallway
The corridor is the artery of your home. And the mess in your hallway is like a "traffic jam" on the road. It interferes with the interaction of different parts of your life and your home. Look at the corridor: is it so difficult not to stumble in it, is it easy to walk along it, is it well lit? If you have difficulty interacting with people and with yourself, between family and work, it’s probably time for you to clean up the corridor.
Mess in the bathroom
Body care and bathing is such a daily ritual. In daily life, you use this space so that you can prepare yourself to communicate with the world. Clutter in the bathroom indicates a lack of attention to yourself, and not only on a physical level, it also indicates low self-esteem. A well-decorated and clean bathroom can be a place to rejuvenate and take care of yourself, a serene and peaceful place. Decorate your bathroom, put things in order, turn it into a place where you can hide from everyone and be with yourself, where you will feel safe during the evening and morning rituals of washing.
Mess in the toilet
When you fill the toilet with rubbish, you suppress your insight and intuition. A dirty toilet indicates problems that make it difficult to develop in relationships and work, make it difficult for you to develop in life, problems that you are not really aware of. When the toilet door is tightly closed, this does not mean that you have gotten away from problems.
Chaos in the garage
Your car is a symbol of independence and mobility. If you have a dump of things in your garage, your car can hardly fit there, then you need to be very careful, and it is very difficult for you to move through life.
Now we know what a mess in a room is from the point of view of psychology. Don't think of cleaning as something terrible. Every shirt you give to a new owner, every book you take to the library. And also, every sheet of paper and magazine that you turn into waste paper will create space in your life for events, joy and new energy.
We have been taught superficial notions of symmetry.
Life is indeed unpredictable and chaotic, although it seems to us that if everything is "organized", then it will be much better.
But in reality it's the other way around. For example, you think that you need to buy a few more pants in order to have enough "for all time". You buy. And then it turns out that all things no longer fit in the closet. And he's just doomed to mess. Thus, by creating "order" in one place, you immediately create disorder in another.
You decide to throw everything you don't need into the trash can. At home, it seems like “order” turned out, but the world as a whole has become dirtier.
Here is what the physicist Adam Frank has to say about this:
"This is the law of physics. The harsh truth of life is that the universe itself is chaos. How can you put things in order at home or in your life if it is contrary to the nature of the universe?
In fact, no matter how much we try to keep our lives in order, and the house in order, nothing comes of it. Disorder is always here and there.
What to do? Say yes to the chaotic nature of this world. Humble yourself.
People who always have a mess at home are stigmatized. To those around them, they seem apathetic and leading a "wrong" life. But that's just not true!
Disorganized people are better than everyone else. If only because they do not allow the false illusion of order to dictate their daily routine.
Jim Morrison spoke well on this subject:
"I'm interested in rebellion, in chaos, in chaos. It seems to me that this is the path to freedom."
This does not mean that every aspect of your life needs to be plunged into chaos.
Being organized is sometimes important and even helpful. But you have no right to judge people who live in disorder. Believe me: order is greatly overrated.
People who have a constant mess at home are not lazy. They are creative and bold.
Common sense tells us that cleanliness is the key to efficiency and productivity, but this is not the case.
"Clutter is not necessarily a sign of lack of system. You can work more efficiently at a table on which everything is scattered than at a clean one. When a person has a mess on his desk, this does not mean that he does not work well. It means that he works so well, that he just has no time to get out."
In other words, clutter may actually be a sign of efficiency, not carelessness.
PhD from the University of Minnesota, Kathleen Vohs, conducted a study and proved that people who are prone to throwing things around and accumulating garbage are actually more creative than everyone else.
As part of this scientific work, Vohs conducted one curious experiment. She divided 48 volunteers into two groups and asked them to find creative ways to use a ping-pong ball. One half of the participants in the experiment were placed in a clean, tidy room, the other half in a dirty one. In the end, both groups came up with an equal number of ideas, but the second group was independently evaluated by other students to be more innovative and creative.
Vohs concludes:
"We all want to be more creative, have more insights. My advice to you is if you're stuck, move to a dirty room. This will allow you to go beyond the usual perception and produce fresh ideas faster. Order is the result of our desire for security, chaos - our desire for a creative rethinking of the world."
Clutter, of course, has long been closely associated with creative genius.
Disorganization and untidiness are condemned in society, but most of the great minds have lived in such conditions all their lives: Albert Einstein, Alan Turing, Ronald Dahl. Even JK Rowling can't clean her apartment!
They all achieved greatness, despite the fact that their whole life was full of chaos.
In general, if your parents punished you for not wanting to clean your room, then they made a mistake. Society ignores the hidden benefits of chaos.
It takes courage to break the rules and live in your creative mess.
Albert Einstein once remarked:
"If a mess on the table means a mess in the head, then what does an empty table mean?"
Creative people see the whole picture of their life, and do not get hung up on its individual details. They go with the flow, not against the current. They easily adapt to changes. They know that the time resource is too limited to spend it on boring things like cleaning.
The simplicity and beauty of life is more important than visible "success" and artificial "discipline". Passion is better than boredom.
Life is a disheveled, unpredictable and wonderful gift. Enjoy the trip.
The kitchen is the room where we eat, that is, we are charged with a certain energy. Accordingly, it should be comfortable and clean. An untidy kitchen is an indication that home owners are neglecting sources of energy and abundance. And no matter how hard you try, financial well-being will bypass you. Living paycheck to paycheck and eternal debt is what awaits you if the kitchen is a mess. Simply put, money will constantly flow through your fingers.
In addition, the presence of many unnecessary things in the kitchen provokes excess weight in the household.
Bathroom
It is in the bathroom that we start our day. This is the place where the most negative energy accumulates - when you come from the street, you wash away dirt and dust from yourself, not only physically, but also energetically. That's why you need to clean the bathroom as often as possible.
If everything is chaotically filled with empty and jars, there are baskets overflowing with dirty laundry - an inferiority complex and self-doubt are evident.
All this indicates that your self-esteem is low, you do not love yourself. And if such an attitude towards oneself, then there is no need to talk about love for loved ones.
Clean up the bathroom, then luck is guaranteed to smile at you!
Toilet
In this room, as a rule, detergents and various cleaning devices are stored. Of course, it is difficult to do without them in the toilet, but still take a closer look - there are probably old rags or empty bottles.
Our psyche is filled with what we are ashamed of and would like to forget, “trying to suppress the unconscious” (according to Freud), and along with this we dig our intuition and insight deeper and deeper.
According to bioenergetics, it is necessary to always keep the toilet clean, then old grievances, and most importantly, annoying disappointments will remain in the past.
Corridor
According to Feng Shui, the corridor is the main thoroughfare of the house. When is it convenient to travel? That's right, in the event that it is light and spacious ...
If there is a mess in this room: a bunch of scattered shoes, unnecessary clothes, boxes, etc., you will find endless showdowns and squabbles in the family, as well as financial problems. There is no desire to be in such a house, it is better to stay longer at work or at a party.
Living room - "facade" of an apartment or house
It is this room that is responsible for good relations with the outside world. It should be comfortable here.
If the living room is too cold or even repulsive - this leads to loneliness on a subconscious level. Family members do not want to gather in it, guests rarely visit your house, and any holidays turn into boring gatherings.
The living room should interest and attract, then people will be drawn to you.
Bedroom
In the bedroom, family well-being is created and a certain part of the energy accumulates.
Feeling constantly tired or constantly quarreling with loved ones? Tidy up your bedroom. Update your curtains, add some pretty decor, or just rearrange your furniture.