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 Declutter Your Home and Life This Weekend Oct 26, 2009
What a wonderful addition to Ms. Kingston's collection of books on Feng Shui. In a manner this is a sequel to her marvelous Creating Sacred Space. What Westerner has not read a Feng Shui article or book all enthusiastic and energized to start, only to realistically looked at their home (or office desk! lol) and not realized that they needed desperate help first with their clutter.
A lot clutter is about "Anything Unfinished" which includes both emotional connections as well as projects. After 7 deaths in 6 years, and receiving a lot of stuff in addition to my own stuff, the very action of clearing through the clutter and decluttering required addressing the emotion of grief and loss. I found that following the Grief Recovery process in The Grief Recovery Handbook, 20th Anniversary Expanded Edition: The Action Program for Moving Beyond Death, Divorce, and Other Losses including Health, Career, and Faith very helpful to do first, and THEN I was prepared to DO all the decluttering. A number of people dealing with the emotions around a loved one's death, as soon as they had done the Grief Recovery process, then were sufficiently energized and equipped to tackle the boxes upon boxes of their love one's stuff.
Now we do not all have to be perfectly hyperly organized as a result of implementing her tips. Don't worry, that is not Kingston's goal. She does talk a lot about "the energy" of belongings and our space. That may or may not appeal to you. If that's the case, just glaze over those sections and practice and implement her VERY helpful specific tips for decluttering your space and your life.
Ms. Kington invests a number of chapters telling you all you are losing out on in life by retaining your level of clutter. You might not need to read every single section of this if you are ALREADY hugely motivated to declutter. However, if you know you need support there, or if in the midst of decluttering you hit a wall or get bogged down, sift through those chapters to help get your decluttering efforts on track.
Chapter 9 where she addresses Clutter Zones in Your Home is one of my favorites, because she very kindly and gently identifies precisely where we DO accumulate clutter. And once you let clutter start to accumulate, in many ways, you may not be seeing all of your clutter. So this chapter is helpful while she is very kindly... (tee hee) ruthless with us about seeing and addressing all of our clutter. Here she brings up our Portable Clutter - handbags, purses, wallets, and our cars, as well as The Garage.
For those of us who love books here at Amazon, Chapter 11 where she addresses Paper Clutter is quite funny. Ms. Kingston's whole approach is always kind, generous, and gracious... while she is ruthless in a marvelous way to tell us the truth. Indeed, for those of us with books, it must become a regular practice to sort through and release old books we are not reading or will not read again for a long time. For example, Romance Novels. What woman does not have some favorite romance author whose books she loves and adores. Does she horde and keep them forever? She might. One way to share the love and keep your house decluttered is to share and rotate them with your other friends. On the energetic level, this is generously sharing the love and keeping your energy softly (not too rapidly, like of curved roads and river beds versus straight arrow rushing freeways) moving in your life. On the practical physical perspective, you have made space in your bookshelves to clean and dust and put new books or maybe finally a place for photographs.
She devotes so much of Section 2 to IDENTIFYING and seeing where we each have clutter. In Section 3 is where Ms. Kingston provides the wealth of HOW TO DECLUTTER. You might be reading along in the first 2 sections and start identifying your clutter and begin to experience feelings of OVERWHELM, like, "How will I ever have all the time to declutter everything?" No worries. Start with an area (think 1 chapter example) at a time and apply her practical steps to each. You can do this.
Many people might find Chapter 18 where Ms. Kingston addresses Clearing Clutter from Our Body. Well then just skip over it. It is only one chapter. However, what she suggests there is perfectly normal practice 100 years ago in the USA, and is normal in many areas of the world. If you can keep an open mind, just take a deep breath and read the chapter, and if not. No problem. Skip it. She is being thorough in discussing and pointing out all areas of clutter.
Her end to the book, the Appendix, has an excellent 21 Steps for Basic Space Clearing.
Ms. Kingston was even so thoughtful as to consider the SIZE of the book so as to keep it small to avoid ADDING to our clutter in reading this marvelous book on Feng Shui and Clearing Clutter.
 Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui Oct 05, 2009
Pretty much it was like any other "clean your clutter" book but with very little Feng Shui. It was a quick read, made easier by a bit larger type and more white space between the lines. I don't recall learning anything new. Other than that I really don't have much to say about it.
Clear you clutter with this book! Sep 15, 2009
This book has really opened my eyes to the meaning of clutter. I'm definitely a clutter bug in areas of my life, but I didn't realize that it can actually effect other areas of your life--in relationships, financial,etc. It has great examples from real people who have seen changes happening in areas in their life, by just clearing one spot within their home! It's an easy read too and not too dense.
Clear your clutter!! Sep 04, 2009
This book was loaned to me by a friend. I was very impressed with it, bought one for myself and extras for my kids. It gave a clear, practical way to attack the clutter that was not only messing up my surroundings but affecting my emotional state as well. It explains why we save so much and allows us to see that we can get along without much of it. It's very freeing. I've tried to get rid of clutter for years, but nothing worked like this book. I was energized to clear a very small area and couldn't believe the results. Clearing away that negative energy allowed me to continue to clear away other small areas. The emotional lift it has given me is beyond belief. I still have a long way to go, but I am making concrete improvement -- something that hasn't happened before. Practical, non-judgmental, effective -- highly recommended.
Cluttered life can lead to a cluttered colon! Aug 21, 2009
I agree that this book is in accurately titled "feng shui". But I think this a useful reference when taking the first step to decluttering your life. While everyone who didn't like this book referred to the colon cleansing and death auras, That part of the book is what convinced me that this woman was on to something. I know first hand about how the internal and external can create clogs in your energy fields.
Kingston starts with material but ends with an internal look (literally) at what creates these hoarding habits.
Very useful
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