Your home is a Living Space. Not a Storage Space

"Clutter is nothing more than postponed decisions." - Phyllis Diller

Decluttering can be overwhelming as we head up to the attic or the basement and look around at the chaos. Or, we could have opened a closet we purposely ignored during the holidays. I remember gently tossing things in it right before guests came for dinner and having most of the items fall out all around my feet when I opened the closet door later.

How many times have we opened a drawer or closet and become overwhelmed? My first thought is to clean out the clutter, remove what I haven't used in years, and bring freshness to the space. And then I shut the door or drawer again, saying to myself, "I'll do it another day when I have more time. This is a lot."

What about the famous catch-all junk drawer in the kitchen? We know it’s over the top full when we go to open it, and the drawer stops halfway. Oh, but we’ll try it another time as if to think it might have just caught on something, and then it happens again. We moan, say a few hearty cuss words, grab the spatula or Philips screwdriver, and try as hard as we may to pry it open, but there is so much in it that it is really stuck now and won’t budge.🙄

I would then slowly take everything out until the drawer opened and put the rest on the counter. I could not believe how much junk was in that small drawer! A little spider was nesting in the back of the drawer, for goodness sake, and when it got plopped onto the counter with the rest of the stuff and retained its balance, it ran as fast as its little legs could go, jumping off the ledge, onto the floor and made a beeline for the front door. I held the door open as it ran out, quietly saying I didn’t blame it for heading out. I wouldn’t have wanted to stay in that mess, either.😅

As I sorted through the items, I found some small things I had been looking for months, others, like keys to who knows what, and many receipts for stuff we bought quite a while back, and some we don’t even have anymore. And how about all those pens? I don’t know about you, but I could open a pen store.

I looked up the meaning of hoarding ~ “To hide or carefully guard the place where we’ve accumulated food, money, old physical memories, etc, to feel safe.” (Dictionary.com)
We subconsciously do this because we don’t want to be without anything, so we keep it just in case. To “feel safe” is another unconscious reality.

We’ve all been there. But how does it feel when we finally take the time to apply a little elbow grease and eliminate what isn’t needed anymore? I know that doing this brought me feelings of accomplishment, freedom, and open spaces of clarity.

The other day, having a meal at a local sports bar, I was facing a big-screen TV playing the show Hoarders. There was no sound, but there didn’t need to be. What I saw and the drama intertwined with the chaotic mess in that house spoke for itself and was enough.

I’m not a watcher of these kinds of shows, but my eyes returned to the screen. The gist of this story was that a woman shared a home with her two teenagers, her father in a wheelchair, and a parrot who seemed to keep getting lost in the abyss of clutter.

A distant family member told the woman if she didn’t clean up her home to make it ‘livable’ for her kids and father, they would call adult protective services. The woman agreed to do it. She contacted the TV network for the show Hoarders and told them of her situation and desperation, and they jumped on the project, bringing everything needed to have the place cleaned up within a week.

When the end of the week approached, I watched this woman throwing fits about what she didn’t want to be touched or removed, and many truckloads later, the house looked incredible! The kids were ecstatic to find their beds again, and her father and his parrot happily reunited. The woman seemed okay with everything but had a lost look on her face without any of her ‘stuff’ around her. At the end of the program, the camera operators quietly showed the woman bringing huge bags into her house a few weeks later and said she had started to hoard again.

The story above is an extreme example of hoarding, and there are deep emotional issues attached, but it was still a wake-up call for me. When I got home and looked around, I was thankful our house was comfortable and roomy, although I did open some of our closets and wondered how we could simplify the spaces.

The second half of this post is about releasing what may not serve us from a heart-level perspective, referring to people we deeply love who have passed away and left a tremendous amount of things and clutter behind. I had a personal experience with this when my mom made her transition 24 years ago; she didn’t have clutter, but there were boxes of her heart-based memorabilia from her adult life in a few closets. This kind of ‘holding on to’ was 100 times more difficult to release for me than any junk drawer scenario or closet crowding because it involves love and honoring the items those who meant so much to us left behind.

My mom was simple and orderly, and her home reflected this. After she passed away, my siblings and I went into her apartment to collect the treasures of her life and shared the rest with those who would benefit from her dwellings. We divided her personal belongings with each other, and on the flight home, I was excited about the moments when I could sit down and go through my mother’s heart memories. So when I returned home, I placed them in the attic for safekeeping, and life moved forward.

A few years later, I brought those precious boxes of my mother’s out of the attic to nurture the space in my heart of missing her. It was a chilly evening, and my husband was out of town. I had the fireplace going, a warm glass of wine on the coffee table, and Mom’s treasures beside me to enjoy.

Sound perfect? I thought so, too.💖

But, after reading some of these personal letters she wrote to the love of her life, something inside me felt as though I was stepping into a world that was not mine to explore. So, I put those letters on top of the stack and went further down for some other items; after reading those pieces too, feelings of, “This is not for my eyes either,” came back, and this time with a gentle tug on my emotions, I stopped. I set that box aside and went to the other one, and the contents of her deep-seated thoughts seemed to be saying…” It is time to let go of my world and allow it to dissolve back into me. Please remember all your memories of me live in your heart and will never disappear; trust this.”

I sat awhile with these words and suddenly felt that in those boxes were the whispers from Mom’s soul, her conversations with her precious Creator, and the meaning of her existence; these writings had nothing to do with me. I felt like I was outside the window of her soul, looking in and listening, and it made me feel uneasy.

I pondered this for a while…

I then decided to perform a small sacred ritual where I could honor and bless my mother's life in gratitude for who she was, the many hearts she had touched, and the love she represented while walking on this earth.

I gently placed those envelopes and everything else inside the boxes on the hearth next to the fire. Then, I slowly fed the fire with those items and watched the embers engulf the papers in a colorful array of tranquility. I watched as the last single puff of light dissolved into the ashes and eventually into peace. I felt a warm sensation of air around me as if she were thanking me for honoring her last remaining physical treasures and letting them go.

After this experience with my mom's intimate treasures and what I chose to do with them, I have learned that letting go of what is not ours is one of the most selfless gifts we can give our loved ones. I am not saying we do not hold on to those unique, tangible things. Such things bring visual joy, but in the moments we want to release their things but don't, we tend to carry this mindset that if we do dispose of those things that they loved having, we are showing them in some way that we don't care what was essential to them. These thoughts are simply not valid. Nothing is going with us except our memories and the love we have given and received….and this is enough!

But the opposite happens when we think this way. Every time we look at the boxes in the basements or attics that have been sitting there since our loved ones passed, annoyance, guilt, and frustration occur repeatedly. Until we, ourselves, die. Then, guess whose turn it is to take responsibility for our loved ones' boxes? Yep, our kids or grandkids. (Or, I have heard that some grown kids will hire someone to remove the clutter and boxes for them.)

So, now, a second or third-generation is opening up those boxes without a real clue who those loved ones were or the stories behind their lives. And, they decide to shred everything (which would be nice) or toss them out to the trash. What a mess that becomes, too, because who knows when those who go dumpster diving find these personal treasures and what they may want to do with them. So, where is the honor and appreciation of those lives of letting those memories go then?

And what about the treasures from your life years ago?

My experience with my mom's things gave me a different perspective on my treasures. After going through that, I went to my boxes of personal things; I found diaries from when I was a teenager, letters between lovers, yearbooks, and other memorabilia that my children really couldn't care less about. And did I want them to read my diaries and my letters? Hell no!

So, I did go through it all. Yes, it was a chore, but I didn't do it all in one sitting. I had three huge boxes and took one at a time, and once I started, I found it fun; I laughed quite a bit, and memories that were special only to my heart were where the tears fell. Then I did what I had done with my mother's things. I built a fire in the fireplace, poured a glass of wine, and slowly and with purpose put them in the fire and watched them dissolve in honor and gratitude for those times and what I had learned and grown from. I also had over twenty years of journals, and after going through them, I shredded them all; there was no need for whoever found them to carry the responsibility of what to do with them. I am reaching my 70s, and it is time to release the tangible memories on my terms, no one else's, and I am relieved. Anyway, all those treasures are settled in my heart's pockets and will always be with me, even when I leave here.

I now have one medium decorative box I bought from a craft store. I put things I think the kids would enjoy in it. And that's it. Well, almost it. I plan to write each child a personal love letter just for them, and it will be sealed with their name on the envelope in my box for them to read after I pass.

So, I've shared this experience with you because of my conversations with others about cluttering, the frustration when family members pass away, and what they will do with all their stuff.

The bottom line here is:

Our lives will always have "stuff" around us, physically and heart-based, with memories accompanying them; it is just how we are. Since these are our memories, our "soul whispers," ensuring that when we leave this earth, their energy will go with us is essential. Your worth is precious and priceless, as is the worth of those who have gone before you; to be treated as such is an honorable gift to give.💖

Thought to Ponder:
What memories from your life and those passed before you are calling to be released and treasured in your heart?🦋

©2025 Terry Pottinger