The
Art of Reducing Clutter
and Restoring Focus
(Excerpted
from Happiness Lessons,
part of the Feng Shui Fuzion Series)
by
Ralph & Lahni DeAmicis
In
the course of life we gather things together. These are the objects
we need for our daily life, our comfort, our work and to reinforce
our connections to others. "Things" are a part of life and supposedly,
each has its purpose and place. Life is fluid and "things" come and
go but when they come and don't go problems arise, with rooms filling
up and life losing it's focus. There is the clutter of the room and
the clutter of the soul and they are intrinsically linked.
When
you see stagnant accumulations of junk appearing in a room, it can
represent trapped fear or pain in the person's life. These feelings
tend to immobilize a person and make them resist change. When we resist
change we enter the dreaded land of procrastination! Clutter is a
way of dragging your heals to slow down the arrival of the future.
When you clean out your closets and corners, you're free to embrace
new opportunities. But what if you're not too hopeful about what's
ahead? There's a way to change that program!
There
are three steps to eliminating clutter. The first one is simple and
practical, but the next two are interrelated and require a bit more
understanding of how the Universe is woven together and how we wear
it. The first step is to make sure that nothing is blocking the entranceway,
or stopping the door from opening as completely as it was designed
to open. Remove anything hanging from the back of the door or jammed
into that narrow space behind it. Imagine you're entering the room
wearing a flowing, open weave robe.
Are
there any furniture corners near or pointing at you that could snag
that gauzy fabric? If there are, they will snag your aura so rearrange
them to allow a more emotionally comfortable entrance. Also, avoid
having any chair backs facing the door since that is read by the person
entering as a hand being held up telling them to halt! A chair facing
the door is read as the open hand of welcome. (This is an important
thing to know when setting up a sales office.) It's helpful to think
of the energy flowing into the room as a stream of water. If the flow
is reduced to a trickle by that cramped entranceway you are very limited
as to what you can do with it.
If
the flow is slow some areas may dry out starved for energy. In other
areas murky energetic puddles may form causing anxiety. Is that really
something you want happening in your living room? The next key is
something that many practitioners have spoken about. Creating a strong
focus for the eye when you first enter the room. While this is an
important factor by itself, when your aim is reducing clutter and
procrastination, there is an additional refinement that needs to be
considered. Why is that eye focus so important?
When
we walk through a door, our aura is compressed. When we step inside
the room the aura springs out and 'reads' the room. Whatever message
it receives creates a unique reaction. This reaction is an energetic
pattern that the aura paints on the entranceway. If there is no strong
focus for the eyes they'll stay in motion, scanning and searching
for a reference point. The fight or flight reflex stays active and
this highly charged anxiety fraught signature is transmitted. Everyone
who follows in this pathway will feel it and certain automatic reactions
will take place. One of the reactions is to empty the hands.
This
is why piles of things accumulate on the furniture nearest to the
door. Another reaction is to move quickly through the room to a safer
haven. This means you never spend relaxed time in the room to infuse
it with your nurturing energy. You don't want to spend the time there
putting it in order. People are very easy to program, entire cultures
are programmed by the advertising on their televisions. The first
thing you see when you enter a room programs you, so if there is no
clear focus, you feel unfocused. That's a euphemism for messy! When
you spend a lot of time in that space, your life is infused with that
unfocused energy.
So
place a strong focus for your eyes when you first walk into every
room. But while that will create more focus in your life it will not
necessarily eliminate accumulation and procrastination. What will?
That's the third step. Placing that focus in the correct spot! Here
we get into sorting the strands that make up the fabric of our universe.
Our environments are a reflection of our physical and energetic body.
We are creations of proportion and dimension. There are two especially
important measurements at work here. One relates to whether we choose
to hold onto things or share things.
This
is the difference between the left and right sides of the body. The
left side is where we hold onto things. It's where our stomach gathers
food, our spleen gathers energy and where we feel the emotions that
come from our hearts. When you hold a new baby you place their head
over your left breast so they feel the beating of your heart. If the
focus for your eyes is to the left side of the room or to the left
of your body, the room tends to hold onto stuff and that means you'll
hold onto the past. This is why rooms with entrance doors on the left
side tend to become more cluttered and chaotic.
Here's
a little caveat. Often times, very profitable businesses have their
entrances left of center. This is partly because that focus lands
on the left side of the space. They are able to accumulate. On another
level a left of center entrance tends to encourage innovation. Put
that together with the tendency to accumulate and you understand the
expression "In chaos there is profit". If you don't want your home
looking like a discount store, change your focus. The right side of
the body is where we find the liver and gallbladder. These are organs
that transform and share the resources. It's the social side of the
body.
It's
the right hand that we offer in greeting. It's the future side of
the body because the transformation of others from strangers to friends
is a movement into the future. If your environment is overstuffed
and you feel stuck in the past, place the focuses on the right side
of the room and definitely to the right of your body. Your eyes and
ears project energy. Where that energy goes is significant. When you
gather the light energy that pours from your eyes and splash it in
the direction that your body reads as the future, walking that pathway
becomes much easier. Locking onto things that hold you in the past
becomes less appealing.
The
other important dimension is the height of the body. There is the
head, the torso and the legs. The mind is concerned with the future,
the heart and stomach with the present, and the knees and feet with
what was accomplished in the past. The height at which you place that
strong focus for your eyes determines which part of your life you
concentrate on. This is why moving into a new home can be so disruptive;
everything is on the floor, or leaning against the wall. As long as
it stays there, you stay stuck reliving your past choices.
If
you want to get on with life, put up your pictures first. That will
increase the energetic flow on the higher levels, the present and
future. We're great believers on placing the focus at heart level.
That keeps you comfortably in the present and moving towards the future.
In general, placing pictures and reflective surfaces at heart level
helps keep love an active element of your life. Physiologically, if
the focus is low, the head has to dip and the spine has to bend to
observe it. This decreases the optimal flow of electrical energy along
the spine.
In
businesses, it's wise to place the focus at eye level to encourage
people to stand straighter, feel more poised and clearly pointed towards
the future. Choose the images or objects for your focus well. What
you read is what you'll write! They are your instructions to the universe
so don't be timid, be optimistic.
Decide
what part of your life you want to focus on. You have the choice of
me or we, and the decision to live in the past, present, or future.
Put the image where you decide you need it. Then maybe nudge it just
a little higher and to the right, in case you're underestimating what
you deserve. Courage, the barricades of the self melt away when the
pathways to the future are assured.
Drs.
Ralph and Lahni DeAmicis were directors of one of America's largest
and most modern professional Feng Shui practitioner programs, based
in Philadelphia. Their books Feng Shui and the Tango, Happiness
Lessons and Prosperity Lessons, from the Feng Shui Fuzion
Series are transforming the practical applications of environmental
design in America. For a complete directory of their articles and
a catalog of their books and other products, visit www.SpaceAndTime.com.
Copyright 2002 Ralph and Lahni DeAmicis
Editors
who would like to print this article, including the additional graphics,
please email Ralph@SpaceAndTime.com , and we will send you the links
to the pdf documents.