Breathing Room: Open Your Heart by Decluttering Your Home

Preface

We knew from the start that we were soul sisters: two women—a medical doctor and a spiritual intuitive—both on winding and wondrous life paths, stepping with mindful gratitude in our work, while managing the innumerable details of our families. The two of us just got each other. And that was all we needed to know.

We are both mothers running households, so we understand how important having a decluttered home is to freeing up space in the heart for spiritual freedom. Lauren is a married mother of four active and imaginative teenagers, who are wildly creative clutter-producing maniacs. She lives in the heart of a spiritual mecca in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where the buzz of cars and the sound of bongo drums and strumming guitars are constant companions. Lauren is a spiritual declutterer: an intuitive guide who helps clients see the spiritual lessons shining in their natural messiness. She offers help to clients who feel overwhelmed with the business (and busyness) of life and helps them see that within every struggle is a miracle waiting to be born.

Dr. Melva Green is a single mother with one beloved son who is a born philosopher and gifted musician. She travels between the broad and wild beaches of Costa Rica and the cultural and intellectual feast that is Berkeley, California. She is a board-certified psychiatrist who is best known for her role on A&E’s hit show Hoarders, where her compassionate care, forthright advice, and brave willingness to combine the science of her professional training with the intuition of spirit have endeared her to clients and television viewers alike.

Lauren’s Story

In the summer of 2009, I had the privilege and honor of going with my husband and four children on retreat with author, poet, Zen master, and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh. On the second day of the retreat, he delivered a talk about creating a breathing room—a room that serves as a retreat within the home for seeking peace, solace, compassion, and reconciliation. In the twenty-first century, he said, every home needs such a room. And he began to talk about how such a room could be created. And he was talking to me. Literally. It was not as if he was talking to me. He was actually looking at me—and I felt that he was telling me to go home and create a breathing room.

I went home with that sacred intention: to create a room for peace and compassion. The trouble was, there was no spare room in my home. Every room, closet, and storage space was in use. I knew that in order to find space for a breathing room in my house, I needed to remove some of our belongings. I needed to declutter.

The task seemed very simple and straightforward until I came to the deepest emotional layer of clutter: the stuff that stopped me in my tracks. Mind you, I knew I needed to let go of these things, but I physically could not release them. These objects represented deep emotional attachments for me. They did not bring me any joy. On the contrary, they made me feel terrible—queasy and burdened. Making a decision about them made my head spin.

I came to see that though I said I valued and longed for freedom, peace, and compassion, I was choosing fear over happiness by allowing my clutter to occupy my breathing room. I was choosing my emotional attachments over my spiritual freedom. That is when I chose to look at each piece of physical clutter as an opportunity to look at the emotional clutter that was preventing my spiritual growth. As I decluttered my home, what I loved and valued stood out more clearly—emotionally and physically. Through that experience, I learned that decluttering is a spiritual process that involves coming into communion with what is truly important.

When I shared this with friends and family, they had so many questions: How do I let go of objects that cause so much stress and strain? How do I overcome the resistance and fear I experience when I try to declutter? How do I manage the overwhelm and exhaustion?

I saw that the need to declutter at every level of our being—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually—was deep-seated in many people and that these people needed a guide. They needed a book that not only helped them see the connections to the clutter we keep inside and the clutter that manifests outwardly, but that gave compassionate encouragement to do the work of liberating space, and offered exercises to make that work joyful and sustainable.

I did not realize as I was imagining this book that soul healer, physician, television personality, and all-around sassy Southern belle—my sister in spirit, Dr. Melva Green—was undergoing her own transformative process of decluttering her life and finding a different kind of breathing room that required her to leave behind a successful traditional psychiatric practice in the United States in order to find her authentic voice as a holistic healer.

Melva’s Story

From the outside looking in, my life was perfect. As a Johns Hopkins-trained, board-certified psychiatrist, I’d been through all the rigors that are required of Western medical practitioners. I’ve had my own private practice, offered private therapy sessions, made medical referrals, and written prescriptions. I had all the accolades and prestige that come from years of devotion to my craft. I had the respect of colleagues and the attention of the media. But inside, I felt like an imposter, living someone else’s dream. From childhood, I have been a spiritual intuitive. I was born with a persistent inner voice guiding me to see the inner life that dwells within all human beings. Yet that voice, powerful as it was, was not what I considered the call to worldly success. So I dampened that voice. I pushed it down and proceeded down the career path clearly laid out before me—I felt I would risk everything by letting my inner voice out.

At the time, I lived in a beautiful home that I shared with my son. He was perfectly content, but I was anything but. Though I was surrounded by people who loved and respected me, deep down I felt completely alone. One day, I felt I could no longer live a lie. How could I continue to nurture my son when I could not nurture myself? What good was my career when I felt that I was shrinking inside? So I made a decision that most people would consider crazy: I closed the practice I had worked so hard to build. I left the beautiful home that I had paid for with the proceeds of my practice and moved to Costa Rica, where I would have the breathing room to rediscover myself and reinvent my life. I let go of everything I knew in order to discover everything I needed to know.

I deliberately moved to a home where the electronic connections I had previously valued were hard to find. Phone lines were frequently down. If I wanted to use the internet, I had to trudge through a rainforest to get to the closest town. Once I was away from people constantly having access to me, I finally found my breathing room. I had space—pure, open space. All I had to do was mother and meditate. With these two practices, I got to the work of finding breathing room. I opened every dark space within myself and took honest inventory of what I had been holding inside for years. In the process, I went deeper into those internal spaces than I had ever gone before.

So imagine my surprise when, in the midst of this life transition, the popular A&E show Hoarders called me. At that time, they were in their fifth season, with traditionally trained therapists. I thought the full disclosure of my spiritual solution for healing anxiety conditions, hoarding syndrome, and other behavioral disorders would send them running for the hills. But it had just the opposite effect. They loved it! It was, in their words, refreshing, exciting, and engaging. They were right—and the viewers felt the same way.

One of those viewers, my beautiful soul sister Lauren Rosenfeld, contacted me about a book she was writing called Breathing Room. She wanted feedback because of my involvement with Hoarders. She had no idea how deeply I connected with the idea of breathing room and how finding that room in my own inner life had completely transformed me. I knew instantly that this project would offer people a process for the inner work that I had found so liberating. I wanted to offer readers the same sense of freedom and inner divinity that I had found when I created breathing room in my life.

So when Lauren asked me if the creation of Breathing Room was a journey I wanted to embark upon with her, my answer was, Oh, hell yes! Get your butt down to Costa Rica and let’s do this!

So we met. Lauren flew to Costa Rica, where a bus spewing powerful diesel fumes bumped down a rutted road and dropped her off at my doorstep, dust-covered, sweaty, and smiling. We two soul sisters (and now coauthors) embraced. I took her into town for a refreshing drink of coconut water straight from a green coconut, and the two of us began to imagine how our two voices could come together to change hearts, homes, families, and lives.

Our two journeys merged to become a single strand that unites Melva’s years of experience as a psychiatrist (and lifelong calling to spiritual healing) with Lauren’s passion for helping people engage with the spiritual depths of their daily lives. In the course of writing this book, our path has taken us to meet declutterers whose stories you will encounter throughout this book. It is our hope that through these stories, our reflections on them, and the exercises we suggest, you’ll find your own path—a path which slices through your clutter and leads you to the open spaces within your home and your heart: your breathing room.

Introduction: How We Can Help You, Your Home, and Your Heart

In the pages of this book, we will help you look deeply at the clutter in your home so you can see that, just beneath the clutter, illuminating spiritual lessons and emotional ah-has are waiting to help you not only liberate space in your home but also space in your heart, as well as give flight to your spirit and rock your world.

In these pages, you will find not only advice from a medical doctor and a spiritual intuitive, but you will also find case studies of people just like yourself, people who struggle with clutter in their homes and their hearts and who want to free themselves of this clutter but simply don’t know where to begin. We set them on the path by making one connection clear: your heart is like a home. The home is like a heart. And you, my friend, can make both places open, light-filled, and a joy to reside in.

But first, it’s important for us to note that the way to freedom is not always simple. In this process, history, perception, and emotion are intricately intertwined. It’s a complex journey each person must undertake with compassion and self-awareness. While certain exercises, models, and tools can be helpful, individuals have different emotions that link them to their past and different possessions that they may need to hold on to in order to properly heal. It may take time to revel in memory and love before we can release what needs to go—if it needs to go at all. Not everything can simply be sliced away because we do not see the purpose of it; you will decide for yourself what can stay and what should go. This is your personal journey and only you know how to make that journey safe and comfortable.

A Note from Dr. Green on the Nature of Tough Love and Transformation

Compassion takes many forms. Some people have said that I have a tough love approach. One fan of Hoarders once told me, You know, Dr. Green, you’re like this perfect harmonic balance between empathy, compassion, love, and ‘C’mon now! Get your shit straight!’

I actually don’t consider myself to be tough at all. I consider myself to be to be a spiritual midwife who is trained as a psychiatrist. When a client is going through a significant transformation, it is like being in labor. A miracle is about to happen—but if something goes wrong, we have to get the baby and the mother out of distress. If the person undergoing transformation is in a spiritual labor crisis, I can’t be sweet or gentle in that moment.

I consider it my role to aid people as they get to the next stage of their spiritual and emotional birthing process. I can’t let nature take its course when time is of the essence and someone’s life is at risk. In those cases, being gentle is not the most appropriate form of compassion. It does not honor the reality of the situation. And as any Hoarders fan might tell you, I will always be honest, because without honesty, transformation is not possible.

How to Read and Use this Book

This spiritual method of decluttering can be summarized in one word: SLICE. This is an acronym for Stop and Listen. Intend. Clear the Energy. This method is the most powerful way to cut through clutter in your home and your heart to reveal the shining truth and beauty underneath.

Lauren uses this method with her private clients, and it is so easy and effective, that when followed as we detail in this book, the clutter practically removes itself.

The SLICE method is a holistic approach to decluttering. If you declutter your home without doing the same for your heart, you are carrying around emotional clutter and will not be able to be present in your decluttered home. If you declutter your heart without decluttering your relationships, you will quickly find yourself drawn into conflict (or conflict avoidance) that will fill your heart back up with anger, guilt, and resentment. If you declutter your home, your heart, and your relationships without attending to your roles and responsibilities, you will find yourself so exhausted and burned out that you can’t find the energy to enjoy your life. This is about taking care of it all—making room within it all. With our process, gorgeous, elemental Divine light can cascade through every aspect of your life and your work in the world.

There are three steps to the SLICE method.

The First Step: Stop and Listen

Even though Stop and Listen may sound like the easiest step, it is the most challenging, because we are asking you to change your habits of being. You have to stop running away from your clutter and listen to the lesson it’s trying to teach you. Yet the impulse to run is strong in all of us. In fact, sometimes this impulse may feel overpowering. Recently, Lauren was at a dinner party when one of the guests remarked, I don’t know how you do what you do. When Lauren asked why, he answered, Just looking at clutter makes me nervous. It makes me want to run.

He’s not alone. Clutter makes us want to run for the hills—but not for the reasons we think. It’s not just because it’s messy (which, of course, it is) and it’s not just because it’s time consuming (which, of course, it is). It’s because of what the clutter represents to us: our history, fears, worries, and uncomfortable and painful emotions.

The first step of the SLICE process is to slow down and look at your clutter mindfully. Our physical clutter is simply a manifestation of the emotional clutter we carry inside. If we attempt to remove the physical clutter without consciously acknowledging the emotional clutter it represents, then two things might happen. First, we might resist decluttering altogether because of the natural urge to turn away from our painful feelings. Second, we may find that even if we have the courage to remove the clutter, if we don’t mindfully and compassionately acknowledge our feelings, the physical clutter will return, because the emotions that caused the clutter want and need to be acknowledged and will manifest as physical clutter again and again until we do so. In the first step, we also introduce you to the emotions that tend to generate clutter and teach you how to loosen their hold on your heart.

The Second Step: Intend

In the second section, Intend, we will examine each room’s emotional and spiritual significance. You will be challenged to look at rooms as more than just spaces that house your furniture; they are an outward manifestation of your emotional and spiritual life. For each space, you will pick at least three words to describe the energy that you want to create in that particular room. You will make signs to serve as a reminder of your intention for creating energies in each room. We also suggest you create a decluttering journal. Whether you choose a beautiful hardbound journal with a decorative cover or a simple spiral bound notebook does not matter. Just keep it accessible so that you are able to record your thoughts as you go through your decluttering journey.

You may find that not every room we mention applies to your home. Even so, we suggest that you spend some time reading each section, because even though you may not have certain physical rooms in your home, you do have analogous spaces in your heart. For example, you may live in an apartment with no formal entry hall or foyer, but you do have a space in your heart for open invitation. Or, you may live in a home without a dining room, but you still have the need for emotional nourishment and sharing that this space represents.

You may like to read these chapters in order, but it is not necessary to do that. You can read them in the order that will help you feel most comfortable. Some people may find that they would like to begin by exploring the room that holds the least amount of clutter and build up to the room with the most. Others might find that they would rather go directly to the room that is most cluttered; having created space there, they move on to rooms that feel emotionally and physically lighter. Use your intuition to guide you, and work in the order that feels most comfortable.

The Third Step: Clear the Energy

In the third section of the book, Clear the Energy, we will go over the Ten Principles of Spiritual Decluttering. Once you have set your intention, you can understand more deeply how you will go about clearing out the possessions that do not resonate with the energy you intend for your rooms. With each of these principles, you will find an exercise for decluttering your home, your heart, your relationships, and your roles and responsibilities. With the completion of each exercise, you will feel just how liberating it is to SLICE through the clutter that has been binding your home and heart.

For each of the principles, there are four exercises: one each for decluttering your home, your heart, your relationships, and your roles and responsibilities. Though it is not necessary to do these exercises in any specific order, we suggest that you read through and understand each of the ten principles before you jump into the exercises, since some of them may speak more clearly to your heart than others. For example, you may find that the fourth principle, Accept where you are, speaks powerfully to where you are in your life’s path because you have been longing for complete and compassionate acceptance. Or maybe you are drawn to the principle Consider your legacy as you live because you might be contemplating what is most important to pass on to the generations that follow you.

Once you understand all of these principles, you will know best where to begin. We suggest that once you choose a principle, you do all four exercises associated with that principle. This way, you can come to see the power of this decluttering principle and its power to create breathing room in your heart, your home, your relationships, and your time.

In the final section of the book, Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life, we will give you the wisdom you need to stay decluttered. Decluttering is not a do-it-once-and-never-do-it-again activity. It is an attitude, a way of seeing, a way of being in the world.

Throughout this book, you will meet some of our actual clients. As you read their stories, you’ll find out just what they were running from and the spiritual lessons they gained when they had the courage to stop and listen, intend, and clear the energy. Our hope is that you may recognize something of yourself in them. Perhaps their situations aren’t precisely like yours. Maybe the kinds of clutter they’ve accumulated are different from yours, but we guarantee that their fears, worries, and regrets will strike a chord with you. We are all human beings—we all experience the emotions that lead us to clutter our homes and hearts. You will read how Lauren helped each client to spiritually declutter, and you’ll get Dr. Green’s expert feedback about the emotional blockages that drive the cluttering behavior. She’ll offer advice to others in similar situations or with similar emotional blockages, showing how to find relief and freedom.

Decluttering means slicing away the things that no longer serve you so that you can get the space, time, and positive feeling you need. This process is about creating and maintaining breathing room in your home and heart. It is a