No More Hiding Places in Your Heart

We all have places in our homes and our hearts where we hide the stuff we don’t want other people to see. Everyone does this. There is a really powerful, self-perpetuating irony in this behavior. We all believe that we are the only ones with clutter to hide. We go to other people’s homes and it appears that they have no clutter. Their surfaces are clear and everything seems in its place. So we all think: I am the only one. And what does this make us want to do? It makes us want to hide our clutter, that’s what!

So everyone is hiding their clutter based on the false belief that no one else has clutter (because everyone is hiding their clutter from everyone else). Look, if everyone had the courage to take all their clutter and dump it in the middle of their living room—every closet, drawer, space under every bed, shelf, and cabinet—we would all see the reality. That shocking reality is that we are all human and everyone’s life gets messy and unmanageable from time to time.

What About Heart Clutter?

This goes for heart clutter as well. We all carry around heart clutter: fears, worries, insecurities, and disappointments. It may appear to you that you are the only person who carries these burdens. It seems like everyone else is perfectly happy, has a well-organized emotional life, and is spiritually clear. Operating under this false assumption, we take the same approach in our hearts as we do in our home. We stash clutter away and hide it. We tuck it all into secret hiding places that only we know about.

Just as with our homes, it may be that even the people we live with don’t know where our secret hiding places are or what’s crammed away in them. In fact, it may be the case—and we see this with many clutterers—that we have stashed away so much stuff, that we no longer know what’s in there. We don’t know our full emotional inventory any more than we know what’s in our home.

Because of these hiding places, we are in the habit of being spiritually dishonest. Whatever Higher Power we feel connected with, we can’t even be honest with that sacred being. We are so committed to presenting a clean and clear front, so used to guarding these private hiding places within ourselves, that we cannot even open ourselves completely to the very power that can heal us.


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Opening Up and Letting the Light Shine

We want to suggest that you open up your hiding places and let the lights of day, spirit, and healing shine on them. There has to be an honest inventory in our homes and our hearts. The image we present to the world of who we are and how we live is just that—an image. It is an image until we stop hiding who we are and stop trying to pretend our homes and our hearts aren’t cluttered and disordered.

If we have the constant anxiety that we are about to be discovered for who we truly are, there is no way that we can truly relax. No amount of polishing up the exterior will do away with the fear that someone is going to stumble into one of our dreaded hiding places and fully know who we are.

One Thing to Remember

If you remember one thing, let it be this: You are loved. By your Creator. By the Universe. By All That Is. And not just for the parts of you that are shining and inviting. You are loved—even the parts of you that feel messy, unfinished, frayed, or unclear. We are loved, all of us, for being human and imperfect as we truly are.

There is no need to hide what needs to be forgiven. You are already forgiven. You now need to forgive yourself. Open up the hiding places. Reveal yourself. You can’t declutter until you’ve taken this courageous step: the act of opening in pure faith.

©2014 Lauren Rosenfeld & Melva Green. All Rights Reserved.
Reprinted with permission from Atria Books/
Beyond Words Publishing. www.beyondword.com

Article Source

Breathing Room: Open Your Heart by Decluttering Your Home by Lauren Rosenfeld and Dr. Melva Green.Breathing Room: Open Your Heart by Decluttering Your Home
by Lauren Rosenfeld and Dr. Melva Green.

Click here for more info and/or to order this book on Amazon.

About the Authors

Lauren Rosenfeld, co-author of: Breathing Room--Open Your Heart by Decluttering Your Home.Lauren Rosenfeld, M.A., M.Ed, is a Soul Declutterer and a Spiritual Treasure Hunter. Since childhood, she has been a spiritual intuitive who is able to see spiritual lessons shining even in life's most challenging situations. She has written two books to guide readers toward finding miracles within the mundane: "Your To Be List" and "Breathing Room: Open Your Heart by Decluttering Your Home". Lauren blogs about everyday miracles and mysticism at lgrosenfeld.com.

Dr. Melva Green, co-author of: Breathing Room--Open Your Heart by Decluttering Your HomeDr. Melva Green is a board certified psychiatrist, TV personality, and spiritual healer. She is an expert doctor on the popular and critically acclaimed A&E show Hoarders. Dr. Green lives in Costa Rica with her son where she will soon be opening a center for healing arts dedicated to “Healing the Healers”, a retreat for medical professionals in need of emotion healing and spiritual renewal.