736: The Surprising Spiritual Power Behind Clutter Clearing

You might think clutter is some kind of personal failing. It's embarrassing and you feel guilty and mad at yourself for not tidying up. I know. I have felt the same way a hundred thousand times. You think it might mean you're lazy or a procrastinator or just something. But what if it doesn't mean any of those things? And what if once you understood why you really have clutter, you you become instantly empowered to take care of it? Well, let's talk about what clutter really means, why you have it, and my favorite way for tackling it that removes this feeling of frozen overwhelm and instead turns the whole process into a cathartic and healing practice. Flow Dreaming still kinda Woo Woo is just what it sounds like. An escape into the world of woo. Also a ride into you and how to feel happier, wiser, more self aware in every way. It's your ultimate journey into personal growth and inner power. We'll explore ideas like how your energy self influences the kinds of opportunities you encounter, or how your personal growth can drive your business growth, or even how that feeling of being stuck is really always coming from something else. We just have to figure out what. That's right, we're a dash of woo woo. A sprinkle of self care, a heap of problem solving and pattern busting, and a giant cup of encouragement. We're going to relight so much passion, purpose, self love and confidence in you that you practically stagger. I'm Summer McStravik, your host and welcome to Flow Dreaming. Still kinda Woo Woo. Hello my friends, it's Summer and welcome to Flow Dreaming. We're here to elevate and uplift your mind, expand your thinking, break through limiting thoughts and scarcity and lack and really just kind of have a good fun time together as we explore a lot of things related to this idea and this, well, compulsion, at least in my case, to continuously grow, expand, learn and become the next iteration of myself. Now, before we jump into today's topic, I have a few little announcements to make. Kind of fun stuff that, well, really fun stuff at least in my opinion. Many of you have seen me flash around some Oracle cards either in video, online, in classes, mentioning them many times over the last 18 years. Well, I have finally got them ready to go to the printer. The only caveat is I decided that I would make this a Kickstarter campaign. Now I've never done Kickstarter my entire life, but the more I looked at into it, the more it seemed cool, just kind of fun. Because first of all, there's different levels you can back where I can give you different things and kind of escalate the goodies along the way. And it also, you know, really shows me what kind of interest there is and how many decks I should end up producing. So right now Kickstarter is funding and I've got 30 days to make this happen. If I don't reach the funding goal, then the cards don't get made because Kickstarter is kind of an all in one platform and that is the risk that I decided to take take. So I really urge you to go to Kickstarter. Just type in Flow Dreaming F L O W D R E A M I N G and the Oracle deck should pop up. If you are a backer or contributor, I'm going to give you some big hugs and smooches right now just in advance because literally it's been it's been about two decades that these have been in the making and they are truly some of the most, most extraordinarily accurate cards that I have come across. And believe me, I've got my own large collection of Oracle cards. So it was really imperative to me that these are infused with that manifesting spice as well as logical loving direction. Anyway, enough said on that. Aside from that, you know, every month I do a workshop live. It's a live workshop for everybody who's in the Flow Dreaming Mastermind, which I am now going to be calling the Rising Light Leaders of the Flow Dreaming Mastermind. Because yes, that too is changing. I guess it's a little peek before the year begins where things are going to head. In 2025, I have a new group that is opening for everyone to come and join for 100% free. It is to scrap and replace all the old social media sites that frankly just feel like a bur dumpster fire of neglect and overwhelm if you you guys are feeling anything like me. So it was really time to create something much more tidy and more intimate. So you're going to be hearing more about that, especially if you are on my email list. If you're not, go to flow dreaming.com just register to get my two free flow dreams. I'll send those to you, as well as some other stuff. But that's also how you'll get an invite into the new Stardust Society, the Flow Dreaming Mastermind. Okay, those are the two big things, big deals, things dings that I have on the table this month. Let's jump into our topic so you can learn something so you can get fired up and feel a little bit more inspired. Now, I know that the end of the year may seem like an odd month to talk about clutter clearing and cleaning house, because really, this is when we're all starting to fold ourselves away indoors and light the fireplace and cook all the good food and invite all the friends and family and buy, buy, buy, buy, buy. Until those presents are stacked to the ceiling. This is absolutely the best time to make space and to clean and clear things away. So I'm reflecting right now on last weekend. And I began with one small little chore that I really needed to get done in the house. I had to touch up some paint. I had to figure out if I had the paint, how to get the paint. I had to apply it, see if it matched, you know, how it is. You're, you know, the. Around your doors and the baseboards and things like that. One thing led to another, and then I realized I had some white shirts that needed some bleaching. And then I realized that all the plants in my house were looking a little dusty and dirty, and they needed a good wash and a rinse out in my shower. And from there, it just went on and on. I ended up in my office closet, rearranging and creating space on all the office shelves, getting rid and going through. I. I brought, like, 10 years of old taxes out into the garage for safekeeping. I know I could throw them out by now, but a little bit paranoid about the whole, you know, the world of taxes, right? So they're just going to stay there for a while. But before I knew it, I had chipped my way through at least more than half a dozen small projects. And I reflected on it later. Like, you know, it's interesting. I got the energy going around one, and it was naturally overflowing into the next and the next and the next. And at the end of the day, there was a natural stopping point, A point when I felt like, yeah, okay, that's good. Now, looking around, you know, from the outside, I can't see a whole lot of difference because a lot of the stuff I did was the invisible stuff that we often neglect because it's invisible. And it's good that it's invisible. You guys know, I even took the. The moth pantry. The pantry moth traps out of the. The closets and. And the. And the food pantry and replace those. I mean, like, crazy little things, things that build up and unfortunately, continuously need to get done if you want to not have, you know, weevils in your flower or holes in your shirts. But looking at it now, having let a week or so, a little more than a week flow by. What I'm looking at is not what I did, but the energy that I did it with. And that's the energy that we so often really want to summon in ourselves. And that's the energy that when we don't summon it, we start to get this little haunting whisper. Look at that pile of stuff. Look at all those clothes that don't fit anymore. Look at all that broken stuff you've got stuffed away in that junk room in the house or down in the garage or the cellar. What are you gonna do with all that stuff? Look at those piles over there. Yeah, you got piles. They're piling up, piling up on the kitchen counter, piling up on the dining room table, piling up in the. Again, the junk room or the room maybe where your kids or other people have moved out of the quote, quote exercise room that it was supposed to be piled up with junk. At a certain point, this sense of guilt, this sense of, oh, I can't possibly do that today. I'm already so tired. I'm already so overwhelmed today. I'm just gonna give some time to myself, some me time. I'm gonna. I'm gonna do some sel. And that definitely doesn't mean cleaning out old crud. I'd like us to just stop for a moment and recalibrate. Sometimes self care means exactly. Walking into a room, opening a drawer, sticking your hand between a whole bunch of clothes in a closet, and saying, what three things can I open space around? What five things can I change now? Energetically? Think about this from a flow and energy, a consciousness perspective. When things are stagnant and still around us, they're holding shape and they're holding place. They're holding space in a place. They're blocking it, they're filling it. And yet we walk around saying, I feel so stuck. I need some new opportunities. I need some new directions. I want some freshness. I need to feel released in my life. Yet we feel this because precisely because more and more around us, inevitably stuff is piled up and to the point where we are literally surrounded by a wall. Now, the stuff we collect is physical. True. I mean, it's real stuff. It's gathering dust balls and dog hair and cat hair and old spider we. And right, It's. It's gathering dust. But the stuff around us isn't just physical. It has an emotional impact on us. It has a psychological impact on us. It says, there's too much for you you can't tackle this. You should give up. Not today. It's going to be more than you can handle. Oh, we are exhausting. Can you hear that? You can hear that whisper. I know you can. I mean, it goes through all of our heads and it's a way that we keep a kind of status quo. It's a way we hold a tension inside of ourself. I want to change, I want to expand, I want new, fresh things. But at the same time, I like security, I like stability, I like having what I've got. And I don't know what those new, fresh things will be. So I'm going to go back and forth and back and forth until the very back and forthiness of it all exhausts me. Now, what I mentioned in the beginning about your, quote, higher self, your God consciousness, your greater self, your greater being, maybe communicating to you. Let's just play with that idea. What if as these feelings arise in you, time to clean up, time to let go, time to release. What if it's not actually coming from guilt? What if it's not coming from embarrassment of the messiness over there? Don't look. Sure, you can come in my house. Just don't look in that room. We've all said this, right? What if that is the symptom but not the cause? That's the result? What if the actual cause is a part of you that's saying, I'm antsy, I'm itching to go, I've got stuff to give you. We've got places to move toward and things to experience. But you've packed yourself up like a little rat in your. In your hidey hole with all your little. Anybody had hamsters? You know, they make these little hamster nests, these little rat nests, just all this fluff around you and it makes you safe and secure, but it's also pretty dirty. If you've had a rat or a hamster, you know that to be true. And maybe your higher self is saying, can we just see what it feels like to let a few things go? Can we do that, please? Just a few. Just a couple. See what happens. So this is reminding me of myself last weekend. I was like, I'll just clean up a few little things. I glued some things together that. You know how we always have those broken things that sit around and need to be glued? And then by the time we get to it, the thing that had to be glued on on is long lost and all we're left is with the broken. Right. I just started and. And here's the way that I managed my mind and my energy as I started. I didn't say to myself, oh, it's going to be a big, awful chore day. It's like cleaning out the garage. It's going to take 16 hours. It's going to be awful. I didn't say that. I said, what are a couple little things that I want to take on? And just get the good feeling about having completed them. Give me some quick hits. Right? Quick dopamine hits. What? Can I. Can I glue this cup back? This vase that's broken? Can I glue this? Oh, I did. Wow. That felt kind of good. Can I bleach this thing? Oh, yeah, I got that taken care of, too. Can I go through this drawer and clear stuff out? Not bad. How about this pile over there? Right. It's full of stuff. You haven't looked at that in, like, six months. Well, let's look through it. One thing builds upon the next. And what I'm actually doing is not just materially physically going through stuff. I'm emotionally going through it, and I'm energetically going through it. And every time I hit a little mini completion point, a part of me goes, cha ching, cha ching, cha ching, cha ching. That very process is what motivates you to do the next one. Cha ching, cha ching, cha ching, cha ching. So the key is when you're embarking on clearing space around you, when that greater you is saying, I want to give you more, but you need to make space for me to do it, your answer is, all right, I'm going to do a couple little things and see how I feel, and I'll continue today if it feels good, and if it doesn't, I'm going to stop. Here's another example. So in my home office, I have it set up back for the days when I had a much larger staff, and sometimes I'd have them over here. So I've got a lot of seating in my office today after having changed my staffing and become much more of a solopreneur. Very happy as a solopreneur. I have all this seating, and I look at it every day, and I think it's pretty. It looks really nice. And every now and then, my husband comes in and sits down and pontificates with me. But really, that's about it. I've been looking at this space. I'm looking at it right now, actually, as I'm. As I'm talking with you, and I'm thinking, you know, I've got this Big craft table. It's been sitting in my closet for about 24 years. I need to get that craft table out. I need to lay it down. Need to put some nice cork board or something on top of it and put some cork tiles or a tarp underneath. And another part of me says, yeah, what are you gonna do with that? You think you're really gonna do some crafts summer? Really? Do you have time for that? You're just saying that. You always say that, but you're not really. So I've been sitting on this fence, but I keep feeling, I keep feeling like a part of me is saying, hey, as long as you have all this seating here, the seating that's reflective of, frankly, you five, six, seven, eight years ago, that's how old this, this setup is. Now, as long as you keep holding that, we can't really go anywhere. And I don't know where the craft stuff will take me. Maybe nowhere. Maybe it's just going to be my old lady age hobby. Or maybe I'll end up doing something pretty awesome and starting a new little store or Etsy shop and changing my life completely as I sell a banana bazillion of them. I don't know. The fact is, my flow, my life, my future self, my higher self, can't really tell me what's going to come of that because I won't take the first step now. Why won't we take the first step sometimes? Now, I've done other episodes on why it's so hard to release things. This is kind of playing into that a little bit. Why is it hard for me to release this beautiful furniture setup? I've got couches, chairs and coffee tables. It's great. Well, part of me says because it's really nice looking, don't fix it if it ain't broke, right? This is a really nice coffee table. This is a beautiful, you know, chair. And the pillows, everything is just nice, you know, you can't waste that. That's wasteful. On the other hand, I've gotten a good seven solid years of use out of this. And right now I'm not getting much use out of it. I'm getting decorative use. I'm getting eye candy. And I'm asking myself, why can't I let it go? Well, remember, we identify ourselves with certain times and places. This is often why it's really hard to let things go in our closet. I remember when I fit into that, these were the things that were happening. I remember how happy I felt with my body when I fit into that objects become physical anchors for memories. And if we let the objects go, we become a little afraid that those memories are going to go too. Or I'm thinking of a client now who happens to have lots and lots of paperwork in her office from some of her clients that she works for. And those stacks of unput away papers are a constant reminder to her that I have work. I have people who pay me every month and they need me. If I were to put those papers away, if I were to file them, get them out of here, I would suddenly have all this empty space and it would be unnerving because that constant sense of safety, I have this around me. This is true. I can see it with my eyes would be gone. And yet her goal is to actually release some clients and replace them with ones that are much easier to care for, that don't even create as much paperwork. So we're walking through, we're jumping over this hurdle just as I'm jumping over it in my own mind right now about letting go of some of the things in this space that are reminding me of a different time, a time I really loved. But I need to move forward. My life and my flow and my higher self are saying, there are more things for you, Summer. Can you please trust that? And I think that's what a lot of releasing stuff and clutter clearing is really about. It's about trust. Do I trust that this will be replaced? Do I trust that what will come in will be more perfectly in alignment with me than the stuff that I've been holding from the old me and the old times and the old days? Do I believe that? I hope the answer is yes. Part of it just starts with that recognition in the first place. So one of the tricks that I do when I begin is I kind of hinted at it earlier. I'll go in with a mission to take three things away. I'm going to remove three things. I'm going to change one small area. I start very small. I was looking at all of my shoes actually a couple nights ago in my closet and I realized I have way too many pairs. And I started to think some of these pairs I've had going on 10, 20 or more years now. Yeah. That I just admitted to being like extremely unfashionable. I, I recognize that I've got Merrells, for God's sakes, from like the 1990s. And you know what they, they do, they've got that little moldy stuff on them that shoes get when you haven't Touched them in years, and I looked at them and I thought, I just need to get rid of three pair, just three pair. I need to see three open spaces that can be replaced with something else. Part of me says, well, maybe you don't have the money to replace those shoes now. That's okay. Having the open space in my mind, in my psyche, in my energy, in my physical surroundings creates opportunities to fill it. Whether I have the ability to fill it now or later is irrelevant. Until there's space, you can't throw. I always say you can't pour more water into a full glass. So I'm going to encourage you right now as we go into, especially, you know, this holiday season, and you're going to be adding more things into your home, your space, your work. Can you pull three things away? How often can you take three things away? Where are those three things coming from? They could be three paper clips out of your drawer, or they could be an entire couch, a chair, and a coffee table. Doesn't matter. I want you to get to that space. I want you to have the experience of what it feels like when something actually does come in because the space is there. And that thing that comes in, you say, oh, my gosh, this fits me better than everything, anything. Wow. This is who I am today and now. And what's weird, what's wonderful is I don't even feel guilty about having it. I don't feel guilty about acquiring it. It's supposed to be here. I have room for. Fits me now. It fits me today. So this is my wish and my hope for you as you think about what you're going to do, perhaps this weekend, what can be tossed out? What drawer can be gone through, what closet can be looked at, what room can be reassembled, what parts of your life can you look at and simply say, this is old and faded and worn, or even this is in perfect condition. I've just been looking at it for 15 years, and it doesn't fill me with any sort of joy anymore. I want to give it away to someone who does get filled with joy. And that's when you throw it in the back of your car and you haul it off to the Salvation army or the Goodwill or your local charity of your choice, and you say, please take this. I want someone else to light up when they see it. I want to give those objects I love the next step in their life to their next home as well. Now, I've got a few things that can help you with this. Actually, I have several Flow Dreams, Clutter Clearing, Flow Dreams that you can find@flowdreaming.com and I have a whole course in this. Like, this was like a preview. But if you really want that energy that maybe I was starting to stir in you, like, God, I really want this. Yes, I want new, fresh things. Yes, I want opportunities. I. Yes, I want them to be affordable. Yes, I want them to fit me. Yes, I am ready to get unstuck. And I want a change. I want this next year to be different and better. Then I encourage you, go to flowdrimming.com look up the courses and membership site. If you become part of the Flow Dreaming Mastermind, that is the Rising Light Leaders Mastermind. Like I mentioned, you'll get that great clutter clearing course for the price of your monthly membership. In fact, you'll get 35 other courses as well. But this is a great one to begin with. And just imagine the feeling of walking into some space around you and, and just thinking, oh God, this is so clean, it's so bright, it's so open. I can practically feel it vibrating and waiting for me to give it something that fits me today. What a wonderful feeling. And I wonder what will happen. What will come in to fill this. What things do I not know about yet that I've been yearning for and now I've made room for them. I've made space. I want you to have that. So again, check out flowdreaming.com or go to the Flow Dreaming app. Look for clutter Clearing. When you play these flow dreams, they get you into the perfect emotional energetic state. They are ways of manifesting, of changing your own inner energy and making everything in your life a thousand times easier. Quicker, faster. All of the above. All right, my friends, lots of love to you. I hope you feel inspired. I will hopefully keep you updated on what happens to this couch and chair, what I decide to do with it because. Well, now, cats out of the bag. I'd feel pretty silly if I didn't do something around this. Especially because I've been buying a lot of crafting things lately and I'm trying to find a place to put them. All right? So obviously my. My higher self is whispering, hey, hey, we want to go someplace. Please, please, please listen. And that's exactly what it's saying to you as well. All right, my dears, lots of love to you and I'll see you all for another episode of Flow Dreaming. A quick note for newcomers. Flow Dreaming is both an energy practice and a way of seeing the world. It teaches you how to manifest, heal and use your emotions to create a sublime life. You'll find over 300 recorded flow dreams which are similar to but not the same as meditations, and a free short training@flow dreaming.com this show dives into Flow Dreaming and other concepts to help you live a more powerful and fulfilling life. Now let's get to the show.