Clearing Clutter - Q&A

Welcome everyone to Clearing Clutter Question and answer. I'm Rick Wilkes from Thriving now, and I'm here with Carol look from Carollook.com and we're delighted that you're joining us from all over the world. If you'd like, just drop a quick chat, let us know where you're calling in from. And if you've already got the Clearing Clutter from the Inside out program, you can say, got it. And if you don't, that's awesome, too. This call is not specifically focused in that way to try to get you to get the Clutter program or not. It is something that we have available right now. It's something that we're excited about and also that we know that there are questions. Just even hearing the answer to one of the questions today could make a difference that allows someone to go forward on their own or to break some energy and get their activity moving. And so Carol and I wanted to offer this to you, our community, as a gift and also an engagement. It gives a chance to get to know what are your core questions. And we really appreciate how much vulnerability many of you have put into the questions and the emails and the like. So, Carol, do you want to. Wait a second. There we go. Carol, do you want to say a little bit about this topic and what makes it meaningful to you?

Sure. I'll tell you what's meaningful. Absolutely everyone showing up here, Harriet and Kathy from Michigan and Linda from Australia and Ute from Germany and Barbro from Sweden. We love having you all here. What makes this so wonderful for me is how much tapping has changed my life and how much this topic has changed for me. So I am a Clutterer bug from way back, really learned how to do it from my family. And this work changed everything. This work, being able to emotionally understand the ties and the connections to my stuff, whatever my stuff is, has allowed me to let it go peacefully. And that's why we want you just to be able to ask more questions and be able to say, yes, but what about this? And I'm still having trouble here because that's what changed it for me. It's what totally changed the topic and my being around stuff and clutter and how much I attach to it. So it's really, it's very personal for me and I love helping everybody. And as you said, Rick, us being here to engage, buy the program, don't buy the program. That's great. Rick and I have done our abundance work. We're good, we're happy. Sales have been fabulous. We're happy. We want you to change your relationship with clutter because that'll change your life for the better. So I'm just happy to engage with you all. We already have wonderful questions. And hi from Texas. And hi, Sandra from Portugal. Wow. We have at least 10 countries so far, and we just love. We love doing the work. This is what we love doing, engaging with you all and answering the questions. Because sometimes the insight from somebody else's question can absolutely change your stance towards clutter, and that's what we love.

You said it, Carol. I think the difference here is that we're focusing on the relationship, and relationships are about the energy between two people, two things, or even ourselves and nature. In that relationship, there's an energetic connection, and it can be a connection of attachment, not wanting to let go. It could be an energy of repulsion. I want to get rid of it. We're going to be talking about that and tapping on it a little bit today as well to let everyone know. We're going to go for one hour, and I know we'll have lots more questions left that we haven't gotten to. But there is an Ask a question. If you're on the desktop, you'll see a little ask a question with a number next to it. If you click that, you'll see some of the questions. You can upvote them. You can also add your own. I'll be scanning that as we go, asking and engaging. Carol and I on that. So I also invite you to reduce your distractions. Turn the ding, ding, ding off on the phone if you can, if that's a possibility for you. Maybe focus in on what we're doing. Allow yourself to feel the emotions that might come up, particularly emotions that are like, oh, I don't want to do. I don't want to listen to that. Oh, that doesn't apply to me. If you have a kind of a, like a dismissive, distracted energy, that's a lot of what clutter is. All right, let's get going. Give me a moment here.

And I would also say just bouncing off what you just said, a cluttered mind is part of the problem. It certainly is for me. So when you can be quiet, still and focused, you may be uncomfortable with an emotion that comes up, but at least you are facing it, owning it, admitting it. And that's where movement comes. Movement does not come from running away. We know that. So just see if you can be with it, even if it feels distressing. That's what we try to do with the props. For clutter as well.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And all right. And see that Jennifer's already started the program. That's great. We're going to be asking some questions here. So the first question comes from Dawn. I'm looking at stacks of paper, clutter. How can I have an emotional attachment to paper? Sometimes I don't see it at all. And today it looks overwhelming. Dawn, thank you. Your question has been upvoted the most of all of the questions we had talked before. And it's a core part of. If you're trying to let go of something that's meaningful to you, like, this is something I'm not letting go of. These are my kids. A long time ago, it was a gift from them. It sits right on my desk, my mostly uncluttered desk. There's other things. I have an attachment to it, but sometimes there's a stack of bills. And we don't necessarily have an attachment like we want to keep it or afraid of letting it go or fear of missing out. It can be a repulsion. Like, I don't want to deal with that. And that's where what's in the stack might be overwhelm. And as dawn said today, she's overwhelmed. So that's where you can look at the stack and go, that stack overwhelms me. That stack overwhelms me. That stack overwhelms me. That stack overwhelms me. That stack overwhelms me. After you do the kind of. The first layer of that, ask your body, hey, what's overwhelming about that? This emotional process is start your feeling. And you can ask a question then about that. Allow yourself to go a bit deeper. Clutter is the wait. And one of the things that we know is that inside one stack could be that letter or it could be a reminder. I have someone who, you know, walking into a room, she just turns around and goes right out. Because the papers from the bankruptcy seven years ago are still in boxes in the corner. And it wasn't until she looked at them. And it's overwhelming. I don't wanna, I don't wanna, I don't wanna, I don't wanna. Just tapping the points and just saying, I don't, I can't, I refuse. Why? What makes this. Why do I feel such repulsion? The bankruptcy. And that can give you a doorway into the traumas that might be unresolved. The tension that you feel in your body still just touching on that and tapping on the tensions that you feel and then allowing yourself to leave it. But Come back. If this is a journey that we're in together and we believe that going back and touching on it, do some emotional processing. Not to the point that you're depleted and need to sleep for three weeks or pushing yourself, but start with a small stack of paper, hold it in your hands, feel what you feel, and put it back down. Or take the first thing on the top, or pick one randomly, like pick a card, any card, pick a terrible piece of paper, any piece of paper, and go with that. Carol, is there anything you want to add to that right now?

Well, just what you're saying that's so important is it's not about the paper. Our modules, some of our modules say, it's not about the stuff, it's what the stuff represents. So when she's asking, how could I be attached to paper? You're not attached to paper. You're attached to what the messages represent inside of the stack of paper. And that's if all we did was get to what's the next layer, as you're suggesting. Oh, my gosh. We start to clean, heal, release, and then it becomes just paper. But it's not just paper yet.

Right?

Or else we'd move forward. So, great, Dawn. Thank you, dawn, for that question. I'm sure many people could relate.

If you can relate to that, if that applies to you, feel free to just say yes. That's. I get that way with paper. I believe that one of the reasons we wanted this community get together is so that we know that this is so human, to have this kind of repulsion from stacks of paper. Confusion, overwhelm. Yeah. So Carol Rebecca writes, I've done a lot of tapping to clear my clutter, but I just can't seem to get it cleared up. My place is a mess, and there are stacks of papers and boxes everywhere. I can't seem to figure out what the core issue is that's blocking me.

Great. I would say thank you for that. And the core issue will present itself behind the question. And here's my favorite question. What are you afraid of you might feel if you clean all that up? So she's describing boxes of paper and boxes of things. If it's not in your way and it's calm, quiet, and peaceful, what other emotion? Grief?

Hurt?

Resentment? Fear? What might come up instead? In other words, clutter is incredibly distracting, and it's distracting for a reason. So I would say if you don't feel you've gotten to your core issue and it's manifested in plenty of stuff still around you, I would suspect there's a fear of getting rid of, a fear of throwing out, a fear of being without it. Because I think in our original webinar, Rick, we talked about the protection. Clutter protects us. And we have to be kind of brave enough because it's a little scary to say, what's it protecting us from? Intimacy, talking to people, being close, a feeling of hurt or betrayal we don't want to deal with. That has nothing to do with the paperwork or the books, but it's a feeling we won't go to grief.

Someone said last time in the comments that she understood where her clutter was from because it was a way of keeping her mother in law away from her house. So sometimes there is a core issue that if you loosen up the energy around that you manage that particular energy, then you get your energy moving. I think there's another side of this too, that sometimes people are waiting for the magic they're waiting for, oh, if I tap on this, then all of a sudden I'm going to be just like that person that I know that has the clean, uncluttered house. Our approach is, okay, tap enough that you can pick up a stack, you know, like this and look at one item and go, oh, I don't know what to do with this. I don't know what to do with this. I don't know what to do with this. I'm open to what to do with this. I don't know what to do. You're just tapping around the points chin. I don't know what to do with this. Come on. What do I do with this? Under the arm. I feel confused about what to do with this. Top of the head. I'm really open about what to do with this.

Nice.

And when you, when you do that, the core issue is limited to focusing in on this card. This has my goals for what to learn about guitar. And there's an emotional thing. I wanted to learn three new songs by Christmas. It may not happen. And it feels like the thing to do with this is to put it on top. That's all. Right. Now, in the middle of this other stuff, it feels good to put it on top instead of burying it. Right. So that's one way that you can look at it, is that there may be a core issue that affects the entirety. But get yourself moving for five minutes with the core issue that affects, you know, that little trinket that annoys you every time you see it.

Good.

Great.

All right, next question, you all. Are you paying attention to the questions and the tapping and what we're doing. Tune in. See if it's just too easy to get distracted by each other. You're all joining each other's groups and stuff on the side, which is great, but this Q and A for you, we want you to really be here. And maybe that's a clue that it's a little bit hard for you to touch this topic. We've already hit some pretty big feelings, so see if you can put that aside. Just stay with us. See if you can tap with us. Stay with us. See if it connects to you. You know what? The entire work that we do, feelings are difficult. That's why we don't want to feel them.

So someone asked, and it reminds me, I want to find the question here because it was one that also came in email a bunch and I added it manually. Just give me a second here. Who would I be without all this clutter? Who am I if I'm not my stuff? Carol, what would you say to that one?

So great question, because underneath that there's an answer. Do you feel less than without your stuff? And what the stuff means? Do you feel inadequate without not even just the monetary value, but again, what your clutter represents? Is it something you've spent money on? It? Is it something from your stepmother? Is it something from, you know, a conference you went to five years ago? And it has a nice memory. The question is valid. Who are you without your stuff? And everybody needs to answer that themselves. And I think it's challenging. So let's just do a little quick one on that eyebrow. I'm afraid to let go of my clutter.

I'm afraid to let go of my clutter.

Who am I underneath it?

Who am I underneath.

Under the eye? Who am I without it?

Who am I without it?

I've become identified with my stuff.

I've become identified with my stuff.

I don't know who I'd be without it.

And I don't know who I would be without it.

Kalarbon. I like holding on.

I like holding on under the arm.

It makes me feel like me.

It makes me feel like me.

Top of that. Who would I be without all my clutter?

Who would I be without all my clutter?

It's triggering grief again.

It's triggering grief again.

And I'm allowed to feel that feeling.

And I'm allowed to feel that feeling now.

The more permission we give ourselves to feel the painful stuff, the more we can unbind it from the book, the sweater, the couch, the stacks of paperwork and Say paperwork is paperwork. It's not love, it's not money, it's not meaning. It's not value, self value, self esteem. So great, great question. And yes, many of you, tana, see here, wrote it, but many of you also wrote it after the original webinar. So wonderful.

Yeah, clutter protects us. And that's also, I think, the honoring aspect of the approach that Carol and I take. It's to build up your own sense of identity as someone who, for example, knows can get clarity about what's right for them or not, that doesn't feel the pressure to get rid of it all or the pressure to keep it all that you know, you get to right size rather than try to be like your mother or your mother in law or someone else. And if you need protection, it's like, oh yeah, clutter protects me. I like that. And what else can I do to add to that, that sense of protection? Developing a good strong yes and knowing what that is and knowing how to protect your own yes and no. Awesome. I love you guys. This is so fun. Is there an. Let me start the answer. Is there an optimal routine to put in place like every day or every week? Nadia writes that. Carol.

Nadia, great question. What I say is optimal. It's a little bit vague, but it's. Even though I have emotions that are attaching me to my clutter, I choose to honor them anyway. Now be specific. Go ahead and say even though my grief is attaching me to my clutter, even though my hurt, even though my past, even though my ex husband. Go ahead and make it more specific. But if you can't be specific, go ahead and just honor the truth, which we know with thousands of people who've worked with the clutter programs with us, that you've got emotions binding you to your stuff. That's true. So you can't go wrong with that one. It is a little vague in general, but you can't go wrong. So I would say getting five minutes of clutter tapping done a day is better than the perfect wording.

Yes. And I think that if you identify as having clutter, you feel that emotion. I mean, how often do you feel it? If you only feel the emotion of clutter once a week, then tap when you're feeling that. But if you feel it every day and every time you walk through a particular room, take one of those opportunities to tap for five minutes and just see what starts moving differently. When we hear that, all of a sudden someone will notice that, oh, well, I didn't touch that room, but my kitchen table is clean for the first time ever. And, yeah, we start, like, building resiliency. It is important, I think, to have a regular routine, a practice that can help. So thanks, Carol, for that.

And two regular routines. One, the tapping on the Emotions. And in our program, Little Coming Attractions. In the program, we talk about putting aside time every day to do it. Not an hour, but five minutes. That. That's a hint that changed my life because as I said before, I always think I have to have a week to do my. I don't have to have a week. I need five minutes a day.

Right. Awesome.

Great questions. Everybody I love Liz writes in what about books? What about papers? Everybody's got the. What about this? It's the same thing. Whatever the item is, you have an attachment that makes you say, I mean, I mean, behind me there are 20 books I'm not going to read. And it used to be 40, now it's 20. I tell you, in a month it's going to be 10. I keep changing my relationship with books, but I bought it on Amazon and it was all bright and shiny and lovely and so pretty. And I have not cracked it. So I'm going to pass it along and feel like I'm giving it to someone else because I'm not reading it.

Yeah. And that's. And that's another factor here, that's core for us, too, is that, you know, my interests change, my motivations change. And I think part of the refreshing look at clearing clutter is what is new about me, that these things don't fit anymore. I used to have certain things that were I was interested in, and I'm not anymore. And like you said, they can find a new home. And that if it can't find a new home, then the attachment there is the distress again. Clearing clutter doesn't mean, like, getting rid of everything if it causes you distress or it distracts your attention from what you would really rather do. If you feel like a tapping on your shoulder every time you see that book, read me, read me, read me, read me. You know, read me, read me, read me. Tap yourself. Read me, read me that book. Just keep telling me, read me. I don't want to read it. I'm actually not going to read it. And it's okay for it to go to someplace else. That's the emotional approach. Someone said, just give it to the library. That's great. That's the practical. It's so neat that we have practical advice about what to do. And if you hold it in your hand and you start quivering and you put it back down and you hold it in your hand. You think about giving it away and you can't. That's what we're talking about. That tapping can free up that energy. So awesome. So a number of people have written this in something like it. I tend to want to recycle everything if I can, since we need this for the earth and life to go on. So that slows me down considerably. Any suggestions? I really want to honor that. I like to leave the campsite better than I found it. I like to leave the trail that I walk on with fewer bits of trash than before. I'm grateful to have so many people in my world that properly managing the waste products of being alive is important to them. And I think we can feel the distress here. Like, everything, recycle everything. That's for many people, like the constipation. I need to recycle, it becomes. I need to recycle everything in order to be a good person, a good steward of the earth. And that tension is where you start and then start with something that really is not recyclable in our current state, that, you know, you don't have an outlet for it. And see if you can get to a place where it's okay, I want to recycle this. I can't. And it's okay for it to move on. It's okay for it to move on. You may get a lot of resistance there. Honor the resistance. I want to be able to do this. It's important to me. It's important to me. It's important to me. And it's okay for this to go in the trash. If you get a big. When you say that, say, and it doesn't feel like it's okay. And it's okay. And it doesn't feel okay. You're wanting to get to the place where you can in the same way that we have refuse that goes into the toilet. And it's the right place for it to go. Right now, someday there may be a different source for what happens to that. That energy that has changed forms as part of living. You know, I'm living and I create garbage, man, I hate that. And it's part of living, and I hate that. And I create garbage, and I hate that. And it's okay to manage. I think that what I've noticed is that people that get constipated around that when they find their right balance, same way, right size, then things can move on and you have more creative Options. This is not an easy one. That's why the emotional aspect of this, someone can come in and say, why do you keep all this stuff and really dear to your heart? Like who you are as a person, your identity, like, who would I be if I threw this away for me, I need to land on. I'm someone who acknowledges that living right now in today's modern society has some trade offs that I would not. I don't love. And I'm wanting to have energy to invest in cleanups and energy to invest in doing the recycling work that is possible. The upcycling and things like that, the sharing economy, getting things going.

The only thing I would add, Rick, is the word honor. If there's one thing you all take away from this Q and A and from our original webinar, whether you buy the program or not, is this idea of honoring everything that comes up for you. Even if you detest what's coming up for you. Some of you are saying this is really hitting you hard. This is emotional. Whatever comes up for you is what's coming up for you. And the problem with human beings is they don't honor what comes up for them. Rick and I didn't agree 100% on every word and every module and everything in this program or our last program. But we honor each other and we honor the feelings. And we go back and forth and back and forth and back and forth until we say, hey, this is a place we land. But I'm okay if Rick says that doesn't feel right to me. He's okay if I say that doesn't feel right to me and that honoring is what has made us since 2005 be crazy great friends and business partners. But we don't want cluttered people in our lives who don't honor our feelings either. That kind of stuff doesn't honor when we say something out loud and they just. They object or they won't let us be where we are. If you can't let yourself honor and be where you are, you're kind of not given a good model for other people. Be with you. Be with your hurt, your betrayal, your grief, your frustration, your chaos. Be with your chaos, everybody. It's okay.

Yeah, thank you for that, Carol. Just a little kind of fun story. The original Clearing Clutter with eft, which is a part of the. It's given as a home study guide as part of this program, Clearing Clutter from the inside out. I remember someone writing and she just had an intuition, although she had the cleanest house of anyone that she knew. When she heard that it was about the distress, that she got the program and she tapped on it. And I remember it was about two or three years later, I wish I remembered her name. But she said, well, I'm not sure you're going to want to make this a testimonial, but my house has more clutter now than it used to. And I am so happy because it's not. It's stuff that moves in and moves out. I don't really feel overwhelmed by it. And by clutter she meant things. You know, she's got room to leave the Christmas cards up for just as long as it feels good, even if that's march and then take them down. It used to be that the day after Christmas the Christmas cards had to come down. And that kind of flow and ease allows us to have emotional connections without as much noise all around them, if that makes sense.

Well, being rigid and minimalist and can't have anything anywhere, I've been around those people too. That's no fun for me, that's as distressing as someone who's got so much I can't walk through the living room. So it's she, she got it that emotionally she was behaving out of emotions and that wasn't maybe healthy or really didn't feel good for her.

Right. One thing in her in in the wrong place was clutter for her. You know, it wasn't hoarding, it was one thing. So I'm going to shorten this question a little bit from John and it's about collectors. I have a tendency to collect and hold onto things. I buy books quicker than I can read them as his example and things pile up. What do you say to someone who part of their identity is a collector? They like collecting and they're also feeling this distress. Maybe we can do some tapping on that too.

And the only thing I would say is go a little deeper and say, well, what would happen if you didn't collect? Is that a FOMO fear of missing out propelled issue? Is it about a topic? What's the meaning? When in doubt, ask the question and what's the meaning of having it? And what's the meaning of not having it? Because you can be a collector. There was a famous brothers in New York who when they died, they couldn't get it. They couldn't open the doors to their apartment and they both had collected coffee cans and telephone books. Like so you can collect a lot of things that aren't valuable books. People tend to See, they have more value. But what's the meaning if you don't have it? I think you said his name was John. What's the meaning if you don't collect? What's the agitation if you're not doing that thing, how do you feel without it? So I think that when in doubt, keep going the same direction with the questions and see who you are without it. Go ahead. You want to lead us.

I don't. I'm not feeling like we need to tap. Would you like to or just go on?

Just. Let's do a quick one. We'll start with the eyebrow. The distress about being different.

The distress about being different.

I like what I do.

I like what I do.

I like how I do it.

I like how I do it.

I'm afraid to change.

I'm afraid to change.

I don't want to rock my own boat.

I don't want to rock my own boat.

Some things I want to change, but I like things the way they are.

Some things I do want to change, but I like things the way they are.

I get distressed when things start to change.

I get distressed when things start to change.

I honor my feelings and all my fears.

I honor my feelings and all my fears.

Deep breath. I would say a general statement. It may not be true, but John, who wrote in if you when this phrase, I buy books faster than I can read them, what's that for? There's something about getting and buying the latest and that doesn't make sense if you can't read them, which I have done. I've gone to a conference and come home with four shiny books. I never cracked them, so I've done it. So once again, go to the emotion. If you didn't do it, how anxious would you feel when you do it? Do you feel comforted? What's in it for you? Is what we like to ask. What does it do for you? Great question.

I know that when I tapped on the books dynamic, what happened was that my, my intuition said, well, why don't we just add them to your Amazon wish list instead of one click buying. I was like, oh my gosh, why didn't I think of that? I didn't think of it because there was all this FOMO and urgency and everything else around it. And now I tend to have one or two books and the others move on. I give them away. I. It just has right sized for me. That's not always the right answer for.

Everyone, but I just want to answer.

Fear of missing out.

Thank you, Nancy. Fear of Missing out, which makes us jump and react and gather and take and take, you know, buy things that we don't need, but we're afraid if we don't have it, we're less than. So FOMO is a big, big deal for us. And it's in the program. We have a whole module, I was going to say chapter. We have a whole module about FOMO and how to help yourself heal it. Heal it and clear it.

So this person asks, what about the feeling that it's going to take so much time and effort to get rid of all this stuff? Like Jean said earlier, she has 6,000 emails and it feels like it would take weeks and weeks and weeks to go through it. What about that feeling just kind of collapsing someone so they don't take action?

I would say that's what you're saying is perfect, is that the emotion is so heavy it's collapsing them and then they're paralyzed and don't do anything. That's the first thing to tap on. Don't tap on the meaning yet. Tap on. I feel overwhelmed. There's too much to do because think of that idea. There's too much to do. So I can never get started. It's not really sensical like you can get started one hour at a time, one day at a time, one five minute segment at a time. So let's just deal with overwhelm because so many of us have it. Eyebrow. My clutter overwhelms me.

My clutter overwhelms me.

Side of the eye. And then I don't do anything.

And then I don't do anything.

Under the eye. My clutter overwhelms me.

My clutter, honestly overwhelms me.

Under the nose. I don't even know how to get started.

I don't know how to get started.

Shin. My clutter overwhelms me.

My clutter overwhelms me.

Collarbone. No wonder I won't get started.

No wonder I won't get started.

Under the arm. I get so overwhelmed.

I get so overwhelmed.

Top of that. I don't even know what to do first.

I don't even know what to do first.

Good. Deep breath. We acknowledge and start where we are. And if overwhelm is where you are, that's what you've. You've got to train yourself into not finding the perfect sentence or the perfect tapping sequence. But where am I? Oh, I'm so overwhelmed. I'm discouraged and I haven't even started. Perfect.

And one of the. Sometimes our intuition speaks up without being prompted. Another option is after you've tapped to the overwhelm and your body is coming out of primitive brain to ask yourself an empowered question like, how else might I see this? What possibility haven't I considered? Because if we're overwhelmed, that can be a signal that whatever you're thinking of doing, like going through 6000 emails one by one, when I had thousands of, many thousands of emails, I had to tap on. That fear of missing out, I had to tap on, I don't want to spend my life doing this. And then it was, well, what if you just archive them little digital space somewhere? Or what if you just deleted them all? I mean, would it be the end of the world if you die tomorrow? Is this something that people are going to have to go through? No. Well, then, you know, sometimes it's okay to let them go. And that you won't even consider if your overwhelm is if you're underwater under the I'm overwhelmed to that you're not going to even consider that.

One time with a computer mistake. Way back in the beginning, I actually called, I think it was Comcast. I called them and they were redoing something, you know, telling me what to do. And I ended up clicking the button every button they told me to, and they gave me a yes every time. And I deleted my original 12,000 emails. And I freaked out for 20 seconds. And then I was like, oh, guess I don't have to deal with that. It was a real eye opener. But, you know, my first thought was panic. What did I lose? Nothing. Nothing. I didn't lose. Apparently I didn't lose anything. There was no consequence. But that feeling of gotta know, gotta see, gotta read, gotta remember, gotta, gotta, gotta.

So anyway, awesome. Thank you. Let me mark that one as complete. This trash energy, this is really just refuse at this point in my life. And when you get that now you've got your energy moving and you can go from yes to yes to yes to yes. That's core to your teaching and I love that it's find your yes and then land in gratitude. You'll also hear that in the program is that we land you in gratitude in the modules because we think that that's a place where you're really savoring what you have than you are right now. And it's authentic, wonderful. Okay, hold on a second. Computer. Carol, what about trauma? I have papers and stuff from the past. I can't let them go because I feel like I have to, quote, resolve something.

Christy asks resolve something about the papers.

She just said, I feel like I have to resolve something. So it's like holding onto it until there's some sense of resolution. Maybe.

Yes. This idea of I can't do it until. So you would know, Christy, what the trauma is emotionally? Is it about being hurt? Is it about a sudden death? Is it about someone firing you? What actually happened that is making you attached? So you're. We trust you. We trust all of you. You know, then because of the nature of trauma, we tend not to want to go there ourselves. If it's a trauma, you probably get better results by going to see somebody just because the nature of trauma is. We try to avoid it. So the answer is yes, you need to resolve it. Because we all deserve to resolve old traumas. Hurts, angers, betrayals, sudden shocks. Someone died. Suddenly someone fired us. Suddenly someone told us about diagnosis. Suddenly we were hurt. Go get some help. You deserve it. And if you're making the connection, left time, left over.

Because I've cut down on the distractions, like in my email box. The email is much easier. And this is just in the month since we recorded it and I edited it and tapped along. So. Carollook.com clutter is where you learn more. And. Yeah. Anything you want to add to that, Carol, before we go to the next question?

I would say that I certainly have gotten better every year with my clutter. But when we recorded this program, you and I are different than we were six years ago, seven years ago, Right. And something really, really shifted in a way. I think I was building up to it, but something shifted energetically and space wise in my mind. And I just. It was just profound. One of our modules is driven to distraction. One is fomo. They're just wonderful modules. And I think our approach was so life affirming. It wasn't just, let's fix this problem and let's do, you know, sort of EFT101. It just seems so profound to me. And it had, as you said, you did all the editing and you tapped along and had to listen to us again. And then I needed to listen to it after you did the editing. And it really just had an emotional effect on me. And we absolutely love the program and many of you have already bought it and that's fabulous if it's useful to you and it's not a FOMO buy, but you really need you really, it would be useful for you. That's why we also made the price. Some of you have really said thank you for making the price so affordable. We Thought, why not? Why not? It's December, it's the holidays. Why not? It's a digital program. So I'm just thrilled with it and happy that we're offering it. And you can read all about it@carolook.com clutter see if it speaks to you. We are not. We do not want people to buy something. Certainly that does not speak to you.

Absolutely. Thank you, Carol. Let's go to another question. And one of the cool things, as I see people writing in extra questions, is I know that when you take the emotional approach, these things work. Like, let's take this. I have guilt about throwing away pictures, even ones that I have no intention of framing. Help. Emily asks.

Carol, same thing. What's the attachment? What's the guilt? So, Emily, I hear the guilt like, it could be a terrible picture. I've done that. I know, ripping up a photograph from 1990, something. You know, we never. That used to be taboo. We never do it now. Everybody has them all on their telephone. If it's a terrible picture, you have good pictures of that person. If they've passed on, what do you hope the question is, what are you holding on to? What's the memory? What's the attachment? I think there's a lot of guilt there. I shouldn't. Well, there's a lot of. I shouldn't.

I shouldn't. Yeah. What comes to me is that, you know, what kind of person would. And this is so you can say, well, what if you're being blocked from, like, getting rid of those. Those paintings or Aunt Mary's desk? And, like, what kind of person would. How would you complete that? And where do you feel that in your body? And we believe that tapping helps tune us into some identity conflicts. Like, oh, I don't want to be that kind of person, so I need to hold on to this. All you know is that you're holding onto this and it's causing distress. Well, I'm the kind of person that wants something of Aunt Mary's to be used or start the recycling process or to. To just be not in my space in a way that is distressing to me because Aunt Mary wouldn't want me to be distressed all the time. You get a different place to land. So holding one of them. And again, we keep going back to that and we're told, but I have a million things. Yes. Right. And chances are just like someone who has had a million traumas that contribute to their. Their weight gain and holding onto their weight, if you take one of them and hold it and feel it and tap on it. Maybe with a professional, too, or with a tapping buddy. When you do that, it starts building up the strength so that you just know you have your yes. You can feel the yes. This is to go to someone who can care about it. This is to go to recycling. This is actually trash. This is trash energy. This is really just refuse at this point in my life. And when you get that now you've got your energy moving and you can go from yes to yes to yes to yes. That's core to your teaching, and I love that. It's find your yes and then land in gratitude. You'll also hear that in the program is that we land you in gratitude in the modules because we think that that's a place where you're really savoring what you have more than you are right now. And it's authentic, wonderful. Okay, hold on a second. Computer. Carol, what about trauma? I have papers and stuff from the past. I can't let them go because I feel like I have to, quote, resolve something.

Christy asks resolve something about the papers.

She just said, I feel like I have to resolve something. So it's like holding onto it until there's some sense of resolution, maybe.

Yes. This idea of I can't do it until. So you would know, Christy, what the trauma is emotionally? Is it about being hurt? Is it about a sudden death? Is it about someone firing you? What actually happened that is making you attached? So you're. We trust you. We trust all of you. You know, then because of the nature of trauma, we tend not to want to go there ourselves. If it's a trauma, you'd probably get better results by going to see somebody. Just because the nature of trauma is we try to avoid it. So the answer is yes, you need to resolve it. Because we all deserve to resolve old traumas. Hurts, angers, betrayals, sudden shocks. Someone died suddenly. Someone fired us suddenly. Someone told us about diagnosis. Suddenly we were hurt. Go get some help. You deserve it. And if you're making the connection, I believe you.

Yes.

Nice, Christy.

Thank you, Carol. All right, this one's fun. It sounds like I belong here. Everyone is describing my same issues. Holding on because of recycling, indecision, fomo, and simply not starting. I am tired of it and I need to change. But I'm scared of what I might find is the reason, and I need help. Carol, that's right down your alley. It feels like.

I'm scared of what could come up. Is the tappable issue there. Don't go to the Feeling that's going to come up yet because you're not ready to. But just honoring. Here, let's do this together. Eyebrow. I'm afraid of what emotion might come up.

I'm afraid of what emotion might come up.

I'm very clear that a lot of feelings are connected to my stuff I'm.

Very clear that a lot of feelings are connected to my stuff.

Under the eye. And I honor that. I'm afraid of what might surface and I honor that.

I am afraid of what might surface under the nose.

And that's okay.

And that's okay.

Shim. I can handle a lot.

I can handle a lot.

Kalaron. I can even handle my fear right now.

I can even handle my fear right now.

Under the arm. I could almost feel excited.

I could almost feel excited.

Top of the head. That I'm going to start to unpack this problem.

That I'm going to start to unpack this problem.

I'm allowed to be afraid.

I'm allowed to be afraid.

And I honor all of my emotions.

And I honor all of my emotions. Yeah. Take a deep breath. All of us. I honor all of my emotions. Mmm. Feel your feet on the ground, your seat. Your seat in the chair. Maybe even touch your heart, your hips, sometimes even pressing your hips a little bit, squeezing your knees. Get into your body. Clutter is external, and your energy is going to be internal. That's why we talk about clutter from the inside out. We know that we start with what's inside before we act on what's outside. That goes. If you've got a relationship that has a lot of clutter and noise, start with what's inside, and then engage outside for a few minutes. Even that approach just changes the dynamics. It changes the dynamics with our stuff. It changes the dynamics with people as well. So.

If, you know, if we want to change, we can't keep doing the same exact things over and over again. And I had a client who was complaining about her boyfriend and complaining about everything he did. And I said, well, what's in it for you? How does it serve you to stay with someone that you complain about every two seconds? And she said, what? Said, what's the drama doing for you? Because you come in and I ask you to focus on you, and you say all your sentences start with, he's such a jerk. And she had to admit that he's such a jerk. Kept her from her internal feelings, which is, I don't want to leave. I don't like grief. I don't like to break up. I Don't want to feel what I really feel. And it was life changing.

Yeah. Deep breath. Nine more minutes, folks. You're doing great.

Wonderful.

Jeanne writes, I seem to rather buy storage bins rather than throw things away. Clutter causes me to lose things, plus valuable time looking for things. I really spend way too much time cleaning my home only to have it look like a tornado came through every three weeks. Please help send an organizing crew to my house. Yeah, that's the first thought. That's what, you know, let's put ourselves and get, you know, an entire crew of 15 people to come in and it will look like a tornado came through in three weeks. The inside out approach, Jeanne, is to say, hey, when I, when I feel this need to buy a storage bin rather than right size, my life, what is coming up for me, what's even below the overwhelm and by taking that approach and instead of the intense cleaning thing, which you may still do, right, if that's your cycle, it's intense cleaning and it comes back around again in three weeks. Be open to the possibility that between the deep cleaning and the three weeks when it looks like a tornado, that there's an opportunity there. There's an opportunity to take a few things that are showing up like one area of your home that starts feeling the most distressing and be with that. We can pile stuff in front of something that has an emotional charge to it. And that's why the gap there between cycles is an opportunity to look and then exploring, after a bit of meditation, perhaps what would be right sized for me, for me, for you. What do you feel in your core would be the right level of clean and how do you make that a sustainable thing so that the cycle instead of being three weeks, is five minutes here, five minutes there. The reason I keep my world without as much distress is that I do it in the flow of things, without the pressure and strain, but also with mindfulness. I'm aware of when things get distressing and I take care of them in three to five minutes. And that helps tremendously. We need things that are sustainable. We need sustainable environmental policies. We also need sustainable emotional environmental policies for ourselves. So that's one of the things that I might look at. Great.

Thanks you all. We just love interacting with you. This is fun. Great questions.

This person, kkb, wants some tricks for throwing out stuff or getting rid of stuff that isn't like tired or broken, but fits in that midway between something that you're just not sure what to do with it. Any tricks there?

I'LL tell you the trick that you helped me with, Rick, years ago. Somebody needs it. Somebody sees it as incredibly valuable. Pass it along. Every community. We talked about this in the webinar. Every community has a synagogue, a church, a clutter place, a pass it along, a clothing place, a recycled books. Every community has one within five miles. Now I'm in New York City, so I've got one every block. And those items that are not to be thrown out, but they're not brand new, if you can release them from your life, somebody will find such joy. That's what I love. Somebody will find joy in it. If I'm understanding her question, like, tap on it until it's like, lovely item, but I don't need it anymore. Pass it along. And someone will feel so grateful for it. And that really helped me emotionally because then I wasn't stuck in the, ah, I'm letting go when I want it. It was. I could then focus on somebody else having. Finding value and pleasure in it.

Thank you. So let's do one more question. Why do I want to accept items that are free even if I don't need, want, or like them? That's. Yeah, you don't have breaks, you know, and that can come from, like, an honest block to saying no. And it could be part of your identity. Good people accept things. You know, I take. I make a home for things. Part of your identity is I make a home for things somehow, some way, look at those things and see what comes up for you. And imagine, like, take something in your house that you really didn't want, didn't like, and hold it in your hand. And even just asking, why did I say yes? Why did I. Why did I do this? Why did I take it in? Why? Why is this in my life? Why is this ending up? Ha ha. I. I'm wanting clarity. I'm wanting to know how to retune myself and see what comes up for you. We believe tapping is an opportunity for insight, inner wisdom by engaging with something outside that's in your world. What was the upside Carol used? What was the upside of saying yes to this? Well, I didn't have to deal with her trying to shove it down my throat. I said, oh, thank you so much, rather than, no, you should have this. Oh, everyone needs one of these. Oh, you'll love it. Come on. You know, maybe it's that, and you'll need to build up your resiliency around pressure. Yeah. There's some great things coming in the emotional world for those of us that are Paying attention. We're, we're. You know, to me, it feels in the same way that when I was growing up, there was. There was a environmental movement that was just starting, really, in the 60s and 70s. My dad used to throw his beer cans overboard. He used to just toss them over and he taught us to do the same thing. Now, by the time I was eight and Earth days and things like that were coming, we started the shift. I believe our emotional world needs the same kind of environmental approach. Right? Sizing sustainability, things like that. Not just about the things, but our relationship to them. So we're not driven by fomo, fear of missing out, so that we keep acquiring things that we really don't need, that we can be generous in our sharing and allowing energy to move where it belongs. If I have a blanket and it's just going to sit in the closet, there is somebody colder than I am tonight that could use that. There's somebody whose home was burned down in the last month that could use a couple extra blankets. And when we realize that, we can free up the energy to be more generous because we're not in that frozen place around our stuff.

Not coming from scarcity or less than the free stuff. Problem for me is, I think, but it's useful, you know, I might need it one day, right? I'm getting it for free. Isn't that wonderful? So always a tappable issue, everybody. Wonderful questions.

Okay, so we've reached our end and we still have 27. This is the type of thing that we know that if we started with 25 questions, we can end with 27. Remember, there is a program available and you also have access to this recording. You can go back and listen. Feel for it from each perspective that is alive for you. Carolook.com clutter is the URL and. Yeah. Anything else, Carol?

Just I love you all showing up and taking your time because we know how precious and valuable time is. So hope this was useful to you. The program is available until midnight on Wednesday. We did something very different than many of the launches. Instead of like, hurry up, you have three days and last call. We've given you a week, a week and two days to make the decision. But then we are going to have to say last call eventually on Wednesday night. So it's Monday night now. By Wednesday at midnight, that's when the program is available too. Think about it. Feel it. Tap on. It tap on. I'm afraid I'm acting out of fomo. Then don't buy it. But we certainly love it. We love what has already happened as a result of people getting it. But I just mostly. Rick, thank you for doing all the tech support as well as the tapping support, and thank you all for showing up and giving us your energy, because this is a community and we love it. So we're very grateful for that.

Okay, thank you all. Bye.