Psychological Effects of Clutter

I’ve been a horror movie fan for most of my life.  I grew up watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th movies.  While I was in Aruba I went to the theatre to watch a movie and became so overjoyed when I saw the movie poster for a new Friday the 13th.  I was like a child the night before Christmas, so excited and filled with anticipation.

After we got back home I found out that it was going to be released on Valentine’s Day weekend.  The dilemna here is obvious; a Valentine’s Day date night with a pychopathic axe murderer?  Probably not.  There was a great amount of disappointment in my heart because I knew that I would probably be seeing a chick flick instead.  Don’t get me wrong, there are some good chick flicks but if I had my choice I’d rather watch Jason imposing his violence on about 2 dozen people.

My girlfriend knew how badly I wanted to see the movie so she said we could go.  I knew that she wanted to see something else but relationships are about compromise and it must have been her turn.  She’s so sweet!  I really enjoyed the movie, while she spent most of her time hiding behind her hands.

While watching the movie I kept thinking to myself, “Don’t these people ever clean their house?  Look at all of that junk!  There’s still Christmas decorations from the 60′s.”  Then it dawned on me, a lot of horror movies have cluttered houses.  Why?  Because they are scary!  Clutter is scary.  There is disarray and confusion.  Clutter is an outward reflection of internal being so it makes sense for the home of a pschopathic axe murderer to be messy, disorganized and chaotic because that is what is going on in his mind.

I’m not suggesting that everyone with a messy house is a psychopath otherwise 50% of the time I could be classified as such if that were the measuring stick which we used to gauge our mental state.  I do however, feel that the more cluttered our homes, the more disorganized and cluttered our minds and spirits are.

Having a clutter-free home is a good starting point to begin eliminating stress from your life.  You eliminate the need to focus your energy on the items you eliminate from your life.  A good example of an item that drains your energy is a car.  Not only must you fill the gas tank, you must also maintain it and keep it in good repair.  There are oil changes to have done and air pressure which must be checked.  You worry about getting in an accident or having it damaged at the grocery store by a runaway shopping cart.  When there is a bad thunderstorm, you may find yourself in a state of panic for fear of hail damage.  You must insure your car and you have to remember to pay your premiums.  You wonder if you have the right coverage, or enough coverage.   Maybe you could find a better deal somewhere else.

Every item in your life draws energy from your spirit in ways less obvious than my example of a car.  Some things you worry about breaking, being stolen or maybe you have to dust them frequently.  If an item brings a sense of negative emotions such as worry or stress, the best solution is to eliminate that item from your life.

As much as a horror movie fan I sometimes am, I sold my collection of horror movies because having them around was taking up space in my apartment which was more valuable to me than the DVDs.  Keeping them around was causing stress in my life so I eliminated that stress by selling them.  I earned a couple of dollars on things I no longer valued while creating a more positive energy in my living space.

I would recommend everyone begin eliminating the objects in their lives which are causing stress so that your house doesn’t look like something out of some horror movie!  You can start in the basement…I’m sure it already looks like Leatherface lives there.