Have you set yourself some big, hairy, audacious goals for this new year? Or some more gentle and mindful intentions?

Hell bent on “out with the old, in with the new”?

Whatever it is we desire for this year, if we want to invite new experiences and opportunities into our lives, we need to make space for them. All the goal-setting and visualisation in the world won’t make a difference if we don’t actually have the space to welcome in what we’re looking for.

Space in our schedules.

Space in our heads.

Space in our hearts.

And I know you’ll be tired of seeing this all over your newsfeed this month, but the best way to make space is to declutter. Start with your home, and allow the clearing habit to spread into all areas of your life.

Making physical space in our homes magically helps to open up space in the non-physical (but critical) aspects of our lives.

On the surface, this might seem to be crazy nonsense—but when we accept that everything is interconnected, that our outer world reflects our inner world and our inner world affects our outer world, it makes perfect sense.

Try it and see.

Decluttering our home creates a sense of well-being on all levels. We can physically relax more easily in an environment that is clear and uncluttered—and physical relaxation helps us to release mental and emotional stress.

But on a deeper level, decluttering also helps us to release emotional attachments to people, experiences, and earlier phases of lives. These attachments keep us stuck, hindering us from living fully in the present or moving fully into the future.

Letting go of stuff we’ve been hanging on to for far too long that doesn’t serve us now brings up the emotional attachments to be fully felt. And in fully feeling them, we can let them go.

I don’t know anyone who has done a clearing out of their home and not felt better for it. Yet, I know from my own experience that just the thought of getting started can be overwhelming.

To inspire myself to get going—because once we start, momentum takes over and makes it easier—I often revisit the first book that convinced me to declutter: Clear your Clutter with Feng Shui by Karen Kingston.

There’s an abundance of other decluttering books to choose from, including Marie Kondo’s hugely popular The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. And there are also lots of online resources. I have joined 30-day e-courses in the past, in which you get a daily prompt to tackle a particular area of your home, and I have found them invaluable. And if you want to really take your time—with the benefit of going extra deep with the clearing—then I recommend signing up for Stephanie Bennett Vogt’s 365-day course, “A Year to Clear What is Holding You Back.”

Whether you take the fast-and-furious or the slow-and-deep route, decluttering is the first step in creating sacred space in our homes. And turning our homes into a sacred sanctuary helps us to create the space in our heads and our hearts to truly welcome in all that we desire. I encourage you to give your goals, resolutions, and intentions the best chance possible by decluttering.

Happy clearing and happy new year.

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Relephant:

Clear Clutter & Change your Life.

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Author: Hilda Carroll
Image: Unsplash/Courtney Prather
Editor: Yoli Ramazzina
Copy editor: Callie Rushton
Social editor: Cat Monkman