My siblings and I and our kids all have a tendency to clutter, ranging from severe to mild. Some of us are hidden clutterers (house looks ok, but don't open the closets). Some are passive clutterers (nothing gets thrown out or put away). Others are collector clutterers (books, art supplies, whatever). Others are emotional cluterers (hold on to things for sentimental reasons). Some of us are a combination of these types. It is clear, though, that all of us have the tendency to clutter. It is not a learned tendency. It is the way our brains work.
"Cleanliness is next to Godliness," therefor, is moral judgement that should be disposed of. Messy people aren't bad, they don't choose to be disorganized, and they aren't defective. They are just different from neat people.
Does that mean you have to live a cluttered life, that you can't escape your biology? No. It just means that it's time to lay aside the judgements. People who clutter tend to feel bad about themselves, and have a lifetime of criticism to convince them they're bad. You can wind up feeling so much shame that it actually prevents you from taking action. Then, you get even more stuck in clutter. This can lead to isolating yourself because we don't want anyone to come over and see how messy your place is. And so on.
So, the first step in starting to address the clutter is realizing you are not a bad person because you are messy. Accepting that your brain works that way is the first step in healing the shame that clutters you.
In the next post we explore other traits that come along with cluttering - some of them positive. We also look at research into cluttering and neatness and discover some surprising facts.
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