Those plagued by clutter continue to surround themselves with stuff to keep away some sort of pain. The clutter allows those people to manipulate their feeling joy and they care more about that feeling that they associate with the things they acquire. When they’re not in the process of acquiring things, that feeling disappears and they begin to feel uncomfortable, feeling the need for that fix. That is how it becomes an addiction.
When that feeling comes up it’s easy to think that you want the thing that you’re looking at in the store, but it’s not really the item that you want, although you think it is and you’ve created reasons about why you need it or what you could use it for. What you’re looking for is that fix; the feeling that you get when you acquire something. You’re looking for the sense of happiness, pleasure, etc that you think having the item will bring you. You’re flying high off those feelings when the truth of the matter is that the sense of happiness and pleasure is false. You only feel it in that moment and after you acquire the thing that you think will bring you some pleasure, the feeling fades away. Your high is gone and deep inside you the real things that are eating at you are still there. Those real or true feelings are usually fear, sadness, or some other downer emotion and they aren’t going anywhere until you deal with them.
The only way to deal with those emotions is to start looking at why you’re addicted. What are you trying to protect yourself from? The roots of your clutter lie within you. If you’re familiar with me you know that I teach that clutter has mental, emotional spiritual and physical connections, and it’s those areas that you have to delve into to get to the real reason you can’t get rid of your clutter. Clutter has to be cleared from the inside out. When you begin to physically clear your space, you can start getting to the root cause of your clutter; to the root cause of your addiction. When you clear the space without dealing with what’s going on inside, the clutter returns to your space for you to deal with all over again.
When you deal with the real reason for your addiction, you begin to heal that place within you that is experiencing pain and feeling the need for the addictive behavior, which allows you to be able to let go of the excess in your space and no longer feel the need for that false sense of happiness. As you let go of the excess in your environment, you let go of the emotions that are eating away at you causing your addiction, leaving you with a decluttered environment, and free of the mental, emotional, spiritual and physical clutter that plagues you.