The world might be more organized and streamlined now with the introduction of digital technology and all its benefits. But, paradoxically, it has also become more chaotic for much the same reason—digital technology. Debatably, intrusive adverts are thrown at us at every turn, and this helps trigger anxiety, depression, and digital addiction in many people, leading to soul clutter.
This part of our lives—the spiritual aspect—may be invisible, but how we tend to it determines our happiness and productivity. Thankfully, decluttering one’s soul is not a complex matter. It is, in fact, an enjoyable and rewarding exercise.
And the steps in this book are not only relevant for today’s world but also easy to practice.
As minimalism and the need to declutter our work and living spaces gain popularity, we should also look at the mess in our souls and work on cleaning out the clutter in that space.
Steps to Declutter the Soul
- If it happened in the past and makes you feel bad, you should leave it in the past: Try not to take hurtful memories into your present by remembering and reliving them.
Learn what you can from heartbreaks, betrayals, losses, and personal mistakes, but there is no point giving these painful memories power over your present choices.
If you must remember anything, let it be these two common facts:
- There is no way to rewrite the past. If it happened, then you must learn to live with that reality.
- Whatever happened in your past, for good or bad, does not define you. What truly matters are the lessons you learned from them and the choices you make in the present.
This attitude frees you up to trust yourself and take smart chances.
- Expectations often yield frustration and disillusionment: This is not to mean you must live as a pessimist. However, do not expect rewards or reciprocation when you do a good deed. Do not expect the people in your life will act in a certain way towards you.
It is also important that you give yourself the same grace. You are only human, and it is normal that you procrastinate and do not meet some or any of your goals.
Accept everyone in your life, yourself included. You can, of course, work on self-improvement.
But comparing yourself to those you perceive as more successful can only be detrimental. Extend this to the situations and relationships in which you find yourself. Neither apportion blame nor judgement to anyone. It is much better to accept all of life with a smile.
- Protect your mental and emotional space from being bombarded by too much information: You will find, in this article, the various ways you can control the information you are presented with daily.
It is important that you consciously manage your time spent with digital devices, such as watching the television and consuming other mediums of entertainment and information.
- Overthinking can be injurious: While the point above advises you to control how much information you receive, you are now reminded that a large number of things will remain outside your control. Among these are the ways certain choices will impact your future, what people think about you, and how they will react in any situation.
If you always give your best and never deliberately try to hurt anyone, then you needn’t overthink anything. Be prepared, of course, but accept that you cannot control everything.
- Find solitude and support: People often try to make a case for one or the other. In truth, human beings need both to survive and thrive.
You should take some time away to be alone and relish your company. But it is equally as important to connect with people and build existing relationships. Finding this balance will solve much of the soul clutter you are currently experiencing.
The time spent decluttering usually depends on the size of the space involved and how much stuff you have to deal with. Usually, the entire process lasts between three and five hours.
However, decluttering the soul will take a much longer time than that. More like a month or more. This is because emotional and psychological baggage are much harder to identify and get rid of.
For physical clutter, people have the choice of hiring the services of a decluttering company. To declutter your soul, you may have to book an appointment with a psychotherapist.
Your decision to pay for this help will depend on your budget and your comfort level with sharing personal aspects of your life with, for want of a better word, strangers. Nevertheless, be advised that paying for professional services in these areas are often worth it.
Causes of Soul Clutter
In 2015, 54% of Americans confessed they didn’t know what to do with their clutter.
The first thing you should know is that many people are dealing with the same issue, and there is nothing inherently wrong with you. Many hardworking and diligent individuals have cluttered homes and struggle with cluttered souls. As such, it is nothing to be ashamed of. But it does require a solution.
Physical Clutter
The environment around you can directly impact the way you think and feel. And you are right to think that physical clutter can also be a reflection of the state of one’s soul.
If you are unfocused and unable to derive joy from most things in your life, you may become a hoarder who is also unable to employ basic home management skills.
But, in some cases, the clutter begins outwardly. This might be as a result of not understanding the importance of a neat and well-arranged space or because you live with people who always cause clutter. Your mental clarity and peace of mind can be aided or hindered by a cluttered environment.
Past Mistakes
Living and making choices are all the ingredients you need to have a “checkered past.” No one has a clean slate after all. It is impossible to know how your present actions will impact your future or whether you will regret them. If they turn out to be poor choices, the implications might rest on your soul and make you scared of future decisions.
You may find yourself constantly doubting your abilities and potential. Such is the power of guilt, shame, and regret.
Reckless Use of Digital Technology
You’ve probably seen pop art with cartoon characters wearing smartphones on their faces like oxygen masks and thought, “yes, that’s exactly how it is.” Of course, we do not literally use our phones like that, but it would appear that we cannot literally live without them. We conduct business, connect with people, and find entertainment on our digital devices.
Life seems so easy in the online world, but it comes at a price. We are forced, it often seems, to view bespoke ads and may develop anxiety from consuming the heavily edited lives of our favorite celebrities.
Since the average person spends six hours and forty-two minutes on the internet each day, it can be deduced that many of us are unable to meet our goals or get any real work done due to procrastination.
Add these to the fact that social media is highly addictive, and it’s not hard to tell what soul clutter this kind of behavior can cause.
Lack of Proper Rest
Probably more than ever before, working hard and barely getting enough sleep is glamorized. People make social media posts about how they are up all night scrolling aimlessly through the internet or working.
But the fact stands that sleep serves an invaluable purpose. And it isn’t just about getting some shut eye but instead making sure your body receives the optimal amount of rest it needs.
For adults, this is usually between seven to nine hours every night. If you can find some time to sleep in the afternoon, then you are enabling your body, mind, and soul for superhuman achievement.
To not manage yourself in this way is to make your soul vulnerable to life’s needless clutter.
| Causes of Soul Clutter | Solution |
| Physical Clutter | Make sure your work and living spaces are clutter free. |
| Past Mistakes | Learn from your mistakes, forgive yourself, and accept your strengths and weaknesses. |
| Reckless Use of Digital Technology | Limit your casual time spent on the internet to no more than two hours a day. If you are suffering from digital addiction, then you need a week away from your devices. |
| Lack of Proper Rest | Hit the good ol’ snooze button, and let your body and soul recharge. |
Simplify Your Digital Life
The indiscriminate use of digital devices is one of the biggest culprits of both mental and emotional clutter. We often think it doesn’t matter how long we spend on our smartphones and that we can change this behavior at will. But more than half of internet users around the world are addicted to it, and this is nothing to be flippant about.
Managing your time spent with digital technology is an important step to decluttering both your mind and soul.
- Consider this: what if you performed online activities in batches, as opposed to going online for a single purpose? If you want to post a picture on Instagram, wait until you also need to send an email, make online purchases, send a quick WhatsApp message, and so on. You can dedicate an hour, twice daily (once should be enough anyway), for your digital chores.
- While your job or lifestyle might call for responding to more emails, one usually doesn’t need more than two batches. One can be used for work, while the other can be reserved for close friends and family members. Managing more increases your chances of being assaulted by more email notifications than you can attend to.
- Make a habit out of archiving read emails. The moment you have read and attended to the email, you should move it to your archive immediately. This is because while you might need to refer to read emails sometime in the future, you don’t need them cluttering your inbox and preventing you from seeing important, unread messages.
Another advantage of archiving your emails is a faster processing speed for your digital device. If your phone, laptop, or PC is able to perform faster, you may find it easier to overcome the urge to spend too much time online.
- Old documents and applications need to go. If any app has remained unused on your device for more than three months, then it might be time to just delete it and save space.
As with archiving old and read emails, deleting files and applications increases the processing speed of your devices. As such, if you only plan to spend an hour on your phone, you won’t have to spend a needless extra amount of time waiting to send or receive messages.
You may want to mark certain dates on your calendar for purging your digital devices. This can be done every three or six months. Just browse through your phone or computer, archiving emails, deleting documents, and uninstalling applications.
- Your soul clutter might just be your internal system warning that you are due for a digital detox. And you are correct to think that this implies that you might be addicted to the internet and digital technology in general. When one goes through a detox, they refrain from consuming those things that have resulted in the addiction and are causing steady damage.
For a digital detox, your phones, computers, Apple watches, smart TVs, and the likes are the culprits, and you must cut them off for a certain period of time.
Some folks do their digital detox once a week. If this is your first time, however, it might be wise to let it last a whole week. During this time, you would have convinced your mind and body that you needn’t rely on digital devices for joy or motivation. You will also discover other offline ways to entertain yourself.
- Choose one social media platform, and diligently manage your time spent on it. Today, there are numerous social media sites offering seemingly unique styles of content and promising to rid your life of boredom.
With millions of people using and raving about them, it can be somewhat difficult to resist the urge to register an account with as many of them as you can.
But doing so increases your chances of digital addiction. It also ensures you spend more time than is healthy on your devices. The right thing to do is pick out your favorite social media, and register an account with only that website. Having done so, you can focus on regulating how much time you send on it.
- You know those notifications you keep getting? How crucial is it that you are notified every time a news media outlet publishes a new story or when your friend uploads a funny post?
When you think about it, you may realize that some emails, social media posts, and other notifications that breeze into your phone each time you switch on your mobile data are more of a nuisance than anything. To avoid the distraction(s) they lead to, you might want to switch off notifications for certain applications.
- This is similar to the point above, but with a little twist. Regardless of their importance, you might want to turn off notifications for every application on your phone and computer when you are trying to get work done.
Whether you are trying to get in a certain word count or need to be productive at the office, the gossip, emails, WhatsApp group drama, and being notified about a new post by your favorite YouTuber can be especially derailing. You can turn them back on after work.
- It is also helpful to keep a minimal number of icons on your computer. The truth is that most people only need about 10 of them. The fewer there are, the less likely it is that you will have a messy start menu.
As with the other tips on this list, there is no one-size-fits-all-approach. If it is important that you have more than 10 shortcuts, then by all means create them.
- You may not think much about it, but mind clutter can be caused by how many passwords you have to remember. Think about all the online accounts you have registered for and, for the purpose 0f safety, how many different difficult passwords for each one you have to maintain.
When you need to remember them, it might seem like you need a password to access your mental database, which is a time-consuming process on its own.
What you need is a secure and reliable password manager to store all your passwords. This way you can avoid getting hacked and save yourself the time and stress of having to remember all your passwords.
- An alternative to turning your notifications off is to unsubscribe from “useless” newsletters and YouTube channels. You can live, happily in fact, without being entertained by every interesting account you find on social media.
Also, if you haven’t needed the information from certain newsletters in about three months, then you don’t need them popping up on your screen and cluttering your inbox.
- Use websites instead of social media applications. The point of this is to add a little difficulty to your social media use. With applications, you may not need to always sign in or type out the URL.
Of course, this also means you should log out after you are done with a particular social media and you shouldn’t add just any website to your homepage. Each time you need or want to use social media, make sure the process requires you to open a browser and log into the site.
- Finally, you might decide to be extreme in your method and control the number and kind of digital devices you own. It could be that you do not need to own a smartphone at all. Maybe all you need is a laptop and a mobile phone that will be used for calls, text messages, alarms, calculators, and other essential purposes.
Benefits of Soul Decluttering
If you frequently use any space, then chances are that you will gradually begin to fill it with both the things you need and those you think you need. The problem arises when these items you need are not properly stored and the ones you should do away with continue to take up space. Everything from your house, office area, to your very mind can be limited by unattended clutter.
When you decide to clear out a physical mess, you attempt to dispose of or neatly store away items that are either useless or do not meet any present need (or want).
With soul clutter, you are required to be a little less concerned with the state of any room or physical space and internalize your decluttering efforts. Of course, a clean living space, for example, can have a positive impact on how you feel and how motivated you are.
The Freedom
Those who have dealt with their soul clutter may admit that they now feel like they can do and achieve anything. That weight on your soul is most likely the self-limiting factor that has prevented you from taking certain opportunities and living to your fullest potential. But the moment you sort this out, with the clutter goes your doubt and fear.
The Extra Space
Unlike a physical space where you might enjoy looking at the space you’ve created and wanting to leave it as unoccupied as it is, you must fill up the empty areas of your soul with new habits and interests.
This is not only useful for your self-improvement, but it also prevents old negative habits from coming back. So, when you forgive yourself for past errors, you must also try new things and achieve new successes.
You’ll Enjoy Life More
It can be nearly impossible to be happy with life in general when your perspective is gloomy and without hope. Many people with depression, for instance, barely even want to leave their houses. By decluttering your soul, you will feel encouraged to step out of your comfort zone and enjoy more of what life has to give.
Your Loved Ones Will Appreciate the Effort
People are usually uncomfortable around those who look and act like they bear the weight of the world on their shoulders. While no one is without problems of some sort, it is important that we are emotionally healthy and available enough to be helpful to our loved ones and people in general.
You must work on making yourself better so you can add some light into the world, even as you receive light from the world.
Healing From the Past
The likelihood is that you’ve made certain choices in your life that you are not exactly proud of. You may, in fact, feel some internal hatred as the ghost of past mistakes haunts and keeps you small.
And you read that right: not forgiving yourself can be self-limiting. But it isn’t just our personal errors that follow us into the future. If someone you love or respect has done something to hurt you, the wound can remain fresh years later.
Clearing the clutter from your soul helps you deal with these issues and find the healing you need.
You Become a Teacher
To effectively impart any kind of knowledge, it is vital that you have passed through the tutelage of that experience and have gained wisdom in the process.
Therefore, to help anyone declutter their soul, you must have faced your internal chaos and addressed each issue. So, this exercise, however difficult, is not only beneficial to you. Those you care about and the individuals who will come into your life can be helped by your choice to declutter.
You Can Now Enjoy Better Sleep
Insomnia, as previously discussed, is one of the symptoms of a clutter-filled soul. The overthinking that results from anxiety can ensure that you are unable to enjoy a restful sleep—or any sleep whatsoever.
Counting sheep or wishing away your sleeplessness might be futile in solving this problem. You will only begin to enjoy your well-deserved good night’s sleep after you have cleaned out your soul and adopted new, positive habits.
Your Health Will Also Improve
It isn’t so hard to predict the state of health of someone who is always up all night is depressed, has low self-esteem, and unwittingly alienates their loved ones. Chances are that these conditions will negatively impact their health. Depression, for instance, can lead to gastrointestinal issues, heart disease, and weight gain.
Celebrating Your Achievements
Even successfully freeing yourself from emotional, psychological, and spiritual clutter is a worthy achievement on its own. Yes, this is something to talk about (without becoming a nuisance, of course). Conquering this challenge also, sort of, permits you to celebrate other successes that may not be related to soul decluttering.
Improved Productivity
To be successful at work requires more than talent, skill, or the number of degrees you have amassed. In fact, mindfulness and emotional well-being are major determinants in the level of your productivity.
If you struggle with addictions and other destructive cycles, you may lose your zeal for your job and feel incompetent. If this is presently how you are at work, then it might be wise to look inwards and find solutions to your personal struggles.
You Can Enjoy Richer Relationships
The more stable you are, the better you can interact with everyone in y0ur life. If you have a testy relationship with your boss or employee, it could be that one or both parties are hoarding bad habits, negative emotions, and keeping the wrong company.
You may also be merely enduring the relationship with your spouse, romantic partner, or friends. You must take steps to fix yourself immediately (if you perceive that you are the one in need of fixing) before people begin to withdraw from your toxicity.
Become More Creative Than Ever Before
Now that your mind and soul have been liberated from things like guilt, shame, and anger, you find that your creative self will burst out more boldly. Whether it’s an artistic expression or in problem solving, taking care of the mess that exists in you will ensure that the best you have to give comes forward.
In Summary
You wouldn’t have bothered with this article if you didn’t understand that the state of your soul is just as important as your finances and physical health. So, well done for that!
After successfully decluttering, you will have the responsibility of making sure that your soul, mental, physical, and digital space remains clear and free. This is no easy task, of course, and one is unable to predict how well a particular individual might maintain a decluttered space.
To give yourself a better chance at this, you should constantly remind yourself about how you felt before and after you cleared out the clutter. How uplifting was the process, and how motivated and inspired were you after? If you are determined to maintain these positive emotions, then you stand the best chance of staying decluttered.
Now, how do you make sure other people maintain the cleared space? The only way to do this is to have a conversation with those who share the space with you or with whom you are in regular contact.
As it relates to decluttering, their goals must be aligned with yours. Of course, every party involved will have to make some sacrifice so the shared physical space, your mind, and soul stays free of junk.
Without moving it to tomorrow, apply all you have learned from this post and begin to enjoy peace and joy that you deserve.
Declutter Your Soul and Mind FAQs
1. Is declutter another word for minimalism?
It’s not. There are some similarities between minimalism and decluttering, but their differences are quite clear. Minimalism can simply be defined as “living with less.” Decluttering is more an occasional activity of clearing away than an ideology.
2. What happens when you declutter the soul?
If your focus is on soul decluttering, then the most important things should be introspection, forgiveness, happiness, and fulfilment. For instance, you would have to recognize what triggers a negative reaction from you and address that.