Do you stress out about keeping your environment organized to the point you lose your peace if things don’t look a certain way?
Or, is your environment chaotic and disorganized where you can’t easily find anything? Both of these extremes in how you interact with your environment indicate a need to control outcomes coming from fear.
In this blog, I offer 12 tips to achieve a balanced and organized mindset..
To read more about the other attributes, see below. Learn how to move away from the extremes and move towards a holistic, balanced path.
Foundation for all 9 Loving Self-Advocate attributes
First attribute, Balanced Self-Discipline.
Second attribute, Prosperity Mindset.
We are still looking at your need for Safety, the bottom of the pyramid in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. To feel safe, your physical environment plays a big role.
Whether you have a strong need to create an environment that is very neat, tidy, and organized, or whether you are at the opposite extreme with lots of clutter and disorganization, both scenarios stem from fear and the need to control.
Both individuals most likely experienced some sort of event or series of events that left them feeling traumatized, fearful and powerless.
If you fall into the first camp, extremely organized, where you need for things to be extremely organized (some might call rigid), then take a look at the checklist below.
Specifically, it seems to most resemble the aspect of OCD related to the need for order and symmetry. And though this may be the case, I’m not trying to diagnose or be clinical here. These have been my personal experiences as well as those of clients.
Can you see how it would be very challenging to relax and be okay with the process of life, to feel safe and supported in the world, if you’re constantly needing to control your environment?
Because you have this clear plan in mind of how life should be, you bend over backwards to make sure your plans unfold. The agenda, the ways things “should” be, creates tight muscles in your neck and shoulders, stomach, etc.
You know how people brace themselves right before they get into an accident? They “see” the accident about to occur, and so they tighten up. Similarly, your body feels like it’s bracing for the “other shoe to drop.” On a deep level, you know you can’t control life, but that doesn’t stop you from trying to. Your tense muscles reflect this rigid need to control outcomes.
I think it would be very powerful to do Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) on the fear and need to control outcomes. This is a simple but powerful technique (a/k/a tapping) to create new beliefs.
After watching the video to learn the mechanics of EFT, tap using the below setup statements. First determine how true the belief is on a scale of 0 to 10, 10 being the most true:
Then tap through the points as outlined in the video, stating a reminder phrase, such as the following (feel free to repeat the same phrases again and again):
Assess how you feel after you tap. If needed, do another round, inserting words like, “Even though I still feel _____.”
What you FEEL is more important than what you SAY. In other words, don’t get hung up on the words. Energy is intentional.
If you fall into the second camp, extremely disorganized, you may be unwilling to let go of things as a way to feel in control of your life. Even though it appears to others that you are totally out-of-control, hanging onto “stuff” gives you a sense of being in control, because STUFF is something you can at least control.
If you live in a lot of fear, such as the universal fears of loss, rejection, failure and losing control, you may hold onto clutter to give you a sense of commanding, or controlling at least a portion of your life.
If you can determine the event in which you started to feel a loss of power or control and neutralize it with EFT, you will make great progress in clearing the clutter in your outer world.
Can you relate to any of this? There are obviously many levels of clutter and disorganization. If you or someone you know is living in squalor and filth, deeper support to heal trauma wounds is needed. Reach out to me.
How true are the statements below on a scale of 0 to 10, 10 being the most true?
Assess how you feel after you tap. Do another round if necessary. Your goal is to get the belief down to a 2 or less of intensity.
Next, do you recall an event where you began to feel powerless and a sense of loss of control? If so, tap on that. Rate how powerless you feel on a scale of 0 to 10.
Feel free to do another round of tapping if you need to, changing the setup statements to “Even though I’m STILL feeling powerless….”
The Loving Self Advocate (LSA) gracefully maintains a well-organized environment without having to rigidly control it and exhaust herself. She’s not attached to how it looks and would be okay no matter what.
She prefers that her environment be neat and tidy because she is more efficient and able to find things easily.
If you’d like to adopt this way of thinking and new set of habits, the first step is to shift your energy so that you feel safe, secure and in control regardless of your outer environment. Your INNER environment of peace, faith and trust determines your outer success and appearance.
If you’ve been living with clutter for a while, it can be an isolated, lonely place because you’ve been embarrassed to have others over. By taking action, you create a tidy (not perfect) space where you and others feel safe to connect. If you’ve been rigidly controlling your environment, you may be hesitant to have others over because of loss of control. As you relax, this will change, and you’ll enjoy others’ company.
Tapping is a powerful tool to clear stuck, blocked energy. It also rewires your neural pathways to create a new belief and/or habit. The actions below are going to be much easier to take when your belief is aligned with what you want, in this case, to get free of clutter and/or the need to be rigidly organized.
If you feel uptight and can’t relax until everything is in its proper place, one of the best things to do is breathe. Find a breathing technique to release stress. One you might try is to place your palms together, breathe rapidly in and out for 10 seconds through your mouth, visualizing letting go of the stress.
Rearrange some furniture. Move an item that normally has its designated “place.” When people come into your space, allow them to “freely move about the cabin.” In other words, if something gets misplaced, let it be out of order for an hour. If you still feel anxious after that time, put it back. Get used to playing around with the rigid need to control how things look. You’ll begin to notice that the more you do this, the safer you’ll feel.
For some this can be a daunting task because you let it accumulate. Once caught up, do it weekly or even more often. If you have kids who are old enough, enlist their help to fold it and put it away.
Unsubscribe to lists that you’re not really reading. We all have this strong FOMO (fear of missing out). We are addicted to information and the need to read everything that comes across our email inbox. But this isn’t true, is it? You’ll be OK if you hit the “delete” key. You really will be. Move emails to an appropriate folder if you think you’ll need it later. Take action on those emails that are quick turnarounds and then delete them ASAP. What remains are the emails that may take a bit longer for you to respond to or read. Maintain your cleaned out inbox by taking a few minutes daily to make decisions (1 or 2 times per day).
Remember that the hardest part of any project is starting. And if you’ve done the tapping above and continue to use it as resistance arises, you’ll be fine. You can do this. Put the time on your calendar and ask someone to hold you accountable. I’d love to coach you through this if you feel called to reach out to me.
To feel safe is so important to living a quality life. I’m facilitating a Healing Circle in which I’ll be giving healing codes. This would be an ideal way to heal some of your harmful beliefs that perpetuate the need to rigidly control the environment and/or hold onto clutter.
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