What is Emotional Clutter?

When I refer to emotional clutter, I’m referring to your thoughts and feelings that are left over from previous interactions, especially those that are not favorable. For instance, if you were in a bad relationship and you are still experiencing quite a bit of anger or guilt about the relationship, this would be emotional clutter. Emotional clutter is a saboteur. It clouds our perception, takes us away from the present moment and destroys our ability to accurately sense truth. It’s insidious in nature, because many of the ways that we receive intuitive information are the same ways that this emotional clutter present themselves. For instance, if you are clairsentient, you may get a good or a bad feeling about someone you meet. If you have emotional clutter, this feeling could be nothing more than a memory being triggered by the person, and it may have absolutely nothing to do with your intuition. Emotional clutter robs you of your ability to discern true intuitive information. Why is this? It’s for one very simple reason. If you let go of the emotional clutter and choose to focus on getting your intuitive answer, the emotional clutter dies. It cannot survive without you giving it the life giving energy of thought. Many times, to get to an intuitive answer, you must let go of your preconceived notions, your beliefs about what should happen and your attitudes toward the likelihood of any given outcome. All that stuff is emotional clutter, and it really wants to survive… so it sabotages you. There are three main ways that emotional clutter sabotages your intuition. Let’s explore.

The Three Saboteurs

Sabotage tactic #1: Create confusion

Emotional clutter that is left over from previous experiences creates confusion. Your intuition will often speak to you through your emotions, so if your intuition is saying one thing and your emotional clutter is saying another, you may feel two or more emotions simultaneously. This alone creates confusion, because if you ask yourself how you feel, the answer isn’t simple. It’s complex. Furthermore, it can be very difficult to figure out which emotions are valid and intuitive and which ones are not. Now, imagine that you have a few unresolved emotional experiences in your life that pertain to a particular issue. (This may not take much imagination.) What if you have two or three emotional experiences giving you feedback at the same time as your intuition? What do you think is going to happen? Will you have more or less clarity?

Sabotage tactic #2: Create distractions

Here’s how emotional clutter creates distractions. You’re getting closer to your intuitive answer, but instead of letting you get there, your emotional clutter comes in and interrupts. You start thinking of past events, mundane things that aren’t necessary for the task at hand, and — well — just about anything. Maybe you think about dishes that need to be done, or the bills that need to be paid, or that the dog needs to be walked soon. Whatever it is, it’s not urgent for this moment, but the mind wants you to think about it instead.

Sabotage tactic #3: Drown out intuitive information

Your emotional clutter has tried to confuse you and it has tried to distract you. Both attempts have been unsuccessful, and so you leave it with no other option. It must drown out the intuitive information by being louder, more obnoxious, and more potent than its opponent. When your emotional clutter does this, it seems a bit like a two year old throwing a tantrum. You can get hit with a ton of emotions or sensory information that seem very important for you right now. I have a friend who had a huge emotional freak out about 36 hours after he got great news. You could set a clock to it, and it continued until he recognized the pattern and learned to let go of his emotional clutter. This is what happens when your emotional clutter builds up and you are on the verge of letting go of it. It yells. Remember, it’s trying to survive here. If your emotional clutter is yelling, how well do you suppose you can “hear” your intuition? Not very well, right?

The Two Tricks to Clean House

Emotional clutter isn’t helpful to tuning into your intuition, but what can you do about it? If you’ve had bad experiences or if you expect certain things to happen, are you stuck with all of that? Nope. Not at all. Emotional clutter is something you can get rid of, and there are two fantastic strategies that I love to use.

Let it go

The first strategy is to let it go. This is simple, but many of us have never been taught how to let go of emotions or past hurts once we have them. Luckily, there is a very simple process to consciously let go of any unwanted thought, emotion or belief in the moment. The great thing about this process is that it engages the conscious mind, so if you’re the type of person who has little experience meditating, or you find meditating difficult, I highly recommend using this technique.

Step 1: Accept everything you’re experiencing

In this step, you want to focus inside on everything that is going on in your body and in your mind. This includes thoughts, pictures, sounds and emotions. Get completely present with what exists in your experience in the now. If thoughts and worries are going through your mind, let them. Don’t try to DO anything with them, simply experience them from an observer’s point of view. Don’t judge the thoughts, feelings or sensations as good or bad and stop trying to engage with them, and simply let them exist.

Step 2: Breathe through the experience

Take nice long, slow breaths while being present with your present moment experience. Stay in your observer’s position, and allow everything that you are experiencing to simply exist. Breathe through whatever your experiencing.

Step 3: Ask yourself if you can let it go

Once you are fully present and have spent a few moments breathing slowly and deliberately through what you’re experiencing from the observer’s stand point, ask yourself, “Am I willing to let this experience go?” Now, this is important. You are not trying to “trick” yourself into letting things go, because that creates more internal conflict. If your spontaneous and authentic answer is “no,” that’s perfect. The spontaneous and authentic answer is what you’re going for here. You don’t have to say “yes” in order to let some of it go. Saying “no” when it’s authentic is so much more powerful than any forced “yes” you will ever say. If the answer is “yes” that’s great, too! It means you are ready to let it go in this moment.

Step 4: Repeat the process

Start at Step 1 and go through it again until you feel a sensation of love, peace and/or acceptance.  This can take a while, especially if you have been holding on to a feeling for a long time. It doesn’t mean that this process doesn’t work, it means that you’ve had a lot more practice holding on than you have letting go. Most people find benefits immediately, even if the issue hasn’t completely dissolved, yet.

Shine light on the issue or situation

This is a very simple meditation exercise. I usually spend about 10-15 minutes on it, but even 3-5 minutes will help. First, think of an issue or problem that you are experiencing and would like to change. Perhaps a messy breakup with someone that you haven’t fully accepted or that you are still experiencing anger or bitterness about, or maybe an old friend that you haven’t forgiven for a past transgression. Now that you have your emotional clutter issue, sit in a quiet place and turn on some meditative music, if that’s your thing. Breathe slowly and deliberately and allow yourself to get into a meditative state. Imagine that person or situation in your mind, and send it love and light. Imagine them surrounded with light, and allow yourself to love them as completely as you can. I use a person in my example because it’s easier to imagine, but this can be done with things not easily visualized. If you have trouble “seeing” the issue that caused the emotional clutter, take a moment to feel it, instead. The key here is to tune into that experience and to send it love and light. When you do this, you are consciously and deliberately changing the vibration of the experience. The clutter falls away, and the lessons are retained for your continued growth.

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