Letting go of clutter
Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui by Karen Kingston - Readers' letters
My future father-in-law threw away all our stuff
I bought your book around 6 years ago after someone highly recommended it to me just because she felt great after reading it and thought that I would really enjoy it. Well, there it sat with the rest of my clutter for 6 years! With every move I brought this book with me along with so much other stuff - I think I moved six times in six years. Anyway, I just moved again and found your book and for some reason was ready to read it. Once I started I couldn't put it down and I really got so much out of it.
My fiancé and I sorted through all of our stuff that we left in his parents shed. We threw stuff in garbage bags that we wanted to bring to the dump, and we put the rest of the stuff that we "needed" in plastic storage bins to bring to our new apartment where there is little space for it. We went to the dump on Easter Sunday and it was closed. My future father-in-law told us he would bring it for us on Monday morning. We could use his vehicle to drive back home and he would use ours to bring our stuff to the dump, then bring the rest to our place.
Well, for some reason he didn't get the part that we were bringing the stuff in the plastic bins to our place, and he threw it all away!
At first, I gasped when he told me and I thought of all of my things like my summer shoes, my winter coats, my photo albums etc... Then I felt this tremendous sense of relief! I feel great, but I know that if I hadn't read your book I would have been devastated. I told my future father-in-law this and he just looked at me like I was nuts.
Thank you so much. ~ Patty
Clutter clearing before moving house
Thank you for your book Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui. I am going to be moving shortly and to reduce moving costs I had to eliminate clutter that has collected for the past 40 years. After reading your book, I found myself able to part with things I had held onto "just in case" for many years. It was and is truly liberating. ~ Marianne, USA
Who needs so much stuff?
I am just finishing reading your book, Clear your Clutter with Feng Shui, and continuing with my intensive cleaning job. I am familiar with feng shui and tried to introduce it in my home, discarded things from time to time here and there but never on such a scale. Thank you for pointing my attention to the problem of "all old things which are lying around". I thought that I had it under control. Well, that was not really true. Who needs 15 bottles of smelling oils that are out of date? Thank you once more for writing this book. Really good piece of work and inspiration and help for a change in our life! - Joanna, Sweden
Clutter clearing my garage
I read your book in less than a week, and I have started reading it again - that is, when I can keep myself out of the garage (tossing out so much clutter that I thought I could never get rid of). I have only just begun, but I would have never even done any of it if I had not read your book. It's true - my energy level goes up dramatically with every sack of garbage I fill up. Three big black garbage bags full, plus other junk that I stuffed into my car's front & back seat and trunk and taken to the dumpster. Bless you. ~ M.W., USA
Layers of clutter clearing
Your book about clutter is my all-time favourite! I have cleared clutter many times over the years in my home and in my life (including mental clutter) and I seem to go even deeper every time I do it. 'Why did I keep this the last time I cleared clutter?'
Afterwards, something new and fresh always comes in as something old goes out the door. I go through again a major clear-out - every CD, video, book, my clothes, shoes, bags, make-up and stuff from the kitchen thinking,"Do I love it? When did I last use it? Have I outgrown it?"
Now it feels so great without the clutter that on my visit to Florence I did not buy any souvenirs; I was thinking: 'Bah, I don´t need that, it will end up being clutter.' ~ Johanna S., Finland
Letting go of the old to create space for the new
Two years ago your book, Feng Shui Gegen das Gerümpel des Alltags [the German translation of Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui ], found me and it initially landed with my assorted collection of other Feng Shui books. And why did I end up reading it now? As fate would have it, I couldn't find a cat sitter anywhere and had to cancel my vacation (first time in 14 years!). I decided to take the time off anyway and started cleaning my apartment with just the intent to clean it. And then your book turned up on the bookshelf (which was in need of repair). I've been reading it every morning at breakfast and on breaks.
First the "bad" news: This has been an incredibly stressful time and honestly, I feel like I've been hit by an 18 wheeler.
Now the good news: I've managed to reduce 3 meters of clothing to 2. Everything fits into one closet now. That was the easy part! Now I'm working on the books and just the other day I discovered love letters from my very first boyfriend. Off to the bin they go, including the stuffed animal he gave me. (Strangely enough, I found him via internet the same day I found the letters and was glad to see that he's not the knight in shining armor of my youth, but just an ordinary out-of-shape ob-gyn practising in a dumpy little town.)
On to the really amazing part: you wrote that one should trust in life that it will provide what you need. Last week my coffee machine broke and I decided I wasn't going to buy a new one. Yesterday I went to the basement looking for an empty box for my old books (found one of course), pulled the box off the floor and what did I discover? Yup. A nearly new coffee machine that my dad had left behind when he moved.
I still have plenty of work ahead of me, but I'm sure the results will be worth it and I'm looking forward to more surprise now that I have space for them! Thanks for describing the phenomenon and the psychology of clutter, how to get rid of it and make sure it stays gone. I'm filling sacks of junk now on a daily basis! ~ C.F, Germany
