Do you feel like you’re stuck in a rut? Do you have things that you’re trying to change but you just can’t seem to change them? Well, the thing that may keep you stuck in a rut maybe all those material things that you surround yourself with. This is no joke, and I have experienced it myself over the last few weeks.The Chinese have a science called Feng Shui, and most people think of that as the way to arrange your house and the things in your house for the best look and energy flow. There’s really a lot more to it.

The fact is, you’re constantly interacting with all the things that you surround yourself with. There’s no need to get metaphysical about this, since few people would argue that at a minimum, everyone has psychological interactions with the things that are around them on a regular basis. For example, when people buy a new car, hardly anyone says, “that is the car.” most people say, space “that is my car,” when you think about it, that means that there’s a definite psychological interaction between the person and the car. This isn’t rocket science.

So think about all the subconscious interactions that go on between you and the stuff you own. They are endless. We are in the process of moving, and that gave me the chance to go into the basement and garage and start rummaging through all the things that had permanent residence there. I literally found things that hadn’t been touched in 10 years. I kept asking myself why in the world we were hanging onto that stuff since we weren’t using it. Of course, the old standby rationalization that you might use it someday was one of the first things that came to mind, and that literally was one of the reasons that we continue to keep some things. But I think there’s another, more subtle reason.

Having familiar stuff around you keeps up the illusion of permanence. With familiar stuff in familiar places everything is going to stay the same, and I think it’s human nature, particularly in the security oriented culture, to resist change. But this can get out of hand. For example, I know someone who’s been going through major life changes, and part of those changes included selling her horses. The crazy thing was that after she sold her horses she wouldn’t let go of her saddle or the bridles. Think about that. She held on to the saddle thinking that you might use it someday, and that kept her attached to the idea of owning her horses. So, she would go in and look at the saddle and experience ongoing depression over the sale of her horses instead of just letting the horses go. As soon as she made a clean break and actually gave away the saddle and bridles for depression started to go away too.

When I noticed this in my friend, I decided to rent a dumpster and put it in the front driveway. Over the last week I’ve been throwing things away left and right. Yes, I’ve also given things to charity. What I’ve noticed, as that as I’ve thrown away the things that are not critical to my day-to-day living, I’ve experienced a tremendous feeling of liberation. When you think about it, it is literally because the psychological bonds all that stuff are being broken. The Hindus have an interesting concept called being bound to earth with a golden chain. It means that all those material things are the golden chain because it’s really neat to have, but they tie you down spiritually and psychologically. Until you get away from them, you’ll never soar the way you’re supposed to.

So, if you find yourself in any kind of rut like not being able to lose weight you want to lose, like not finding that job you need to find, like being in a relationship that doesn’t seem to be working, or anything else that you’ve tried to change over and over and it just doesn’t seem to be working… Well, try changing your environment by rearranging and disposing of physical stuff.

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