Energy Leeches

Most of us know that clutter is rarely a good thing and admit we have too much stuff. And yet we keep it. We like it, so why should we let it go?

Well if you are living with chronic illness, here is why you should think about letting the clutter go. Clutter is an energy leech. 

You know what energy leeches are. They are the people, places and situations that just seem to drain your energy away without you actually doing anything at all.

Most of us try to avoid energy leeches like the plague. We have so little energy to begin with, we can't afford to give any to an energy leech. But clutter is a hidden energy leech lying in wait in your home just sucking energy away from you day and night. 

Here are a few ways that clutter could be sucking away your energy without you even realizing it:

1.  Visual clutter. Your brain has to process everything it sees. So when your home is full of stuff, just sitting still looking around can be mentally tiring. 

2.  Finding stuff. When a space is cluttered it is much easier to lose stuff and so much harder to find it. And not finding what you need leads to frustration and stress. Both of which trigger flare ups in many chronic illnesses. 

3.  Cleaning in harder. House cleaning is very difficult when you have limited strength and limited energy. It is even harder to clean something if you can't see it because it's covered in clutter. You use up all your cleaning energy moving the clutter to clean underneath it. 

4.  Dust is a bad thing. This goes right along with cleaning. When you fall behind in house cleaning due to clutter, dusting is usually the first thing to go. But a build up of dust (and dust mites) can be very dangerous to a person with allergies or respiratory problems. And it is really not good for anyone to be inhaling tons of dust.  And clutter just loves to collect dust. 

5.  Memory. Clutter happens because the stuff in your house does not have a home. When the stuff does not have a home, you have to always remeber the last place you left it. Which is a total waste of mental energy. 

I am sure there are many other ways clutter could be stealing your energy without you even realizing it. 

We all have clutter. Even if you don't have a chronic illness you probably still need all the energy you can get. So take a look around your house at your very own clutter and decide if keeping it is worth the energy loss. 

I have decided to dump the clutter and take back the energy it has been stealing.  I know it won't be easy or fast. But reclaiming that extra energy and being able to use it how I choose is worth the effort. 

If you feel the same as I do, stay tuned for more post on getting organized and banishing the clutter energy leech for good. 

Coming soon...really. I promise.

My last post was in September. It is now February. I truly did mean to post more often. I want to have a record of the changes and challenges that happen as I work toward a happier, healthier me. 

But healthy has been a big challenge in the last few months. I had a severe respiratory infection that landed me in the ER twice and on bed rest for weeks. I had barely recovered from that when I was diagnosed with pnuemonia. Then I was hit with influenza which can be life threatening for someone with asthma. 

During all this, I was also adjusting to a new diagnosis. A connective tissue disorder called Ehler Danlos Syndrome. Just what I needed, another syndrome. 

This diagnosis meant an extreme shift in my way of thinking. With Fibromyalgia, I paced myself but basically ignored the pain. Fibro pain is neurologically based so the while the pain is absolutely real, it is not related to an injury or physical problem in the area that hurts. While you need to pace yourself to not get too tired, movement actually helps the pain more than being inactive unless you are in a severe flare up. 

With Ehler Danlos, the tendons that connect my joints are basically too loose. Think of how useless a stretched out elastic is. That is my tendons trying to hold the joints in place. 

The pain is caused by an actual physical problem in the area that hurts. And that area needs rest and support to feel better. Like my wrists and thumbs after shoveling snow. My thumbs kept partially dislocating and causing me pain. So my doctor gave me these nifty things. Oh joy. 

As you can imagine, this is a huge change for someone used to living with and ignoring Fibro pain. But it does explain why so much of my pain did not fit into the typical Fibro diagnosis. 

I am adjusting. Staying mostly at home and allowing both my respiratory system and my tendons time to recover a bit. 

The upside is that with all this enforced time at home, I finally got fed up with our overcluttered, disorganized house and had the time and motivation to deal with it. But we had tried and failed at this task so many times before that we decided to bring in the big guns to help:  my sister. 

In my next post, I will share how she helped us get past the feeling of complete overwhelm at even the thought of trying to start organizing. And I will show you the progress we have made so far. 

Like everything when you are living with chronic illness, the change is small and slow but each little thing accomplished is an achievement and a step in the right direction. 

Be back soon. Really. :)