Mental Health: How To Declutter Your Mind Palace

Hoarding mental clutter in our mind palaces holds us back from achieving our dreams. Learn how to declutter your mind palace and take back your power in life.

I often feel like many of our issues in modern life would be quite easily solved by us shutting off our minds for a bit. How would your life improve if you learned how to organise and declutter your mind palace? We need to limit the power our minds hold over us.

Our minds are well-meaning at their core, and they do intend to be helpful most of the time, but they rarely succeed. They’re like old computers that have yet to receive the proper updates. They want to help, and they can look at a situation and make suggestions, but to follow said suggestions is a little like following the fairies. You might find yourself in the right place, or in a life and death situation. It’s a toss of the dice. The brain is much the same.

Sometimes our brains are even unhelpful to the point that they, much like children, simply repeats something we once heard, and makes it sound convincing enough that we take it as truth. When in actuality it was nothing but the opinions of some person we met. Sometimes not even that. A lot of the time people speak without thinking, without realising the power that lies in their words and who might be listening.

Should we listen to our brains?

It is difficult to know whether or not your thoughts are helpful. Is this something real and true, or is this my brain trying to convince me that the words of the bullies from second grade were facts, not opinions? A lot of the time, our memories of what people have told us get hazy over the years. All we remember are the words, and how they made us feel. But we may have thought about them so much over the years, that the voice we heard originally has turned into our own voice, in our minds.

The harsh things we’ve heard others tell us become the same things we tell ourselves. We essentially become our own bullies, and often far worse than the bullies we met in life.

How do we speak to ourselves?

When it comes to self-talk, we’re often told to imagine us telling our best friend the same things we tell ourselves. Imagine talking to them in the tone, using the types of words we use when we reprimand ourselves. It’s painful, isn’t it? When we realise that what we tell ourselves daily is something we would never tell another living soul, unless they had done something very awful indeed.

So why do we seem to think that it is okay for us to talk to ourselves that way? We do not want others to bully us, and most of us wouldn’t let someone else verbally abuse us. But we are often very cruel to ourselves.

Much like the bullies we once met, whether they were our friends or relatives, we do not realise the power that lies in our words. Words and thoughts are essentially spells. We breathe life into them and focus on them until they mould our reality. What we focus on, we attract.

Helping or hurting

It’s like when we’re complaining to someone about our day. About a colleague that wronged us, about our boss, about something that wasn’t delivered when it ought to have been… whatever it may be when we speak in absolutes, we change our reality into something we may not want.

When we say things like “I always get sick during winter,” that becomes an affirmation of sorts, a thought and a focus that we manifest. What the Universe provides is a reflection. A reflection of our minds, our thoughts and our opinions. And if you happen to have anxiety and worry a lot, this becomes an especially big problem. It means that we speak our worries into existence.

Misery loves company

So the next time you find yourself complaining about something, take a moment and think about it. How does this make me feel, saying these words aloud? Does it make me feel happy? Hopeful? Energised? Or does it make me feel worse? Does it make me feel like things might not ever get better?

Our words have power, true, but they also have energy. When we always think about what could go wrong, or see the faults in ourselves or in other people, then that is a very negative energy that we surround ourselves with. It is a little like the saying that hating someone is like taking poison and hoping the other person will die.

If we get upset over someone or something, and the people who have upset us do not care, what good are our upset emotions? The other person/people won’t care. Should we really ruin our day or days with anger sadness and stress? All that does is prolong the suffering and we end up giving even more power to the people that hurt us. In that moment, their words had power over us and we let them hurt us. That was bad enough. But us dwelling over it for days, weeks, months or even years? Why should we let their behaviour yesterday ruin our tomorrow?

No, we should allow ourselves to feel what we feel, acknowledge those feelings by journaling, creating a piece of art to represent those feelings or perhaps dance it out. And then we should let them go. When we declutter our homes, we realise we have a lot of things we’d forgotten we ever bought or received. We realise we have to declutter so that we can get some peace and not feel so stressed out.

Removing our mental blocks

The brain is the home of our thoughts. Most of us have a ton of clutter back there, clutter we may not even be aware of. But it is holding us back, and it is tripping us when we try to move forward.

There is not a person in this world that does not carry trauma. That hasn’t had things happen to them. Even positive events can turn into traumas if we weren’t ready for them. If we became too overwhelmed and things happened too quickly. And all the trauma and memories we carry become clutter.

We need to de-stigmatise mental health and we need to address it more. It should be as easy to mention as it is to tell someone we have a cold. Needing to rewind and take a mental health day should be as justifiable as taking a day off because we have a high fever. And decluttering our minds regularly should become a routine in our lives. In the same way we clean our homes, or detox our bodies come spring, we should declutter our minds and start fresh.

How do we go about it practically and declutter our minds?

Well, have you ever heard of a mind palace? It is a memory technique where you envision a room, a house or indeed a palace in your mind. Envision it well, walk around in it and make yourself comfortable.

Now let’s say we want to find out what our block is, our Achilles heel, if you will. Imagine that in your mind palace, all of your memories, emotions and trauma are stored. And likely it is hoarded up there, things lying on top of other things, cluttering up the floor etc.

How would you address a house or a room that had the same issue? Where would you start? Start there.

My method

I imagine having boxes and shelves where I can place the moments, emotions and memories that I intend to keep. The ones that make me feel good and help me. And then I imagine composting bags and moving boxes for all of the limiting ideas, toxic beliefs and other types of mental clutter that I want to get rid of.

Sometimes you already know exactly where you get started. Sometimes you envision yourself walking around in your mind palace and you end up seeing things that symbolise what is most pressing. The things you need to deal with first. And sometimes, you simply need to pick an area and get started.

Decorating your mind palace

I like to make myself a reading nook in my mind palace, with a nice chair, a window nearby and perhaps some nice herbs hanging by the curtain, gently moving and spreading their scent as the loving breeze slips through the slightly opened window.

As I sit there and meditate, thoughts tend to pop up. Most of the time, those are tied to mental clutter, and that is where I need to start decluttering.

How to let it go

Give the thought, memory or feeling a physical appearance in your mind. Turn it into a thing. Hold it in your hands, and think about it. How does it make you feel? Is it true? Why do we think that way? If a friend had the same issue, what would we advise them to do?

If it is a thought, imagine someone else saying this thought. Give the person a name, a face even. Then tell them to knock it off, or to f*** off even.

Allow yourself to feel what you feel, thank your brain for trying to help you by making you aware of this thought, and then let it go. You can imagine yourself burning the item, packing it away in moving boxes and sending it away, or whatever works for you.

Be patient

Just like decluttering an area of your life, this is not done in a day or two. This is done gradually over time, and you often end up dealing with the mental clutter in the order that it is bothering you or has been bothering you. It did not take a day or two to collect the clutter up there in your mind palace. In fact, it likely took years. So you need to have patience.

If you have access to a therapist you know and trust, or some form of spiritual guide, then I suggest you accept their help. This is no small matter and, likely, your feelings won’t be small either. You’ll need support and you’ll need to let it take the time it takes. There is no quick fix. But with every piece of mental clutter that you get rid of, you will clear the path to your future, and to your happiness, and that is worth all the effort.

Good luck!