Like many of you, I am sure, I have been deeply affected by the shocking coverage of the tragic fires in LA, especially as I know people who have been evacuated and are facing huge loss and trauma from losing their home. Learning of the loss of life, along with the wildlife, great artworks and cultural icons that have been destroyed, fills me with a heavy heart.

Listening to the accounts of people as they ran around gathering what they felt was essential to save, I can only imagine how it was as they were forced to make instant decisions and grab what was most important to them.

Knowing how important our homes are to us, I am so connected to the devastation people must be feeling and my heart goes out to everyone affected. Most people experience a very deep sense that their actual self or identify has diminished when they are faced with such sudden and unexpected loss. For it is not just the possessions, it is the loss of memories, moments, and stories, that the walls of a home hold for us as our life unfolds. Like a blank canvas, our home is a place to paint, through our chosen treasures, the story of our life. As I love to remind people, your home speaks your mind.

For many, the emotional legacy of this tragedy will take years to heal. Some may take a philosophical approach, ‘Ultimately it is just stuff’, I heard Mel Gibson say. For others, the material losses will be as deep a trauma as wartime, leaving emotional scars, that will need perhaps a lifetime of healing and attention. There may also be a profound sense of violation and anger, alongside the grief, that what was most intimate and personal has been invaded and carried away by forces beyond our control.

For those of us who observed this tragedy from afar, we can take a moment to reflect on what we can do to be prepared for such extreme events. Events which recent experience and climate science tell us are becoming more frequent. Tragic events rarely give us much warning; however, from the comfort of our sofa, we can ask ourselves, ‘How can I get my house and affairs in order’?
 

On a purely practical level, decluttering your home is a wise preventative measure and an essential step in preparing for the possibility of being faced with fire or flood. Such events can strike suddenly, and having a clear, organized home reduces the chance of additional damage and increases safety for both you and your property.

When it comes to bank statements, insurance policies and other paperwork, most is backed up digitally in the cloud, and so it is easier to gain access again, especially if you have your phone and laptop. But what of those irreplaceable things? Your child's first little booties, or lace Christening dress; the antique vase owned by five generations of your family; or the riding hat you won a competition with? None of this stuff will save your life, which is the first priority of course, but what would you take if you only had a moment to act and were too overwhelmed to think straight?

With a house that is in good order, it is far easier to know where to go to save your most important treasures. When your home is cluttered with shelf after shelf, or even whole rooms, full of sentimental objects, how will you know what to pick up in an emergency? Or where to find what is most important to you? If, on the other hand, you have a memory box containing a limited number of things you have mindfully chosen because they have the most resonance, it is much easier to carry it to safety with you. Along with a file of your most important documents that you have carefully collated and kept in an easy-to-access, safe location.

Shockingly, some of my cluttered clients have confided in me that they would secretly be relieved if a fire took the clutter away. That the torturous decision-making process of decluttering would be no more, they would feel liberated, purged and released from a burden that weighs them down. What does this tell us?

Our possessions can possess us, they can also represent a huge backlog of unprocessed memories, and decluttering is as much about closing off those open loops as it is about letting go of the objects themselves. It can be easier to do this psychological work when the objects are around to act as prompts than if they have been taken away in one tragic hit.

Let’s take a moment to be grateful for our homes, security and safety. But perhaps the most important lesson is that we need to focus less on accumulating and holding on to ‘stuff’, and instead work to build deeper connections with each other, and create powerful shared experiences that cannot be swept away by the fickle hand of fate.
 

To find out more information on Helen Sanderson, please visit her website.

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Helen Sanderson - Bio

Helen Sanderson, MSc is the author of bestselling book, The Secret Life of Clutter. Known as The Clutter Therapist, Helen is a highly experienced Home Organiser, Psychotherapist and Interior Designer, and the UK's leading expert on the psychology of clutter.

With her ultimate holistic decluttering service, Helen helps people create beautifully organised, clutter-free homes and live more mindful and meaningful lives. She works in an integrated way with her clients, transforming their physical space while exploring their mindset. This enables them to uncover what their homes reveal about their lives, and be able, practically and emotionally, to let go and move on.

Helen’s mission is to shine the light of awareness on the deeper reasons people accumulate clutter, and banish the shame associated with it. She works with deep insight and compassion, empowering people to take positive action to support change. This leads to life-changing shifts that leave people with a new-found clarity, and with homes they love and that love them back.

https://www.helensanderson.com/