More Than Decluttering & House Hushing – It’s Space & Mind Hushing
March 4, 2026 | Posted in Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
Good ideas and styles stick around and are recycled by another name when the latest people to learn about it tack on another moniker and call it a new idea. That’s exactly what happened with getting rid of extra stuff and living more minimally and organically – something I covered in my first book Hit Any Key to Energize 30 years ago. Getting rid of stuff became decluttering, then Marie Kondo’ing if it didn’t spark joy out it went and now I’m seeing headlines that house hushing is all the rage with a bit of a different flavor. There really isn’t a need to move everything out of a room — who’s got time for that and who has the extra space.
Our environment we create represents the environment going on in our minds. It’s the outward expression of the clutter we have between our ears. If you’re working on quieting the noise on the inside and doing “the Work” with a capital W, then you need to take a look at your environment and what you’re surrounding yourself with. I’m guessing there’s more visual pollution than you’d like. A good place to start is to stop your unfettered consumerism, stop the ads coming into all of your mailboxes and dare I say it – stop scrolling to see what you absolutely must have, because odds are you can likely survive without it. Try creating the Scandinavian vibe of Hygge – cozy, comfortable, comforting, smells good, not too much stuff, streamlined to suit your needs without the tchotchkes to dust around.
Get ruthless in your pursuit of not buying stuff – ensure that whatever comes into your space has purpose (if not several purposes) and meaning. Dig deep into how you feel when you’re in your space. Is it supporting who you are now and who you are becoming or just who you were back in the day. Our space needs to change as we grow and change. I can’t tell you how many color phases I’ve been through during my lifetime and I cringe at some of them now. For me, at one point about 10 years ago, I had an enormous craving for bright colors in my wall hangings, so I combed through all of my travel photos and found ones that had more colors that made me very happy. Bonus is that they brought back such good memories that I now only have my travel photos and art on my walls to remind me of good times in over 100 counties.
When I moved to the California coast, I ditched my European antiques which worked so well overseas and in colonial Virginia but looked out of place at the beach. I ended up with very whimsical, artsy furnishings that were a perfect fit back then. Years later, the amount of many colors felt too brash, so I painted all of my furniture in a similar color and I painted all of my frames in a pewter wash to give my brain a rest from all of the color stimulus. I also have color-drenched some rooms so that the walls and ceiling are more soothing.
You see, I was working on intuition back then and what I now know is that it was my sensory processing sensitivity at work. My brain was on overload – overstimulated by too much color and variations of shapes and stuff and the lines of the furniture. My brain was working too hard to process all the shapes, colors, and stuff. Because us Highly Sensitive People are deep processors, our brains get tired if there is too much stimulation in our environment to process.
Even my books started to bug me. I tried arranging them by size, color, stacking them – nothing worked. What I found is that I need them behind a cabinet door – out of site so my brain gets a rest. This goes for sounds as well. I once lived in Florida on the water and the sound that carried across the water drove me nuts. I could hear every sound that came from the homes across the water and especially the mowers and blowers at all hours of the day every single day. It was like having jet engines revving up all day outside your window. Insanity for me. I now live where they do our lawns all at one time and I hear the mowers and blowers for about one hour 2-4 times per month in season and nothing but birds in the off-season.
Living in the Washington DC area was very toxic for me and my mental and physical health. Necessary for the work I was doing, but damaging my soul. The constant buzz of activity, helicopters, traffic, density of living, too many people crammed into small spaces, constant commotion and too much cement. Not to mention the toxic political stench that forever hangs in the air. Once Covid hit, I moved out to a smaller town to work remotely and retire/rewire in a bucolic, laid-back, slower-paced environment that is much more supportive of a stress-free daily lifestyle.
Listen to your body and get a gut feel for what bugs you in your space. Be militant about what you allow into your home and create a calming, quiet, supportive space that doesn’t hold bad memories from past lives. Yes, Marie Kondo did have a good idea about things sparing joy – but be honest with yourself about what ACTUALLY gives you joy. And for goodness sake, don’t spend money on a storage unit – just get rid of that extra stuff and stop worrying about it and paying for it. More is not necessarily what you need to be happy, healthy, peaceful, and calm. With all the hectic stuff going on in the world, your home needs to be your sanctuary – what can you do to make it so? Don’t forget pleasant music in the background to help soothe your mind. I haven’t listened to radio in over a decade. The noise of the announcers, traffic reports, and advertisements were assaulting on my ears. Choose your noise wisely so it doesn’t harsh your mellow as we used to say back in the day.
Space: Is Your Space Energizing or Draining?
April 2, 2014 | Posted in Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
Is your space pleasant, comfortable, and workable or does it create stress? Are items easily accessible? If you are left-brained (analytical), are things stored vertically or behind closed doors? If you are right-brained (creative), are they stored horizontally or within plain view? (A.k.a. piles) These left-brained and right-brained preferences have been shown to work well with the work styles and organizational styles of each type of person. Where are you on the continuum?
Figuring out how to adapt your systems to fit your style will relieve both stress and lost items, and earn you more time for fun. Do your desk accessories accommodate these preferences? What is the color of your space, what type of furniture is in that space, and how is it positioned in the room? The key here is “organize to energize”. We save valuable time, energy, and mental frustration when we are more organized and working with our brain-hemisphere preference.
Research from the National Association of Professional Organizers suggests messy professionals waste up to six weeks per year (over one hour per day) looking for lost things. Does your space project a positive image for you or your organization? Seek out furniture, accessories, and storage devices to help you instead of hamper you in getting yourself organized. Write down what your ideal work or living space would look like and let that be a guide to what needs your attention to work towards that idea.
Using full-spectrum or natural lighting can increase your energy and productivity by 25% over fluorescent or incandescent lighting. Studies in hospitals, schools, and businesses found that fluorescent lighting could sometimes give people headaches or irritate them with the buzzing and flickering, and also annoy the eyes with its unnatural glow. Those who can work or live with more light from the sun or with full spectrum lighting which better mimics the sun will have more energy.
A HarvardUniversity study confirms this fact that the impact of light on the eye improves attention focus and energy production in the brain. Other studies have also linked the body’s hormonal and biochemical balances with sunlight and darkness as it relates to our personal energy. Moderate exposure to sunshine helps boost our immune system and our body produces vitamin D when exposed to sunlight. Healthcare professionals have known for years that patients who get fresh air and sunshine have a better attitude and improve better than those who don’t. Those with Seasonal Affective Disorder or the Winter Blues have a sensitivity to lightness and darkness. Those living near the Arctic Circle must contend with the light situation in other ways such as wearing light masks to improve their energy.
Take inventory of your space. Is it filled with light and beauty? Beauty in any form is intoxicating. Surround yourself with beauty to raise your spirits. Be mindful of what you see in your home, your office, or out your window each day. Create your world so you see scenes to delight your eye and rid your environment of unsightly obstructions. Place a birdbath outside your window, hide your air conditioner with potted plants, hang stained glass in a window with a dreary view, collect great art, or display the art projects your children or grandchildren made for you. Live beautifully.
Interior designer and philosopher Alexandra Stoddard has several super books on living a beautiful life. How are you contributing to the beauty in your life? What do you see out your office window or kitchen window? How can you improve upon your surroundings or interior spaces to improve the beauty? What can you do personally to improve your own beauty because you are part of other people’s environment? Adult learning theory states that we learn better and are more productive when we are in pleasant surroundings. Take a look through fresh eyes at your surroundings and make some changes to bring in more beauty and enhance your vital energy.
Organize to Energize: Making Room for Abundance
December 4, 2008 | Posted in Living Hartfully, Wealthy Woman | By Gaia Hart
I’m thrilled to be interviewed on the radio talk show Dollars and Sense on 94.9 FM WXRJ or wxrj.org in the mid-west hosted by my good friend, colleague and Professional Speaker, David Lewis and his co-host Cranston Sparks on the topic of Organizing and Energizing Your Life to Make Room for Abundance.
David and Cranston, both successful businessmen, host a weekly show on the topic of finance, success and living a prosperous life by sharing their insights and interviewing thought leaders in their fields. Making sense of making dollars and all the ways to bring success into your life is what they bring to listeners near Chicago and around the country. More details can be found at the radio station site or at DavidGLewis.com.
We discussed how our outside world reflects our inside world and if there’s a mess in our space, there’s likely a mess in our minds. We need to get clarity inside before we see clarity and cleared closets, desks and spaces outside.
The universe doesn’t bring abundance to chaos and if you can’t handle what you already have, then the universe will not be bringing you any more. So get going and get organized and systematized according to your style and preferences. What works for you.
How do you know when you need to get more organized or that you need to make more room for abundance?
1. You are frustrated with bottlenecks in your life
2. Your office, desk, closets, drawers, bedroom, kitchen and car are overflowing with stuff you trip over or dust around and it creates some anxiety
3. You keep losing things, misplacing items and can’t seem to find what you need in a timely manner – you waste time looking for stuff.
4. You are getting feedback from your partner, colleagues, friends or those you live with that your stuff is getting out of control.
So clean up your space, clean up your act and clear the way to make room for abundance. It doesn’t hurt that you can jumpstart your abundance by finding cash in your closets and selling things online or at yard sales etc.
What is overflowing in your life? If everything is overflowing outward, prosperity can’t flow inward – create a space for things to flow into your life on every level. It can start with changing your mind, cleaning off your desk, your calendar or clearing out your closet.
