It’s no secret that it can be a tough world out there. Just the thought of all the stuff we have to cram in every day….for the rest of your life can dissolve any smile you might have had on your face. If that’s not enough then we have things like bills going up and wages staying still. Add a sprinkling of annoying, grumpy or just plain idiotic people that delight you daily with their presence on the same planet as you and also chuck in friendships and relationships and we have a massive pot of enough. Apparently, its life and we are to be pleased we wake up each morning and to be fair we are all in the same situation and whatever your problems are they are all relative.

But it doesn’t all have to be a battle and in the grand scheme of things we are on this planet for a very short time. But more on everyday happiness at another time. Today it’s about your sanctuary. Your happy place. The place you trudge home to at the end of the day. Your home. It should fill you with happiness. it should be your safe haven and where you relax and gather your energy. I should be the dace you feel the happiest.  Are you ticking any of these things, is your house a home and doing it for you or are you craving happiness in your home?

I found recently I needed to really look at my home as although I was kinda happy at home I wasn’t actually relaxed in my own home. I walked on eggshells in my own home. It was starting to …actually it’s more accurate to say I finally realized my home had become a place of stress for me and I craved happiness in my own home.  Its been a long process for me as there were things I couldn’t tackle overnight but the last 6 + months I have turned it around and my home is now my happy place and makes me smile just thinking about it.

The first thing I had to get my head around was that it’s not all about materialistic things. Yes, a new sofa is nice but that’s what makes a show house, not a home.

First thing I had to was clear clutter. Having a clutter-free home doesn’t mean you have a cleaning issue. Doesn’t mean you have gone all middle-aged or even worse turned into your mother. But it does mean the morning dash will be less fraught with everything in its right place and right where you reach for it. So no game of ‘where are my keys’. A clutter free home is up there for helping towards a dollop of general happiness and all round well being. Its also calming to see a counter or table free of clutter instead of being covered in mess and clutter.

Depending on how much clutter you have to clear it can be a weekend thing or something that’s going to take longer. I did mine in waves starting with a massive tsunami of clutter clearing session followed by smaller waves of decluttering afterward.

Start by creating or allocating a space where you can store piles of things that are to be recycled, donated or taken to the local dump. I do it this way so that when I am being really ruthless and really going for it and manage to sling something that’s vitally important I do have a safety net of it actually sitting in the garage for a few days.

I then just picked the room that was annoying me the most and just went for it.

The aim of this type of clearing is to find your happy place so as I sorted through things is it was a necessity or vital the next criteria to be considered ok to keep as if it made me smile. Did it make me feel all warm and fuzzy? But don’t sit thinking over it for hours it should be a quick yes or no decision.

I did start doing a room at a time but I am a bit of a butterfly and I did tend to bounce from room to room. If you can try not to do that as you become unfocused and can easily go off at a tangent.

My tsunami clearing did create 21 bags that were just for the skip. I didn’t count the donate and recycle bags as I had shouted out to friends who popped in and had a rummage. But 21 bags I realize is a lot of rubbish or unhappiness. There was a lot of stuff I had that I had got with other people in mind. There was a lot, in my own home, that I had bought because it made me happy. No wonder I was so unhappy.

I can’t remember if it was my Mum or Gran who said it but one of them said life’s too short to keep things for best and we all deserve the best all the time. I kept that in mind as I reclaimed my happiness in my home. Instead of a mug is just a mug I made sure my mugs make me smile. Probably sounds daft but a mug is something you use several times a day so why miss out on all those extra smiles. Now that I have used that idea across the whole house I have a house that feels like a home and makes me smile.

You do have to get a bit ruthless and be really blunt as you go through stuff. If you cant afford to change things add them to your list and change things as and when you can. I did also get completely frustrated and angry at myself for the amount of crap and rubbish I had allowed to accumulate in my life. I did have a pause of a few weeks and renewed the clearing only recently. It had given me a chance to live with it all a few weeks and decide if I was heading in the right direction. This second stage feels like I am clearing the carnage after a storm.