Letting Go and Suze Orman

What does letting go of material clutter have to do with creating wealth? Here's what I learned from Suze Orman.

The other day, I picked up and began reading Orman's book The Courage to Be Rich: Creating a Life of Material and Spiritual Abundance (Riverhead Books, 1999, 2002). I didn't get too far into it before I encountered Chapter 3, The Courage to Make Room for More Money. Immediately, Orman began introducing the concept of clearing away material clutter in order to make room for more abundance of every kind, including financial abundance. Because her discussion fits so well with my 365-day Letting Go Experiment, I paid particular attention to this chapter.

Orman talks about how clutter in our lives creates obstacles to financial wealth in a variety of ways:

--First of all, the material things we have purchased that we do not use represent money that was not spent in a carefully considered way - i.e. money wasted.

--Second, the clutter takes up space that could be used for other things. And consider the money that some of us spend to store items that we are not using in a storage facility.

--Third, clutter distracts us from what is important in our lives. And it slows us down.

--Fourth, clutter usually leads to messy financial practices - misplacing bills and not paying them on time, misplacing currency that lies scattered around the house, misplacing or losing important financial documents, not keeping checking, savings, and credit card accounts current and reconciled, not paying attention to credit card rules and terms, not paying attention to investments, or creating and building debt.

Orman proposes a exercise she titles Four Steps Towards Clarity (pp 52-55). Briefly summarized, this letting-go exercise goes as follows:

1. Go through your home, garage, etc. and find at least 25 items that you are willing to throw away - just discard completely. And toss them.

2. Go through your house again looking specifically for money - loose change and bills - that might be lying around, or hidden, or lost. Look in places like drawers, countertops, pants pockets, unused purses, in and under furniture, etc. (I found a $2-bill in an old purse. Orman says that most people end up finding much more than that.) Collect all that you find and put it in one container that you would think of as your jar or bowl of abundance. Place that abundance container near the area where you pay your bills.

3. Go through your house a third time and find 25 more items that you no longer want or use but that are still in good condition. Give those items away to a place or to a person that could really use them and would appreciate them.

4. Go through your house a fourth time and identify all the items that are especially precious to you, things you would never part with. Take time to reflect on these items and appreciate them.

So, embedded in this exercise is a process for letting go of at least 50 material items from your home. If you're not up for releasing 365 items in a year-long exercise, you could easily do this exercise and release 50 in one day. Suze suggests getting your entire household in on the exercise, including the kids.

I like this exercise because Orman takes us beyond the mere act of discarding things by encouraging us to think about how we sometimes waste money by purchasing things that we don't really need or don't serve us well - the clothes that never really fit right or flattered us and just sat in the closet, the food that sat in our refigerators until it spoiled and had to be thrown away, the gadgets that never worked right but we never returned or had repaired, etc. She also encourages us to really appreciate and prize the things that have served us well or are precious reminders of our past or are symbols of things we prize now or aspire to in the future. She teaches us to respect our money by using it wisely and well.

How could clearing out the clutter in your home open up the space for more wealth to flow into your life?

*******************************************************************
Although this Blog site is not set up to be interactive at this time, feel free to contact me with your comments.

Email: connie@conniekomack.com
Web: www.conniekomack.com