SpaceClear Reflections

Let There Be Light

Posted on03. Sep, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

Guess which window was the first to get cleaned today after an embarrassingly long period of time (read: years)…?
Imagine how much more of the world might be available to us with a little bit of loving up (and elbow grease). I’m thinking I should change my tagline to: “Clearing a path to your true nature–one window [...]

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When Clutter is Too Much to Handle

Posted on10. Aug, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

I received this note from a friend on Facebook the other day:
“What do you charge to come out and HELP!!!??? I don’t even have time to read your book (which I DID buy) or the blog. And to that the 30 boxes I moved in of my dad’s crap and I am drowing in it!!!!”
My [...]

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Praise for Your Spacious Self

Posted on06. Aug, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

I love pleasant surprises.  I got a really nice one the other day in the form of an unsolicited review for my book.
This one is by someone named Austin S. on Goodreads. I don’t know who Austin is, but I’m grateful for the time he took to write about my book, and what it has [...]

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Deb’s Story: Releasing the Log Jam

Posted on03. Aug, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

Sometimes you need a friend or family member to keep us on task. I got this email from my friend, Deb, sharing what happened after a little organizing support from her (non-attached) daughter:
“I thought of you again recently when my dear daughter Julia helped me to tackle my kitchen desk area which had turned into [...]

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Managing the Mountain of Mail (or Whatever Burdens You)

Posted on30. Jul, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

Another good question came the other day:
I am following your practice of clearing one item each day. My question for you is what about the stuff that comes into your home- like mail? I can never seem to get through it and it piles up – then if I clear only one thing, a [...]

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Self-Storage or Storage of Self?

Posted on23. Jul, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

Dan Pink, best-selling author of A Whole New Mind, confirmed this staggering statistic I’d heard some years ago as part of my research for Your Spacious Self:
“The self-storage industry is bigger than McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s combined.”*
Ouch.
Whether this fact is still true or not (I wouldn’t be surprised if it were), it still shocks me.
Then [...]

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Airing Out The Heirlooms

Posted on20. Jul, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

Just read a terrific New York Times article about the effect heirlooms have on on our lives entitled “How to Lose a Legacy” by Ellen Lupton. Humorous, colorful, timely – this article does a good job of naming the behaviors and beliefs that keep us holding on to dusty relics of our past.
Some of my favorite lines:

An [...]

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One-Minute Clearing Practice

Posted on16. Jul, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

Try this experiment: Watch the 3-minute video below and see if adopting a simple daily practice in home tending doesn’t help bring new energy into your home and  life.
Even better: Set an intention before you begin your one-minute practice and repeat the exercise every day for a week. See if it doesn’t lead to creating new openings in [...]

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Setting Free the Stuff: Sara’s Transformation

Posted on02. Jul, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

I was inspired by this post, so I asked the author if I could share it with you all. Here’s Sara’s story of making friends with clutter and clearing:
Space Clearing, The Last Frontier
by Sara Beatty
No, I’m not talking about vacuuming up space litter (although that’s a terrific idea.) For me, this path started in [...]

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Calling all Spacious Friends

Posted on25. Jun, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

Everybody is invited!
….To take this moment to stop, take a nice, easy breathe in… and a slow emptying breath out…
…and consider that…

With just one click you can help me raise awareness about why most clutter clearing efforts do not last.
With just one click you help transform clutter clearing from a tedious exercise in [...]

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Secret to Clearing Anything

Posted on18. Jun, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

“We can only clear to the degree that we are willing to feel our feelings.” –sbv
If you took a workshop with me, you ‘d learn that to clear anything – from a messy desktop to the disturbing influences of an ecological disaster – you would have to enter a sometimes scary zone called feeling.
This [...]

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Your Calling Card: How Well Does It Reflect You?

Posted on04. Jun, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

I need a microscope to read some of the business cards I receive these days. It amazes me when I see the email address and phone numbers –  in the tiniest possible font – jammed into one of the corners. Surrounded by white space.
I don’t get it. What’s with that?
Here’s what I’m wondering today: Is [...]

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Living the Answers

Posted on25. May, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

This is the last in a series of posts on reinventing ourselves,* excerpted from Your Spacious Self. Enjoy!
Quitting the career and job that defined me for two decades detailed in the last three posts* led to a long period of fumbling in a foggy netherworld I call not knowing. I still find myself visiting that [...]

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Coming Clear: Confessions of a Packrat

Posted on11. May, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

“I want to shed my waste with quiet reverence like the pine…
Keep me mindful of what I take into my home, the items brought to substitute
for real living…Help me slowly to surrender all excess.”
–Gunilla Norris, Being Home
I’m a packrat.
There, I said it.
Yes, squirreled away in the dark recesses of my house I still have boxes [...]

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Managing Paper, Piles… Overwhelm

Posted on30. Apr, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

“Every time you feel overwhelmed, reduce the task. Every time you feel overwhelmed, stop and feel.” – Your Spacious Self, p.99
A really good question I received in this blog recently:
I have a question I have wanted to ask for  a while now. I am doing the practice of clearing one thing each day and I am still [...]

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Gathering Your Clearing Mojo

Posted on23. Apr, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

What needs gathering in your home or life that you can do in one minute or less?
My spring newsletter might inspire you.  The theme this quarter is about “gathering” – as in loose ends, all those papers cluttering up your desk, the clothes that you no longer need or love…
Gathering steam… gathering your self.
Click [...]

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Simple Rituals of Clearing and Letting Go

Posted on12. Apr, 2010 by Stephanie Bennett Vogt.

“To the unconscious mind, ‘real life action’ and and ‘conscious intentional ritual’ are the same thing!” –Your Spacious Self
If you think of dreams as the way that your unconscious mind communicates to you in special symbolic code while you sleep, ritual is one way you can consciously communicate back to your unconscious while you’re awake. To [...]

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