If you find yourself feeling frustrated by the clutter of other people or bumping into the emotional, mental, even physical clutter of another person, and it’s causing you to feel bruised and tender, perhaps even knocking you down, that lets you know that you have this furniture within you. Because what you see as the other person’s responsibility or the world’s responsibility is actually just showing you that it exists within you.
“Look deeply and with kind curiosity into these mirrors of your own Soul. Embrace and appreciate the wisdom they hold. Listen from that still place in the center of your being. Hear the call of the Love that lies beneath beckoning you to come home.”

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Transcript
Transcripts are approximations of the conversations
Welcome to Love Lies Beneath. I’m Zette Harbour.
I’m glad to have you here. Do you feel like stress, fear, or pain take up way too much of your energy? Have you wondered if you’ll ever be free of that heaviness of your past? Do you long to feel as good on the inside as your life looks on the outside? In this podcast, you’ll discover the story of who you really are and how to set yourself free together.
We’re going to travel into those wild spaces of our inner landscapes and dive deeply into the rich soil of our lives. Reclaiming soul through story and healing. Our hearts. My book Love Lies Beneath is the. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast. So you don’t miss any of this enriching journey. And now let the adventure begin.
In episode 34, we begin Part III of my book, Love Lies Beneath. It’s called. Get Real.
Part III: Get Real
You may think to yourself, ‘wandering around the land of Story may be all fine and good for a professional storyteller, but how does this apply to my real life?’ While they may seem archaic, folktales are valuable allies in expanding the possibilities for who and how you can be. They bring powerful archetypes alive, and as they do, your own mythic wisdom is awakened. Your Soul will draw upon whatever imagery is available to her, and these powerful storehouses have stood the test of time.
The first and maybe the hardest step is that you must accept that you are the one with the power to change the stories you tell you about yourself, the world, and your place in it. None of the rest of this process will make sense or do much good unless you do. This requires a total makeover of your mindset. This set of beliefs about what is or is not true will need to include the idea that you do, indeed, have the power to determine your stories.
Second, it is essential to understand what these beliefs are. The fear that surrounds them is actually part of the protective mechanism they serve. It is easier to banish what you fear. At one time, getting them away from you was the number one priority. When something hurts, the smart thing to do is to put distance between you and it. Put your hand too close to a flame; you will get burned. You do not want to get burned, so you make sure the fire cannot reach you. It was the smartest thing your child mind could do at the time, and I acknowledge you for it.
Unfortunately, there was a cost, and there was no way for you to know it at the time. The price for the very limited yet desperately needed safety from this emotional fire was that you had to twist your idea of who you were. To do this, you had to lop off anything within you that seemed to get in the way. Your Soul understood this and willingly took the hits. You see, Soul is the storehouse of the Story of You. It is the complete, unabridged edition of your true Self. Think of it as the Director’s Cut.
Fortunately, even though it may not always feel true, your Soul cannot be destroyed. Not even a bit of it. It can be banished, buried, and shunned. But it can never be killed, and it will never abandon you.
Your Story, Your Stuff
You can also think of this work as inner decluttering. If you have ever let your closets, drawers, or even a spare room fill up with clutter, you know how uncomfortable it is to go in there or to try to find stuff. You are less likely to want even to open up or enter that space. Unfortunately, there are real treasures buried in there, along with all of the useless junk. When you retrieve them, your whole life is made richer.
Learning to live by your own story is like cleaning out your closet. It will require you to empty it, lay all the pieces out before you, try them on for size, discard the ill-fitting or worn-out ones, and then organize what is left.
How To Get Rid Of Your Internal Clutter & Chaos
Originally published for my column, Successful Awakenings on OneIdeaAway.com
You are a palace.
And within you, there exist an uncountable number of rooms. In each room, there are many pieces of furniture. Some of them you inherited. Some you picked up yourself. Most of them, however, arrived without you knowing about it. Now, because of this clutter, when you move through the outer world, you may find yourself tripping over the furniture of your inner one.
This collection of furniture is usually scattered about without rhyme or reason throughout your palace. As you enter one of the rooms, you see that the furniture may be piled up in a heap. There may be a large piece blocking the doorway, making it difficult to get in or out. There is probably something bulky and unattractive placed right in front of a window blocking a view that you would really love to be able to see. This furniture has the power to either make your life easier and more fulfilling, or it can give you scrapes and bruises as you bump up against it.
Unless you have the chance to clear it out or put it where it makes you happy, it will continue to block your way. Moving through your life with enjoyment and ease will remain difficult. In becoming who you are today, you collected an unlimited number of stories about who you are. The various cupboards, bookshelves, dressers, tables, and armoires of your inner world are those stories. They became the furniture of your inner palace.
They help explain the kind of world you believe you live in and your place in it. Some of these stories are helpful, energizing, and loving. Many of them are not. A good number of these stories were passed down to you from family, culture, or education. They seem to have always been there, and you may not even be aware of them. Unfortunately, this does not stop them from causing you stress and trouble.
So the question is, what do you do with all of this furniture?
A few possibilities can bring more satisfaction and ease to your life in dealing with your inner furniture. You can take a full inventory of all of the rooms that you are aware of. You can start by choosing a particular wing of the palace, like personal relationships, and look in those rooms. Get to know what is in those spaces. What is in there that seems to get in your way?
Note any patterns in your life that seem to show up again and again. You may be surprised to see that what you thought were very different causes of discomfort actually share a common thread or root. Maybe you notice that you feel boxed in when it comes to intimate relationships. That is an indicator of a cluttered inner space. The emotional bumps and bruises you are experiencing seem to be caused by the other person.
In fact, when you actually take a look at what is behind the door of this particular room, you will see that you have a cluttered and chaotic inner space. With such a haphazard maze of internal furniture, it is no wonder you keep stumbling and bumping up against sharp corners and hard edges. The Herculean task of sorting through and clearing out all of it can seem overwhelming at first. That is why it is important to allow yourself to be patient, compassionate, and loving toward yourself.
You did not accumulate all of this furniture overnight, and you will not sort it all out in one go, either. It is essential that you begin with the awareness that this will be a process. This work can go deep, and you will find yourself feeling things you had not for quite some time. It is natural to reconnect to the original emotions that were present when that furniture was delivered. The stories you are clearing out may be quite dusty and even moldy. Give yourself the support you need by practicing good self-care as you work through it.
With each adjustment to your inner palace’s clutter and chaos, you will see increased flow and functionality inside and out. Be sure to celebrate your successes as you go because that will enhance your energy and commitment to continue. Over time, you will see that there is real joy in the process, as well as the resulting spaciousness and clarity of your life.
A New Lens
What sort of furniture do you bump up against or trip over in your daily life? You know, this furniture always looks like it is the other person or the situation or some external forces at work because our own inner clutter is invisible to us. And I think, you know, I can relate to this and probably many of you as well.
If you’ve lived with people or another person, you always notice their stacks of papers, mail, books, junk, before you notice your own, it’s always more frustrating to see someone else’s piles of stuff and to notice how much it is in your way. So that really offers us a pathway, a mirror in which to see ourselves.
If you find yourself feeling frustrated by the clutter of other people or bumping into the emotional, mental, even physical clutter of another person, and it’s causing you to feel bruised and tender, perhaps even knocking you down that lets you know, That you have this furniture within you, because what you see as the other person’s responsibility or the world’s responsibility is actually just showing you that it exists within you.
And it’s hard to understand that when you don’t have any sort of way to put on the right kind of lenses that let you see your inner clutter. Carl Jung said it really well. The things that bother us about other people are always something within ourselves that we haven’t yet faced and dealt with. So to start just trust that this is true.
That the next time you feel like you just stubbed your toe or got a scrape or a bruise on the furniture of your life and you look up and you see someone and you think it must be their fault. Allow yourself for just that moment to listen to parts of your body. You know, usually it’s not going to be in your head.
It’s going to be maybe in your chest, maybe shoulders, maybe your digestive area, maybe lower in your belly or your pelvis. Maybe it’s going to be in your legs or your feet. Your body will share this wisdom with you and start to guide you toward the truth about where this clutter is coming from. And then a story will appear in your mind.
And the first thing you’ll think is that story doesn’t have anything to do with this moment right now. And so I invite you to. Be curious, bring that Kind Curiosity and ask yourself if this story that’s showing up for me right now, actually is sharing some wisdom with me about my own inner clutter. What might that be?
And giving yourself the room to explore the possibilities without committing to, uh, this being a hard truth or a definite no, allow it to be a place of curiosity, exploration, and most importantly, nonjudgment. You don’t have to get this right. And you’re not going to get it wrong. As long as you are willing to tune in to these deep reservoirs of wisdom that are your sensory intelligence and your emotional intelligence.
And once you learn how to really restore the connection to these powerful sources of wisdom and information, without the need to attach some story and turn that into a thought that has feelings. You allow this wisdom, this information, this sensory intelligence, emotional intelligence, you allow it to bring you to a place of greater awareness.
It Must Be Them
So when you find yourself looking at some experience that you’ve just had and it caused you stress, fear or pain, and you want so very much for it to be the other person’s fault because it makes sense. They’re right there. They must have caused it. And it’s normal to feel that way. And yet, if you allow yourself to imagine the possibility that this is a message from your Deep Inner Wisdom, from your Soul and she is opening a doorway and showing you a path back to wholeness, a way to come home to yourself. And as I wrote in the book, it doesn’t happen all at once. If you’ve ever tried to declutter an area in your home or garage, that’s been cluttered for a long time. Pace yourself.
Be kind, be gentle, hydrate rest. And most of all, remember, it’s supposed to be a journey, not a flip of a coin. You do not immediately go from being right to being wrong or from being wrong to being right. The most valuable way to begin to look at. Your world and your place in it is to recognize that any stories that you installed, any clutter that you have within you was constructed and placed there out of a deep, deep love.
This is the evidence that love lies beneath, everything..
I’m Zette Harbour. This is Love Lies Beneath. I hope you’ll subscribe to this podcast. I love having you with me on this journey. You can visit love lies beneath.com for show notes, for any of the interview episodes, there are links to my guests. There are resources. You can download a free excerpt to my book, Love Lies Beneath, and you can also set up a Virtual Coffee Date with me.
If you’re curious about how to begin your inner decluttering so that you can move through the landscape of your life and not have these inexplicable, unexpected and unpleasant bumps and bruises, and even being knocked down by what comes into your life?
Go raibh míle maith agat!