When you first look at the house-sit I am in, it's peaceful Buddhist art and wabi sabi knick-knacks, a house makeover in progress.
But after living here for a week, it's everything that belonged to this person ever and her dead mother. A great pantry that has back corners with expired stuff drawing bugs. Reclaimed materials are in with broken household stuff and both piles need to be edited for actual use versus trash.
This person who is a skilled healer to others has shelves full of products indicating on-going constipation, desire for weight loss and relief of chronic, low-to-mid-range physical pain. There is no sign of any human partners but there is a massive altar to the former dog.
In that strange way that we find ourselves in mirrors in other people's lives, I can look back and see how digging myself out of the heaps of junk I was surrounded with in my physical life helped me look at what my life was actually composed of, so then I could shift the other stuff.
Little bits, done with consistency. Clean up the equivalent of one place to sit, somewhere, once a week. You’ll surprise yourself.