In the same way you clean and declutter your home or your wardrobe periodically; it is
equally important to declutter your emotional wardrobe regularly.
The emotional wardrobe is your heart. Your heart comprises of your mind, will and
emotions. It is the very centre of who you are. It is from your heart that your passions,
desires, and dreams reside. Your heart also contains your hurts, your fears, guilt, shame,
and various emotional matter. It is a vulnerable space.
“So above all, guard the affections of your heart, for they affect all that you are. Pay
attention to the welfare of your innermost being, for from there flows the wellspring of life”.

(Proverbs 4:23 TPT)

The ‘Emotional Wardrobe’ is an important space to regularly clean and declutter. When
you declutter a physical wardrobe, you remove unnecessary items either because it is
overcrowded, untidy or needs organization and order. Decluttering enables you to simplify,
streamline or reduce your things, or sort them out. It creates space, resulting in a stress-
free wardrobe or space. Similarly, when you clean out your ’emotional wardrobe’ it impacts
your overall emotional well-being. Your heart feels lighter, and you address issues that you
have not processed and may be sitting in your heart – making you feel heavy or taking
space that could be utilized for dreaming or creativity. The greatest benefit of cleaning your
heart is it enables you to embrace the new that is coming into your life.
God is always at work in our lives and our heart is the space where we can conceive
ideas, be creative and plan for our lives. However, when our hearts are filled with hurts,
unfulfilled expectations from past relationships that we have not healed from, or emotions
that we are not given space to feel, it takes up space in the emotional wardrobe and robs
us of the new. The heart is a spring that energizes our lives and from our hearts flow the
‘springs of life flow’ Note how scripture denotes that it is springs of life not singular but
plural, so when you clean out your heart regularly, allow stuff from the past to go you make
room for the new. There is a flow in, your life.
Our emotions are a big part of our emotional wardrobe. Emotions are messengers
conveying or alerting us that something is wrong and needs to be addressed. For
example, emotions like sadness, disappointment or anger are conveying a message to us.
It is important to pay attention to your emotions and think: ‘What message is this emotion
conveying to me?’
When you give space to your emotions, especially the challenging ones like anger, fear or
sadness, pay attention to:
 ‘What is this emotion communicating to me?’
 Is it making me feel the sadness of the relationship I have just lost? Or re-examine
this relationship?’
When you learn to allow your emotions to flow you learn that emotions don’t remain
intense forever, they eventually dissipate. You learn to self-soothe, by saying something
like ‘I won’t always feel this way.’
When you learn to become comfortable with your emotions and emotional experiences,
they don’t sit in your heart taking space. You can let the challenging emotions pass and
they don’t overwhelm you.

The mind is another component of your emotional wardrobe. God gave us a beautiful
mind. Scripture aptly describes it this way: “He has given us a spirit of power and love and
a calm and well-balanced mind…” (2 Timothy 1:7)
However, the mind is where everything starts. Our thinking has a lot to do with what is
happening in our lives at any given moment.
The mind can also become cluttered and filled with thoughts that are negative and
overwhelming. In the same way that a messy room or space can leave you feeling
disorganized, stressed and overwhelmed, the mind can also be a messy space, you are
unable to think clearly or focus on tasks, or you spend precious hours ruminating about
negative thoughts over and over again, or worrying about issues that are beyond your
control.
Worry is a cognitive activity that takes place in your mind.
Worry is the mental part of anxiety, it is the ‘what if…’ Worry is like walking through a cul
de sac, you end up in the same place you started. Research says that 95% of what we
worry about doesn’t happen. When you worry you become obsessed with what might
happen in the future and not with what is happening in your life now- hence you are not
present, and you miss out on the moments of your life. This quote encapsulates it “Worry
does not take away tomorrow’s troubles it takes away today’s peace”.
Habitual worry can turn into headaches, stomach pains, and muscle tension, impacting
your concentration, mood and appetite.
Learn to reclaim your mental space, daily, regularly and often. Get rid of thoughts that
weigh you down emotionally.
In the same way that having a lot of clutter can weigh you down physically, so it is with
your mind. “If you are surrounded with an overwhelming amount of clutter, your mind will
start to mimic the physical space you are living in.” “Mess makes stress”.
Challenge negative thoughts – don’t allow the debilitating thoughts to bring you down.
Use this simple process from Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) ASK- developed by Dr
Arrol.
A-Accurate- Is this thought accurate? Where is the evidence or is there proof for this? The
only way to reclaim your mental space is to challenge negative thoughts.
S- Sensible
Ask yourself is this thought sensible? does it make sense objectively?
K- Kind
Is this thought kind? If it is not, then it is not serving you in any positive way.
Scripture admonishes us to challenge our thoughts and to discipline our thoughts with the
word of God.

“The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have
the divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension
that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to
make it obedient to Christ.”(2 Corinthians 10:4-5)
Learn to catch anxious thoughts immediately, catch them in the act and talk yourself into a
calmer mindset. Be intentional about how you direct your thoughts. Let your thoughts align
with your words. For example, when you think about the peace that is within you from
Christ align your words to your thoughts by declaring aloud to yourself “I have absolute
peace that comes from the Prince of Peace…’
Finally, decluttering the emotional wardrobe is important because our heart is the space
where we commune with God, where we grow our relationship with our Heavenly Father;
the space needs to be clear and clean.

Checklist For Decluttering the Emotional Wardrobe
 Check your emotional wardrobe regularly.
 Check that it is not overflowing with clutter. Sometimes in our physical wardrobe,
there are clothes still hanging with their tags on.
 Ensure nothing is getting in the way of your relationship with God, just like the
physical wardrobe which can be cluttered with items we have never worn but you
continue to hold onto, we need to let those items go.
 Are there any ‘soiled outfits that need to be dry-cleaned’? Is there anything you are
holding onto from the past? Unforgiveness or hurt? Sometimes some outfits are
soiled, and soiling impacts your ability to live creatively – do a heart check regularly;
is there anything in your heart that needs to be cleaned or washed with the word?
 In our physical wardrobes, sometimes, we hold onto things with the mindset that
they will come into fashion again or we say, ‘I will wear this outfit when I lose
weight’. Are you keeping things for the person of the past? You are a new person in
Christ reinforce your new identity.
 Let anything of the past go to make room for the new that God is bringing to your
life.
When you declutter your natural wardrobe sometimes you find outfits and things in the
wardrobe you thought you had lost. Similarly decluttering the emotional wardrobe will
enable you to reconnect with lost dreams, aspirations, and passions.
But ultimately, decluttering your emotional wardrobe enables you to reconnect with
yourself, your true authentic self and you live lightly in your heart. ❤️