Spring is coming, the weather is getting warmer. Hopefully we are all getting lighter too!

For me, my weight loss journey has become a spring cleaning of sorts - getting rid of all sorts of excess clutter, that has weighed me down in the past 20 years!

I have never been a person who likes clutter - I won't have that in my house, and yet I find myself surprised at how much emotional clutter I have stored, the fat being the padding that stops the emotional clutter rattling around and being a nuisance. The more emotional clutter you have, the more padding you need to acquire to protect yourself from being prodded or poked by the sharp bits that can hurt you or make you feel uncomfortable.

So picture this, you come home from a job you hate, or where there are so many office politics you feel you can't bear to be there any longer. But we have bills to pay, mortgages, financial commitments. You feel incredibly frustrated and trapped and resentful. Clutter alert! Time to get some padding on there so it doesn't feel so bad! I know when I have had that feeling in the past, I would reach for the nearest bottle of wine to "relax". Crash out in front of the TV, eat a few comforting snacks. I would feel so much better. Trouble is in padding out that baggage to feel more comfortable, to avoid being poked by that sharp uncomfortable gut gnawing frustration and resentment - I was piling on the pounds.

There are other occasions that come up in life, where we have had similarly uncomfortable feelings, but we again pad them out, wrap the feelings up (with food). For example family relationships, where family has a pattern of relating to you, that may make you feel uncomfortable, but because they are family you go along with it. Some of the most cutting remarks and destructive behaviour can come from your own family - yet we put up with it to keep the peace, to avoid conflict, to avoid being ostracised or isolated. All the while the emotional clutter builds up, so we tuck it away somewhere inside us, and put some more padding around it so that we don't get hurt.

Think of some other relationships, friendships for example where you are the giver, the one who listens, the one who pitches up in an emergency, the one who can rustle up a meal at short notice when people just drop by. If these relationships are reciprocal - good. But what if there is no reciprocity what if people don't pitch up when YOU need help, what if you feel no one listens to YOU, what if people keep taking but no one gives to YOU? Sometimes we care so much for others in order to fulfil our own unmet need for care. The more care we need, the more we care for other people. But when our needs still remain unmet we might feel hurt, angry, bitter - more emotional clutter, more padding needed to protect us from getting hurt as we go about our day to day lives.

The thing about clutter is, if you don't need it - why keep it? Why hoard all of this stuff, wrapping it and padding it? Probably because it is familiar, even though it is doing you harm (better the devil you know). .

It's time for some spring cleaning! Out with the old - and in with the new! If you hate your job, look for something better. If you have family members who say or do hurtful things tell them you don't like it and if it continues, limit your contact with them. If you have friends that use you - set new boundaries in those friendships or find new friends who value you more. Let's get rid of all that junk we have been piling and wrapping for years and years. Sure you may end up with a big empty space inside you - all your familiar stuff will have gone, but think how much fun you will have replacing that with good stuff that fulfils you emotionally and helps you to grow, and that doesn't have sharp bits to prod you and hurt you so much that you need to wrap it up, pad it out and hope that it goes away?