Dear Karen,

I loved both your books and I am changing my life with them. "Clearing" is so empowering!

Quick question: What about journals one has written over the years? I have just about cleared out everything I own that was clutter, but I don't think I could do it to the journals.

- Kiri Kirihatz

Karen's reply:

To appreciate my answer, first let me say that I believe journal writing is a valuable process. It allows you to get a better focus on what is happening in your life. However, it is usually what is out of balance in a person that causes them to feel the need to write a journal.

One way you can understand this is to think about when two people who like each other spend time together. They will chatter away until the energy between them is balanced. After that they can experience that magical companionable silence of dear friends, and this is possible because there is nothing more that needs to be said. They are in balance.

My best advice about journals is therefore to write them, extract the wisdoms, and let the rest go. Most people, if they are honest, will find that the majority of what they write consists of processing their 'stuff' (mental, emotional and spiritual clutter) to allow them to get to the essence of what they need to learn at that time.

The art of successful living is to learn from our experiences and move on. If you find yourself needing to keep re-reading journals to find out where you've been, it means you aren't getting to the essence of the experience first time round and then life will need to throw it up again in a different form for you to have another go.

Always write with the intention of getting to the core essence of the matter and getting to a place of knowing that goes beyond words (for those who have taken my Advanced Space Clearing workshop, I am talking here about aspiring to Level 3). When you do this, you will no longer feel the need to keep the writings that got you there.