Someone recently wrote to share how her husband and his siblings banded together to *clean out* her father-in-law's home, which she likened to an indoor junkyard. After they had filled dumpster, her sister-in-law pointed at contents and said to her father, *This is what you were loving while we were growing up. These were children you were spending time with and we grew up with them and hated them and were jealous of them.*

He never knew they felt this way. And he certainly wouldn't have chosen to lighten his load this way. Yet it's sometimes a hard fact that treasures and *stuff* we accumulate during our lifetime have a profound impact on our families, on ourselves and on our ability to have a prosperous life.

Luckily, there are a few simple steps you can take to free yourself from clutter of past and mend fences in your family. Start by asking yourself a few simple questions about things you are hanging on to:

~~ Why are you afraid to get rid of these things?

~~ What do they represent to you?

~~ How long are you going to carry this stuff around with you?

~~ How have your treasures and *stuff* affected your family?

~~ Are you hanging on to some stuff *just in case?*

~~ Who said you have to hang on to these things?

Take action now to lighten your load before someone else decides to lighten it for you. Here are seven tips to get you started.

1: Invite your children and grandchildren over to come get things that were theirs during their childhood. Donate, auction off or simply throw away anything that's left. Brenda, a client in her sixties, was holding on to her daughter's childhood dolls, thinking she would one day want them. When Brenda asked, she discovered her daughter didn't want them after all. She was free to sell them, which brought her some extra income and freed up valuable space.

2: Make a list of treasures you're ready to part with now. Then write down names of friends and family members who have admired these items. Write down or record a story for each item, then throw a dinner party for these friends and family members. Share stories with them as you pass along gifts. Or give them as holiday or birthday presents.

3: Tap into flow of giving and receiving by passing along treasures you want people to inherit, so you can see joy in giving and in receiving while you're still around. Be sure to write down and relate a story about item.

As you and I know, most bathrooms have limited space and storage. Many of them are crammed with too much stuff: a lotion or potion you used once, shampoo and conditioner samples collected while on travel, medicines or other items used once or never finished using, towels that have seen their day, and reading material and even mail that just piles up and piles up, all while collecting dust and germs.

Your bathroom is a room in which you and others use on a daily basis. The most private area in your home, yet a busy room in which activities, such as baths, showers, brushing hair and teeth, shaving, and using toilet are usually performed by yourself FOR yourself. Yet for some it’s a place of refuge, hiding from world, family, reading or just sitting on "throne," thinking, planning, or daydreaming. Your bathroom can be a place of solitude where you can float away in a sea of bubbles; meditating, planning, creating, listening to music, while candlelight is reflected in mirror dancing around room.

We store and keep all kinds of things in our bathrooms: from linens to tub toys, lotions to medicines, and even books and magazines. Oils, candles, matches, and lets not forget toilet paper. Unless you’ve remodeled or designed your own bathroom-the standard bathroom in a standard home usually only comes equipped with a small medicine cabinet and maybe under sink storage and many don’t even provide this essential storage space.