At one level or another, we all carry around some form of baggage, trauma, adversity, or pain from the past. Whether it’s a result of what others have done to us, what we have done to others, or even the harm we’ve done to ourselves, this inner emotional clutter directly affects our ability to live a fulfilling life.  

n Clearing Emotional Clutter: Mindfulness Practices for Letting Go of What’s Blocking Your Fulfillment and Transformation  (March 8, 2016), psychotherapist, author, and former Buddhist monk Donald Altman offers readers easy-to-use daily practices designed to dissolve emotional clutter, whether it is old emotional wreckage from their childhood or new emotional clutter that they take on every day.

Clearing Emotional Clutter is built around Six Clutter-Clearing Mindfulness Skills, which can be accessed through the acronym PAIR UP:  Present Moment Participation, Attuned Acceptance, Intentionality, Reflection, Understanding of Suffering, and Purposeful Partnership. Throughout the book, Altman shows readers how to apply these skills to become more centered in the present moment, and promises that when they practice one of the mindfulness skills, they are actually practicing all of them.