Spiritual Housecleaning

Many years ago, when I was off the deep end as a Christian, I read a book called "Spiritual Housecleaning". This book was, essentially about literally cleaning your house of anything occult in nature, even going so far as to say that a Christian having a crucifix in their house was an invitation for evil, since it was a way to glorify "Satan's greatest triumph". And of course the usual dribble about not watching Harry Potter (Lord of the Rings was, of course, fine) due to the good portrayal of those who practice magic, and just generally ridding your home of everything that did not reflect that pure joy of being a Christian. Yeah...
I thought the book, while not on target as to what to remove had good points however, and looking back, I can see even more of those good points. Though I would never recommend that anyone follow the advice in that book, no matter what religion you are (if I recall they actually suggest that some particular children were deamon possessed because of some mundane object in the home), there is something to be said about what you surround yourself with-what pictures do you have framed? Are the from unhappy or down times in your life, or are they you at your happiest? What do you watch on TV? Lots of negative, downer type stuff? Do the things in your house make you happy? Are you unintentionally surrounding yourself with icky energy? Are clutter and mementos from bad times in your life bringing unwanted nastiness into your present life? Are the colors themselves just downers? Is it too dark for you? How about too bright?
I generally try to cleanse my space in some capacity regularly-with sage, incense, or just visualization. I like to open the windows and see, with my minds eye, all that black nastiness flying right out. And that's no small feat in a 4500 square foot home. To really do it completely can take a long time if our home is in serious need or if I've neglected cleansing it for a long time. But the energy after I do it is it's own reward.
However, even with regular space cleansing, the items in your home can hold their own power. That picture of you when you were going through a deep depression might not be the best one to frame and place on prominent display, even if you look like a total babe in it-you could be subconsciously linking depression to that photo, and thus be bringing that into your home and current life. And no matter how many times you might have cleansed the couch you remember sitting on and watching your parents fight, if the memory is still there and still painful, then you might want to consider replacing it-if the memory is still attached for you, then it might be "cleansed" for someone else, but that memory you associate with it might just be too attached to that object for it to ever really be cleansed for you, if that makes sense.
I just started thinking about this the other day. We all need to do spiritual house cleaning from time to time. Simply taking an inventory of what we have decided to place in our space and how that item affects us, and then deciding whether to keep it, cleanse it or just plain get rid of it. I urge everyone to do it, even if like me, you can only do a little at a time. Eventually you will have a home that can just be cleansed in it's entirely as need be, and any negative associations to smaller objects or furniture will be a non-issue, or at least a much more manageable issue.