Anjie Cho was featured on Forge

Have you found yourself overtaken by a sudden urge to clean and reorganize every inch of your living space?

If the fresh-start feeling of the election results has you newly energized to change up your space, you’re not alone. At least according to Twitter, that mood is in the air.

If you’re stress-cleaning, you’re not alone there, either: Studies have linked “ritualized behaviors” like meticulous cleaning to periods of heightened anxiety. And, well, there’s been a fair bit of that going around lately.

So, where to begin?

Assess the stuff taking up your space

Reassess your environment, on a macro level, by looking at the objects within it. “The items we surround ourselves with carry weight,” says Anjie Cho, a New York City-based architect and feng shui practitioner. That doesn’t mean physical weight. Objects, Cho explains, are sometimes imbued with memory and purpose — a gift from an ex, or a 1,000-piece puzzle that you bought with the best intentions in March — that may no longer serve you or may be affecting your mental wellness in harmful ways.

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