Most people know that the decluttering process isn’t always easy. While I’m a big fan of just turning off your brain and tapping into joy like Marie Kondo suggests, anyone who has attempted decluttering often knows that there can be a lot of fear and resistance tagged on and we’re not really sure why. The crazy truth is that letting go of our things can quite literally be a grieving process. Not because we are people are so obsessed with our material items, but because we have accidentally given them meaning beyond just stuff. Here’s how to spot these misalignments and how you can course correct in a way that feels freeing and not frightening.
I was recently re-listening to one of Brene Brown’s books, The Gifts of Imperfection when I heard her say something so simple and profound, my brain had no choice but to perk up and listen more intently. Isn’t is crazy how we can hear or see something for a second or third time and always pick up on something different than we did the first time around? It’s probably the same reason I have a new favorite character on The Office every time I watch. While what Brene said wasn’t meant to be on the topic of minimalism, that’s really what it was, a very minimalist based solution for how to create more happiness in our lives without really doing anything for the most part. Here’s what I mean…
I first heard about the Broken Window Theory in one of Malcolm Gladwell’s many amazing books. The basic idea being that if there is one person with a broken window in a neighborhood, slowly the rest of the neighborhood will start to shift and deteriorate. In other words, our surroundings dictate our behaviors. In my almost a decade of practicing minimalism, I can see more and more how we can apply the Broken Window Theory to our lives and homes. You know, less clutter = more peace of mind and all that jazz. However, there is a fine line to walk between fixing a few broken windows in your home and buying an entirely new furniture set. How the heck do ya tell the difference between these two? Well, here’s what I’m thinkin’…
One of the biggest battles people face when it comes to letting go of an item (or purchasing an item) is that deep held belief that it might be worth something someday. Not only do we tend to this thing where we over-value our belongings simply because they are ours, but we also tend to forget to remember what our own definition of valuable is. If you struggle to shake free from that fear that you could be missing out on a potentially huge monetary gain, hopefully this little story about my Spice Girls dolls can shed some light on the subject.
I was recently listening to the audiobook of Breaking the Habit of Being Ourselves by Dr. Joe Dispenza and he got on the topic of vices. Of course, being a practicing minimalist, this is always a topic that peeks my interest. Vices are something I talk about specifically in my Shopping Rehab course and is something I get asked about a lot. Taking the time to uncover our vices – because as weird as it sounds, we sometimes don’t even realize we have them.
For the last few years I have been working at building a business while homeschooling my kids, running my household, seeing my family members through depression, caring for a dying step dad…And all the while I’ve had this gnawing thought in the back of my mind that I’m missing out – I’m not building my business fast enough. I’ve now come to the realization that we are always building something, it’s just that more often than not we are so focused on what we are not building that we just might be missing out on the pretty spectacular stuff that we are building!