Last week we talked about some reasons why we keep stuff and also the psychology of clutter but there’s more to this ‘letting go’ business than just dealing with your physical clutter.  Here at apartment diet, we always like to start with the physical as it’s much easier to let go of things (yes, really) than it is to let go of our beliefs, fears and expectations in life. What we have experienced is that physical change can start the process of creating new (better for us) habits and emotional changes too. Having said that, it would be remiss of us to simply say that moving things around the house will equate to happiness – there’s a little bit more to it than that!

So, I wanted to share something that helped me with my overwhelm, as I am a typical type ‘A’ personality with a history of perfectionism, martydom and a delusional belief that I am a superwoman!

You see, it was all going swimmingly until motherhood happened to me.  First my daughter, 7 years ago, then 2 years later my son + several renovations before, during and after both pregnancies + returning to work running my own financial consultancy + sitting on a few boards + coaching + mentoring + studying and … well, there’s the rest of life of being a wife, a friend, a daughter and trying to squeeze in me time (yeah right) + a child that woke 3 or 4 times at night until age two and well, you get the picture. I was stressed, tired, fat and completely overwhelmed with life. Luckily for me, someone magical called Natalie re-appeared in my life to save me from total destruction and together we created apartment diet. We tested all our theories and made mistakes on ourselves (or more correctly, on me!) and came up with our unique approach of dealing with the stress, the tired and the overwhelm by starting with physical actions. Teeny tiny steps that even someone that’s ‘losing the plot’ could imagine taking. Like ‘remove 1 thing’ or starting with a corner etc … since we started, I have slowly but surely dealt with many years of clutter and thrown out more things than I own! I have let go of a lot of things and the reasons for them that I talked about last week but it wasn’t until fairly recently that I decided to let go of more than just stuff.

Perhaps this happened because I did the work on letting go of my clutter and I now have space to deal with the real issues at hand, I’m not sure, but actually that’s not the point.  The point is that I decided to let go of ‘doing or having it all’. Yes, that’s right – I have let go of my superwoman disguise and am now embracing the idea of asking for help.

I have let go of perfectionism (well mostly) and am settling for ‘good enough’…with that, I have also incorporated my beloved 5 minute rule into all aspects of my life which not only helps me get more things done, whether they’re to do with personal friendships or work emails, but more importantly, help me feel more secure as I still have the feeling of being on top of the gazillion things that come my way on a daily basis.  I think this is particularly relevant these days as most of us have less time and many more things to deal with! But the biggest part of what I am doing is letting go of my expectations of myself – as a wife, a mother, a woman. What started as a joke about 6 months ago has now turned into the way we do things in this house – I {shock horror gasp} decided to go on a cooking strike. Now before you say anything like many folk have (“that would never work in our house” or “but we’d starve if I stopped cooking” etc) let me just tell you what happened.  I told my husband that I could no longer cope with cooking dinner on top of my daily demands and gave him one easy recipe book to use. Then, I simply stopped cooking dinner. It freed me from a breakdown (I’m convinced of it!) but it also planted the seed of the idea that I don’t have to do everything all the time. I’ll be honest here, I still occasionally feel guilty for “not being a good wife” as I watch the hubs cook but with time it’s subsiding – and, if I’m being completely honest, I actually think that we’re eating much more interesting and healthy meals, now that he’s in charge!

The BIG lesson for me here is to let go of control. Give someone else the space to ‘shine’ (in this case, my own masterchef!). The other big lesson is learning how to say ‘No’ (I am notoriously good at saying yes, sure, of course) – and I don’t just mean say no and then feel guilty about it but to actually say no, GUILT FREE. You’ll be suprised how much time you can free up this way, just by saying no like you really really mean it!

Anways, I’ve waffled on enough for now so will leave you with this experiment.

Just say you’re taking a break and stop doing something that someone else could reasonably help with for the next week and see what happens.

You never know who might surprise you!

This is a pretty BIG one on the Happy House Rules scale which is why we often start with it (i.e. let 1 thing go) and then return to it later (let a whole lot more go!) once we ave talked more about stuff and why we keep it, during our courses and consultations. There are many different reasons why we keep things so this post is all about trying to hep you figure out why you’re hanging on to something that seems to be weighing you down in some way.

* Keeping things “just in case” – you know, because you might need it, one day. This is often about a lack of trust in the future & your ability to provide for it. (I used to do this – a LOT. Time to trust it will all be OK.  Because, it will.)

* Identity – sometimes you might feel that your identity is tied up with your belongings. Examples of this could include old concert ticket stubs, old gifts from friends etc. Your things aren’t you – YOU are you.

* Unwanted gifts – As we discussed last week, we’ve all been given things we don’t like but feel obligated to keep. We are giving you permission to get rid of these.

* Status – ‘keeping up with the Jones’ for the reason of boosting self-esteem. But really, who are the Joneses anyway?

* Security – it’s reasonable to have a basic nesting instinct and want to create a home which serves your needs but there is a point at which more things do not make you feel more secure.

* Territorialism – this is all about the ego, which wants to possess and control things. So we buy stuff.

* Inherited “Clutteritis” – learned patterns from our parents/people that raised us. Think about if this might be the case for you … and remember, patterns can be changed.

* A belief that more is better – something the advertising moguls have brainwashed us into believing.

* “Scroogeness” – refusing to let go of things until you’ve gotten your money’s worth out of them…even if they cost you nothing to start with. I totally do this even though it makes no sense whatsoever.  Oops.

* Using clutter to suppress emotions – do you feel uncomfortable with too much empty space around you or too much free time? Ask yourself what you might be avoiding.  (This was also a big one that I had to deal with – I mean imagine if I didn’t have all this stuff to deal with, then what? Scary …)

* Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders – if you’ve reached a stage where you cannot throw anything away, ever. This is a serious level and while clearing your stuff out can help, therapy is also a necessity. This is where you need to find a professional, pronto.

* Spaces of argument – this term, coined by Nat, essentially is a physical representation of an argument you are/aren’t having with your partner or flat mate (or even yourself). Our suggestion – fix it. Do what you have to. Take responsibility for your side of this and just simply end the argument. Let it go and move on. If the “discussion” needs to happen, then address it & resolve it too.

“See that pile of paper that’s been cleared? That was there for months and months (or even a year or two) and it just continued to grow. Hubby helped it grow by picking up my papers around the house and putting them on top of this pile. Anyway, he said, she said … I realised that this wasn’t clutter – this was an argument. A physical representation of the argument we weren’t having about my paper problem. So, my job was to end the argument.” ~ Tip

Take the time to process these and write down anything that came up for you. Did you connect with any? Have any others? We’d love to hear from you.

Tip
———————————————
Poster by Honeyboo on etsy

* Source: Many of these reasons for keeping stuff originate from Karen Kingston. We have expanded on them from our work with our Apartment Diet clients.