This has become my motto lately. As we enter the holiday season, it's the only thing I want to turn to: letting go. Since I'm usually the one finding, organizing, and buying the Christmas gifts, the burden of it falls on me (though, bless my husband, he does offer to help), but it's still overwhelming. Then there's decorating the house, cooking, meal planning, and on top of that, everyday life, like work and home life.
This year, both of my sons got married. This is not what we were expecting, and to be honest, I'm still reeling. There was a lot to do, and a whole lot of emotions and feelings behind it. And this is all amidst working, running a home, traveling, and everything in between.
So, how does one stay sane? How can I manage to deal with stress, sorrow, happiness, and life? I keep on paring down. I wrote an article last year about this, and thousands of you have read it. I was going through stressful life events and realized that eliminating stuff while I was going through difficult events helped me see things clearly and helped me adapt to a new normal.
I'm right back to that motto.
When we're busy, minimal living sometimes gets put on the back burner. We have things to do, people to buy gifts for, and keeping things neat and organized, and free of clutter, does get set to the side. It's not front and center; it's way off in the back of an abandoned closet!
Fortunately for us, at least for me, when things get hectic, paring down to what I love is the immediate action I want to take. I can tackle that pile of mail I hadn't sorted through, organize a shelf that had accumulated things over the course of the last few months, and organize my wardrobe (eliminating the things I'm still not wearing - but thought I would - after years of being a minimalist). My inability to declutter while I was busy has now become the focal point, as I sift through my emotional state of letting go of both of my sons to their beautiful wives.
Decluttering through stressful times helps me cope with it all, and here's the real truth: being busy with minimalism is a form of therapy.
1. Clear the clutter, clear the mind: This is the number one reason why I declutter when stressed and why I should declutter when I'm going through things. When I clear the clutter around me, it helps to clear all the "open tabs" in my brain. As I let go and sort through the debris in my physical life, it allows me to focus on the emotional events I'm going through and sift through what I need to think about and what I truly don't. It allows me to breathe. Allows the overwhelm around me to dissipate. Clearing the clutter, getting rid of what I don't need and doesn't serve me, allows me to navigate my new life events - because let's be real, if you're alive, you're going to always be going to and from new life events - and with a new normal. When I can't see clutter, it helps me to organize my thoughts and break down the emotional clutter that I need to let go of, too.
2. Off of me, and onto others: When I go through my rotating clutter that comes in through the busy months, I find that so many of these things I can give to others. Many items, I can give to family members (items I don't or won't use, even things that were gifted to me), or to friends or someone whom I know could use the item. And most often, bags of stuff I find to eliminate will end up donated at my local thrift store, and allow tons of other people to make use of my unused items. When I focus on others, giving to others, it takes the focus off of me, and any hint of self-pity turns into the glory of giving. Shifting the focus off of me and onto others always wins the battle of the mind.
3. Out of Control, to in control: The thing about getting rid of stuff is that it's a huge way of retaking control of your life. I'm choosing what I allow in and what I want to take out. While we can't control what others do, we can control what we say, think, and do. And by extracting the things that clutter up our lives - an overstuffed closet, or a pile of things we bought that we really didn't need to buy - we gain a sense of control, a good control. We get rid of the unwanted and unneeded items and trade them for simplicity and peace of mind.
As the holidays encroach upon us, take this time as a time to declutter all the things around you that you've been ignoring. These things are taking up valuable space in your mind! Think about giving gifts that your family and friends can use rather than "things" that sit around and take up space. And give yourself a gift this season: a holiday of simple living, filled with only the things and people you love.
When I go back to the basics of decluttering and pare down to what I love, I find that my life - even if it seems chaotic - has an order to it now. I have room to breathe, think, and live an intentional life full of giving, joy, and the willingness to deal with life as it comes to me, no matter what it is.
'Tis the season to declutter!
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