Part of my health and fitness journey includes my mental health. Here's how I came to start letting go...of clutter, material items, and intangible things that take up unnecessary space in my life.
I grew up in a house where having stuff (and more stuff) was the norm. Definitely to no fault of my parents as I truly believe it started as a generational thing that continues to compound with each next born. As an example of the growth of stuff, if we couldn’t find a tool or item, we just bought a new one. Things and stuff were all pretty inexpensive so it wasn’t too big of a deal to just throw a few bucks at it. Then if we found the first item, we’d keep both, you know, just in case, because "you never know when you might need it."
My husband grew up similarly with the "have stuff" mindset. So we both have been really good at accumulating things because, well, that’s what we do, right?
However, I was constantly finding myself in a state of frustration trying to keep our house clutter free and clean (and still am at times). Even when our children pitch in and help, it’s still exhausting for everyone. We just have too much stuff. There are containers and boxes of things we haven’t touched in years, but we have and keep just in case or perhaps for memory's sake.
A few of years ago, a quote filtered into my Facebook news feed and it was talking about having too much stuff. I wish I could recall which one exactly it was, however anyone who knows me well knows I'm a quote-a-holic (yup, another thing I collect, thank you Pinterest), so I am not certain which one exactly. I ended up following the rabbit hole to find an entire page about “becoming a minimalist.” The idea totally spoke to me, yet I felt an instant and intense sense of overwhelming anxiety. Where do I even begin!!
There are about 13 rooms in our house, plus our shed and yard, packed full of ..... stuff including: knickknacks, paddy wacks, dog bones and pretty much anything else you could possibly think of, not to mention the non-tangible things like digital photos, documents/files, “friends list” and frankly my mind clutter. I decided that it was not the time for me to be trying to do ANOTHER thing, on top of being a wife & mom, full-time manager, small business owner, fitness fanatic and friend.
The universe did not give up on me. I had "liked" and "followed" the page because....Quotes. So my news feed was peppered quotes and daily reminders that this was possible for me. Minimalism. Gawd it sounded so freeing.
So about a year after finding the page, I finally dove in and in true Anora fashion, bit off more than I could chew. I gave myself two months to de-clutter, purge and reorganize our entire house and life. Imagine this, I wasn’t as successful as I felt I should have been. I was only kidding myself, it took years to build up our amazing collection of things, letting go of it all was going to take time. We're about two years down the road of learning how to be minimalists and we are still purging and growing.
We are far from "minimalism" status, but we are making continuous daily efforts. Constantly asking does this bring value to my life and is this item useful (or better yet, DO I USE IT)? Cleaning is getting easier, because every time I clean, I purge more. This is going to be a process we will continue to endure, letting go can be so hard. Our society has really romanticized consumerism. It’s enough already.
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