When The Things You Own, End Up Owning You: Here’s What Can Happen When You Declutter Your Life

Feel Good Project day 92

Never before did I think that watching my OLD junk leave my life would be as enthralling as it was today!

Yard sales used to be a big challenge for me.

I would spend months collecting my old crap from around the house and yard, store it in boxes for a bit all the while completely forgetting what was even in them.

Then magically when the sale day rolled around, I would emotionally reconnect with most of my old junk and end up hardly selling any of it, as it felt safe to hold onto it, even if I wasn’t going to use it. As long as it stayed sitting in a box, just knowing it was there if I changed my mind about it and decided I wanted it back then I felt better.

Wow I have come so far.

The journey to the land of unattachmentville began probably about a year and a half ago, when I just could no longer stand the way I lived.

It’s not like I was a hoarder or anything even close. BUT, my grandmother was. And you know how strong those generational chains can be! In my opinion, I still brought too much stuff into my home without giving much away. That made for a cluttered, untidy and overwhelming set of closets and drawers and outdoor shed.

Nobody would have known looking at the way things appeared on the surface.

All of my objects looked beautiful and mostly clean and dusted.

However, knowing what was lurking in closets was haunting me and bringing me down. You know what I felt was the worst of it all? TONS of paperwork that had piled up for years that sat in different places hidden around the house just waiting to be shredded. When the shredder broke a few years back, I just told myself I’d get back on track and buy another one.

Well, the best of intentions.

It has been over 5 years since we’ve owned a shredder. BUT in the past year and a half, I have taken the time to go through ALL of the piles and separated what really needed to be shredded versus just thrown away, so right there half of the papers were gone to recycle heaven:)

NOW that we are the most organized and simplified we have EVER been in our lives, I will hire a shredding company soon to come and take care of about 6 boxes of papers (or my dad told me that the city sometimes offer on site shredding a few times a year for FREE, so I might wait for that!)

Today I said ‘GOOD riddance’ to a slew of items that used to mean something to me. A Christmas tree topper I used to love from Potterybarn but was waiting for a really tall tree to use it on (our place is so tiny that I wondered when that might be so what’s the use in holding onto an item I might not use for awhile still!), a mountain bike, 6 patio chairs, assorted household items, gently used clothing and jewelry, an old skateboard Justin had lying around, a flying pig with wings bronzed figurine that sat on my rooftop for YEARS that my former fiance bought for me at Restoration Hardware the day we got engaged on the Santa Barbara pier in 2000.

MANY items that had sentimental feelings attached to them just walked out of my life today and it felt SO very good for the first time!!!!

I chalk it up to doing a lot of spiritual work on myself over the past couple of years in particular. The journey of returning to what really matters as well as releasing the past (which is still/always probably a work in progress) has been a bumpy but more than worth it road.

It has involved reading books, listening to audios, sitting in silence, prayer, journaling, time spent in float tank, among a muriad of other modalities.

I get surprised at myself when I see just HOW different I respond these days. I really always desired to be this FREE, but didn’t know if I could ever get there.

Can only imagine where I am still in the process of going! This is a BLAST!

The more I am letting go, the more the past is letting go of me!

FEEL GOOD MOMENT OF THE DAY: appreciation of the sun warming my chilly and uncomfortable fingers and toes as the morning sun rose during our early morning garage sale. What started out as early morning misery turned into a LOVELY, warm and sunny day for which I am so so thankful. I know I can always wear gloves or put on more layers, but nothing trumps the warmth of the golden sun beating down.