The Elephant in the Room: CLUTTER
Let’s admit it. We all have clutter. Some is neatly tucked away in a junk drawer, or in the bottom corner of our closet or wrangled in Rubbermaid tubs in our basements, crawlspaces and garages. Or some of us just have it “hanging out there”, as my grandma would say: “In front of God and everybody”.
So what’s the big deal anyway? There’s going to be a pile of mail on the countertop until it’s time to pay the bills, or toss the junk mail, right? It’s part of our daily lives. We have families, kids, toys and clothes on the floor, cups and dishes on the countertops and in the sink.
Well, the big deal is that this clutter is really messing with our sense of calm, joy, happiness and harmony, even if it’s “out of sight, out of mind” when stored where we don’t see it daily. Our environments really do dictate how we feel emotionally and if we can get a handle on it and slowly start to address our clutter, we can begin to feel more grounded, centered, calm and peaceful within our spaces.
We recently had to pull out all of our stuff from our crawlspace and into our garage for a little while. It was astonishing to physically ‘see’ all.the.things. The tubs, boxes, suitcases, fans, you name it, we probably had it down there! While we have been culling down our things with each holiday that comes around that we decorate for, there is still a lot of stuff. So, it was decided that before any of the boxes went back into the crawlspace, they would get a good dose of decluttering in the form of either toss, donate, or gift (to a willing participant, of course). We had donations to Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore, our local ARC, I’ve got some vintage hats on consignment, and I was also able to sell some antiques to a local shop.
But, how many tubs of photo albums does one need? I mean seriously, I think we have/had about 7! Which got me really re-evaluating my life and who the poor soul will be that has to rifle through all of this stuff when we die. We don’t have children to pass on these lovely photographs to. Our nieces and nephews, while not obligated to take on this task, are not going to need 7 tubs of photo albums to have to deal with…..Which then got me thinking about the process of Swedish Death Cleaning, that I’d been hearing so much about.
So, of course, I bought a book: “The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning”, by Margareta Magnusson. It is not only gentle, but the book is also funny, thoughtful, insightful and a very quick read. I mean, we are talking about death here, so it should be a quick manual for sure.
But seriously, the premise is that Swedish people begin the process of clearing their clutter by around the ages of 60-65, when they reach retirement age and still have the energy and time to actually sit with their things and reflect on their home and lives and the memories they have created with their families and friends.
They view this time of decluttering to be a GIFT to their family because grief is painful and anything they can do to ease that pain in the here and now will be appreciated later. They also talk about what they are doing in regard to their Death Cleaning. They are upfront, and in the socializing of this activity it is a great way to re-live the memories associated with some of the items they may be gifting to their family or friends. To them this is not a sad time at all. They view it as downsizing and simplifying their lives; making their day to day that much more smooth, precious and an ease on their family when it is time to say goodbye. They are leaving their loved ones with good memories and not bad memories of having to deal with all of their clutter. My favorite quote from Margareta in her book is: “A loved one wishes to inherit nice things from you. Not all things from you.” That made me laugh a little too much!
Therefore, if you start now, you won’t be rushed and can enjoy the journey of remembering the items and saying goodbye to them, knowing that your Abundance is being passed onto someone who will appreciate and enjoy them too. There will be no more burden on you of too many things to have to look after or too many messes to organize, your life will be easier and less tiring with less things. We can all learn a lot from this tradition.
So back to those tubs of photos. Don’t worry kids! We are taking them out of the albums, donating the albums and keeping the loose photos in smaller boxes to revisit later, while others are being tucked into envelopes to be given out as memories.
Need help with your decluttering project(s)! I’m your gal. Send me an email and we can discuss.
Have a great weekend, you lovely, humans! I’ve got some photo albums to finish up!
