Clutter is hard to get rid of, despite the fact that no one wants to live in a home that is stuffed to the gills with stuff. So why do we? What’s so scary about decluttering?
Have you ever started a decluttering project full of excitement and ended it full of anxiety?
Do you look at your Keep and Discard boxes after going through your closet and notice that the Keep box is overflowing and the Discard only has one stray sock and some lint?
Does your decluttering look more like shifting and shuffling?
Clutter is hard to get rid of, despite the fact that no one wants to live in a home that is stuffed to the gills with stuff. So why do we?
What’s so scary about decluttering?
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A few years ago, I read Marie Kondo’s popular book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and was impressed by a lot of her ideas. I also had many moments that involved one raised eyebrow and a muttered, “O-kayyy…” But by and large, it was one of the most detailed decluttering books I had ever read.
But one thing stood out in my mind after reading it, which I think about each time I want to get rid of something.
Kondo says that people hang on to things long after they should be given or thrown away for two reasons: the past and the future.
“All hoarding is simply attachment to the past or fear of the future,” she writes.
Which struck me as exactly right. I thought of this the next time I was decluttering an area of my home. When I looked at something that I wanted to keep, I stopped to analyze why I wanted to keep it.
What emotional response was pushing me to keep things when I desperately wanted to get rid of the clutter in my life?
A lot of my reasons started with, “If…” and “This might…” and “I could…”
If. Might. Could. These are all words that made me realize that I was holding onto things out of fear. Fear of not being prepared. Fear of wasting a resource I already had. And fear of missing out.
I hated the idea of getting rid of something that I might need down the line. Of giving away something that could help me if a particular (and sometimes highly unlikely) situation occurred. Of not having a shiny red tie-wrap for that moment when I would desperately need it to close one errant bag of Christmas sweets.
I was stubbornly opposed to giving away anything that I might need in the future, and thus having to pay later on for something I own right now. This is how I held on to a carpet cleaner for a decade, even though I had no idea how to use it and never did. But should I ever figure it out and be able to use it, I would feel vindicated because I didn’t buy another one or pay someone to do it for me.
And I was afraid to miss out on something. A book that wasn’t read was full of potential. So was all the material I bought for various projects, even though I am not much use with a needle. My guitar has 15 years worth of dust on it (okay, only about 8 after my dog chewed the outer case to bits one afternoon).
I was constantly fearing what the future might hold and not prioritizing my present need for space and order.
I struggle less with attachment to the past, at least in most areas. But that’s probably because I have a decent memory and enough family and friends to fill in the blanks when I don’t remember something. Ask me again, though, when those things change.
I am attached to items from the kids, especially when they were babies, which are hard for me to let go. Onesies, stuffed animals, and favorite books and toys are hard to give up. I fear losing these little scraps of my children’s early years that sped by far too quickly.
But while these things are attachments to the past, they also spark joy — the most important tenet of Kondo’s KonMari method of decluttering and organizing.
My fear of the future is one of the hardest things to get past when decluttering. How about you? Do you fear the future or are you afraid of letting go of the past.
Our emotional reactions to the things that we own are not bad. After all, we bought this stuff for a reason. It spoke to some need or want within us.
But instead of letting our guiding force be the unchangeable and finished events of the past, or the unpredictable what-ifs of the future, we need to see things from the perspective of our present. The here and the now.
Letting go of our clutter is scary because we don’t know what the future holds. We don’t know what we will forget of our past and what will happen to our memories.
But we can control the present. We can create a space that is clean and open. We can make our homes havens. Our offices places of productivity. We can free our hours from organizing and fill them with activities that make us happy and help us grow (read more about this here). And we can share our material possessions with those who have less, but need more.
With the onset of spring, we all have cleaning and fresh starts on our minds and our to-do lists. Let’s unload some of the emotional baggage that holds us prisoner to our stuff and give our lives a good airing out. Life is too short to be focused on anything other than now.
What scares you about decluttering? Do you fear a future without your stuff or losing your connection to the past? I’d love to hear in the comments!
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