Tag: guilt

let it go

~ Gillie ~ 7 Comments

You would have to be fully certified hermit not to know at least a couple of lines of “that” song from Frozen.  Personally, I think “Would you like to build a snowman” is considerably more poignant and reminds me of “Slipping through  my fingers” by Abba.  Moments promised and lost forever.

However, this is not a maudlin blog.  I am not one for living in the past!

But as hoarders, isn’t that just what we do?  I was introduced to Thich Nhat Hanh some ten years ago.  Today, at last, the concept of mindfulness is becoming more commonplace.  From The Miracle of Mindfulness I moved on to many other books (list of links at the bottom of this post) and I have benefited hugely.  I have long ago lost any need to bear a grudge, to cry over spilt milk or to worry about what if. I have let go of past hurts and forgiven those  who hurt me.  The last was the hardest.

I have kept a diary on and off since I was about 6.  At today’s date that is 44 years of diary keeping.  The early stuff is sweet.  The teen years are embarrassing.  The early twenties are painful.  We have a lovely big wood burning stove.  I took my diaries, took out the childhood ones, those of my year living in the Transkei and offered the rest to the fire.

Why?  Because they were, for the most part, a cathartic exercise of a young woman who was hurt and upset.  The act of writing them was helpful at the time but by keeping them I was holding on to that pain.  Every time I went into the study I knew they were there.  Remember Eyeore and the black rain cloud

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That was how it felt.

So I burned them.  And that rain cloud disappeared.

How many personal rain clouds are you hoarding?

Some books I have found helpful

 

decluttering changed my life

~ Gillie ~ 19 Comments

One year on.  Remember this?

 

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and this?

 

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Well now it looks like this.

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In fact that is a mere fraction of what has gone.  As I write I have six more bags to go to charity and the Singers have been dispatching some of the Boss’s clothes on Ebay.  So what next?  What have I learned?

What next?  Well there is still a huge amount to go.  The Boss is slowly working through his wardrobe and I will have to work at his pace.  The study still has far too much in it and there are a few black holes around the house to which we have been turning a blind eye.  The videos and CDs are a case in point.  But as the house has emptied we have begun to turn our attention towards the garden.  I have plans to turn our garden into a mainly physic garden where all the plants are either medicinal, edible or have other practical uses.  Meanwhile the Boss has finally got on top of the meadow and is planning the wild flower border around it.  Currently it’s mainly vetch, poppies and cornflowers, but give him time.

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What have I learned?  How long do you want me to go on?

Don’t give  up  Like learning to play a musical instrument it is hard at first.  You can see other people knocking off a snazzy sounding concerto whilst you are still struggling to coordinate your left and right hand sufficiently to get three notes out in the correct order.  But everybody has to start at the beginning.  Everybody has to practice, practice, practice before they are a master of the art.  Decluttering is no different.

It does become easier.  Trust me, you will come to a point when you are instinctively picking up things that you don’t want or need and putting them in the charity bag or recycling.

Let go of guilt.  Just because it was a gift or a family heirloom does not mean that you have to keep it.  Offer the latter to somebody else in the family to caretake if it will cause a ruction.  So you bought a dress and have never worn it but keep it because you feel you must.  Don’t.  Let it go.  Sell it on eBay BNWT!

Space is beautiful.  The things you love can shine when they are bordered by space, space in itself is something to love and cherish.

Don’t clutter it up the space.  My entire summer wardrobe fits in less space than my shirts used to take up.  My bookshelves contain books I want to read.  I know every shoe I possess, I no longer open a shoe box and look at the contents with surprise.

As I decluttered my belongings I decluttered my mind.  Now I can’t promise that this is true for everyone or that the two were actually connected.  I suffer from acute  and severe depression, the kind where all is well and suddenly for no apparent reason the lights are all turned off.  I made an active decision after a particularly nasty attack that I was going to think differently.  Thus it is quite possible that  my mind declutter is down to that.  Either way.  This year  I have gone from unsure what to do with my life stay at home mum to published author with a second book in the works; professional tarot reader; workshop facilitator and have plans for a small handmade toiletry collection.  As I decluttered I became more focused.  The things I focussed on were not those that I had expected but I am loving life and have big plans for the future.

Not everyone likes it.  A bit like losing weight and discovering that not all your friends are as keen on the new you.  I have been told all sorts of reasons why “they” can’t do it; why “they” could never let go of books (heaven forbid!) and so forth.  Maybe they really can’t or maybe they are jealous.  Whatever the reason it has nothing to do with me so I shall continue my path.

I have discovered my own style.  As I have let go of things that I didn’t like, need or want I have discovered a style that is mine and I like it.

I have made some amazing friends and some incredible business contacts.  I have discovered crossovers and potential joint projects with people I probably would never have met had I not started, and gone public with this journey.

I have more time.  I can’t explain this one, I still live in the same house, I still have the same family.  Perhaps it is more that I am more mindful of my time, I don’t fritter it away.  As I am only keeping things I cherish I am learning to cherish my time as well.

And finally, I did it because I wanted to.  You have to want to.

 

 

 

 

 

kicking the guilt habit

~ Gillie ~ 8 Comments

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I was doing some research yesterday for a series of workshops I am planning on learning to live with less when I came across this piece of advice for identifying clutter.

“Does this item lift my energy?  Does this item give me joy?”

In a sense it is not very different from the quote by William Morris I mentioned yesterday.  However, I like it because it extends the concept of beauty.  My copy of The Poisonwood Bible is not physically beautiful and I doubt it is of any practical use unless I was transported back fifty years and sent to live with a mad missionary father in the then Belgian Congo.  However, it lifts my energy and gives  me great joy.  It is one of the last books with which I would ever part.

This criterion allows you to keep items of genuine sentimental value.  I am not advocating you keep that box full of every piece of artwork your child brought home from school.  Because, that would, certainly in my case fail this test completely.  I would hold it, and feel weighed down by the knowledge that most of it will never see the light of day again.  Hardly uplifting for my soul.  In my case I got around that by keeping a few pieces by each child, framing them and putting them up in my study.  I bought display folder (the kind sales reps use) for each child and put about 20 pieces of artwork in there.

Likewise those gifts, “heirlooms”, family knick knacks that you are keeping for sentimental reasons.  Hold them in your hands.  How do they make you feel?  In our experience we were keeping a lot of those things out of guilt, and guilt and a heavy heart was what we felt whenever we saw them (which was rarely).  By all means offer them back to your family if you are afraid that somebody will feel offended if you offload them.  But I suspect the chances are nobody else wants them either.  Something that might have been of sentimental value to one person years ago does not have to be of sentimental value to you.

Also, please don’t follow what I think is terrible advice, take a photograph of the object and then let it go. Why on earth would you substitute one piece of clutter (the item) for another piece (the photograph) which is inevitably going to remind you (should you ever look at it which I am sure you will not) that you let go of something that you found, at the time, quite hard to do?

I long gave up feeling guilty about putting gifts I did not want aside for charity or passing on to somebody I know (and you must KNOW) would want them.  Today most people know I don’t want stuff, I would rather have time, plants, a voucher, a day out so the situation doesn’t arise as often.

However, if you pick up a cracked porcelain figurine that reminds you of a loved one, that brings back wonderful memories then keep it.  By the time you have got rid of all the stuff that failed the test, that figurine will have plenty of space to shine on your mantelpiece and lift your soul on a daily basis.  Right now I would hazard a guess that you can hardly see it behind all the clutter in the way.

The egg cup at the top?  It was mine as a child and it is still in regular use.  But not only that, it makes me smile when I see it, when I use it. It passes the soul lifting test with flying colours.

read or dust?

~ Gillie ~ 36 Comments

The Latin Quarter, Paris, France

 

A couple of people asked how I decided which books to keep and which to give away.  Faced with a wall (or several walls…) of books that you have carefully cultivated over decades is daunting.  You have invested a lot of money and emotion in them.  They have been old friends.  You have carted them from house to house, packed them up in boxes, unpacked them again.  Arranged them by size/colour/subject/Dewey Decimal Classification (well maybe that’s just me).  You may even have read them, maybe even twice.  All of them?  No.  Recently? No.

I rest my case.

Go up to your bookshelf/bookshelves/book piles/library (delete as necessary) Go to a random shelf and without pausing pick out ten books you have either just acquired and haven’t had time to read yet but know you will within the next two months or have already read but are so fantastic that you know you will have to read again within the next six months.  No cheating, no going to the pile of books that just arrived from Amazon, no wandering around cherry picking.  One shelf at random.

How many did you find?

I rest my case again.

The biography of the Duchess of Devonshire may well have been fascinating but are you a historian?  Are you going to go back and check facts?  Are you a Mitford aficionado and will reread it over and over?  Or are you just keeping it because it looks good on the shelf?

My first degree was in philosophy.  I had an admirable collection of philosophy books from original texts to commentaries and commentaries on commentaries.  Today I am a stay at home mum.  I do not have an illustrious career or a glamorous high-powered job.  I like that.  I love doing what I do and if you flick through my gratitude journal you would see I offer up my gratitude for that on a regular basis.  However, there have been times when I have been made to feel small and insignificant because I don’t go out to work.  At those times it is nice to flick through those philosophy books and remind myself I once read them all and even understood them.

Codswallop.  I don’t need a pile of dusty books to boost my self-esteem and furthermore I am never going to read them again.  Somebody else with a pile of student debt would probably be grateful for them.

Some books will have been presents or belonged to relatives.  You can’t get rid of them because you would feel guilty.  How about feeling guilty that you are hoarding all those precious books which you are never going to read again.  Think of the Tate, The National Portrait Gallery, The British Museum.  Imagine your indignation if they were closed overnight and only a very select handful of people were ever allowed to visit them and see the artwork and artifacts they hold.  But even worse, those people never bothered to go.  That’s you and your never to be read again books.

By all means keep some for sentimental value.  I certainly did.  Some of the hardest books to give away were books from my childhood.  Though oddly enough as I child and a voracious reader I regularly did deals with the chap who sold secondhand books from a dingy shop on the corner of  Hillgate Place and Uxbridge Street.  I took him 100 or so paperbacks in part exchange for another selection, which in turn would be returned to him for another and so on.  The shop has long gone and last I saw it was a trendy deli.  A shame, Notting Hill Gate has plenty of trendy delis, it needs good second-hand bookshops where children can learn to explore and learn the art of part exchange.

I’ve preached to you long enough.  But please, look at those bookshelves again, take off the rose-coloured spectacles and really look at them.  Somebody else could love them, could really use them.  Somebody else might read them rather than just dust them.