I have been focusing on decluttering, and why should we declutter? How does decluttering affect our lives? Growing up, I had never heard of decluttering, we did spring cleaning. When mom made us pull out furniture, of the house, we cleaned it got rid of the trash got rid of clothes, we did every year. And, and then as I had my own home. I did it with my kids were yet here. But somehow, I lost the whole thing of decluttering or spring cleaning. I lost the gumption. I am finding spring cleaning, or decluttering it helps you mentally, emotionally. And I do not want to say physically, I am trying to figure out why how it would fit in there. I mean, it keeps you more active in your house.
When I had stuff in my home, I did not know where to put it. When I told someone to put something away. They did not know where to put it. We did not have enough house to put stuff.
Last year, when I started on my journey of making changes, and deciding to do things differently, instead of focusing on my harmful stuff, and feeling sorry for myself, I decided to work on the things in my life I have control over. One of the things I focused on was our home and the areas stressing me out. I made a list and I started with my kitchen. Trust me, I am not an expert at this, but I have been learning as I go, as you decide to focus on an area in your house, to me is also focusing on something like in my mind and my heart. To me, those were working side by side together.
The main thing was realizing I do not have control over everything. What I do have control over then what gave me my little victories along this journey. People are like, why do I need to declutter? I cannot give up on this stuff. I mean, this is a perfectly good outfit. Yeah, I have only worn it once, or I only wear it when I go to a concert. The thing of it is, I love my possessions and trust me I struggle with it too. I have clothes my little baby boys wore, they were itty bitty, I touch it and it brings back those special memories.
In the progress you must work through it. What you need to do is pick a place in the house, which was my kitchen. I was able to go through and get rid of the things was easy to get rid of, when I had three of the same bowl, well, I only needed one. I was able to get rid of two, I did not need three of them. It also made me feel good I was able to give, donate our stuff we were not using a nonprofit Christian place. They were able to help families out who had been, affected by fires or whatever the situation is. But it made me feel good I had nice things to donate. I kept thinking I spent this much money on it, I should sell it. If you are a go getter, and you have stuff, you want to sell it, and ship it out, go ahead. But for me, I know myself well enough to know if I did not get rid of it. I could post it on social media, try to sell it. But if I did not get rid of it at once, or soon I was not going to at all. And the reason I know it because I decided to sell my shoes, I had a ton of nice shoes. I took nice pictures, I staged them, and I posted them on social media. And I gave my prices and, nobody ever purchased them. What happens when no one purchases your stuff? You still have it. I was like, well, that is not going to work. I had a terrible experience on Facebook marketplace, people were getting mad at me. I was like, this is too much stress for me. I blocked everybody and took down my stuff. I will donate them and that is what I did.
One of the good things about decluttering is too study and learn. I have been listening to books, I have been watching videos, there are other moms out there struggling, like I am about getting rid of this stuff. There is good advice out there on how to approach decluttering. The best thing for me to do was set aside what I did not want, if I could not make up my mind to keep it or get rid of it. I kept it for the time being and I kept going with stuff I knew right off the bat I could decide. Yes, I want this; No, I do not want this is how I approached it. I am going to do this decluttering thing or Spring cleaning. And it is going to be the only time I do it because, you get rid of all this stuff.
It felt good to get the stuff out of my house, the missions place I called, came, and picked everything up. They were excited to get it, I could not believe it. I got the kitchen done. I got my office done, I went through my clothes, I went through my clothes three times.
Now the hardest thing I went through, for me to go through with my books. I have always been an avid reader. However, as I have gotten older, I mostly listen to books, and listen to podcasts. It was hard for me to go through books and decide what to get rid of. I categorize my books; I categorize ones special to me. I categorize books my literature books. The hard part was the literature books I love to read I kept the ones had made some kind of an impression on my life and I like to read the technical books, I get rid of those because technical books, and what I mean by, or like your manuals, those are those outdated, and like if you have a technical book for school, I mean, inner expensive. I right away, I started I started buying used or renting my books, unless it was a literature book. Then I purchased one outright. Technical books and manuals. Data they expire or outdate fast. With today’s technology, though, you can go online and get an updated version or see a video of someone doing process. It made it easy for me to say, see ya. Anyway, I cut my books down to one bookshelf. And now I have, more space in my office, my kitchen, my clothes, and my books, those areas were really bothering me.
The whole point of all this is going through the process of letting go, it is hard to not be in control, it is hard to get rid of the stuff in your house. At one point, it was something special to you, or to your kids or whoever, or it was a gift from somebody. I have always been one that is like, if you have it, you use it, you do not waste it, you keep it in case you need it for the future. My new mindset is I have now is if I am not using it, on a regular basis, it must go. I should donate it and give it to someone who does not have it anything like at all and could use it. I still have ways to go, and I am still learning this to I tried to correlate the cleaning and decluttering with mice, self-learning, and my journey. And getting rid of the extra out of my, the dirt in the gunk and the bad and the hatefulness and the grouchiness and short tempered, which, I do not know if I will ever get rid of all stuff. But, I guess, if you are aware of it, and you keep working on it, and it makes you, to be a better person. This is my take on decluttering.
Less is the new more. And to me what it means is less as a new more is the less stuff and clutter in your house. You have more time for yourself, you have more time to spend with your husband, and you have more time to spend with your family. And you have more time to improve yourself, I am it has been it has been wonderful I was able to get a new position at my work which I love it. There are other things I will be talking about, you can hear it on my podcast, and I talked about decluttering because it has been the most stressful thing for me to have to physically deal with. There are people who deal with other problems but do not have any trouble with decluttering.
The first step is, recognizing there is a problem in your life, when you are depressed, sad, feel like you are out of control. You do not know what to do, then you can, what are the things I can work on, and focus on to make my life better my situation better? Kind of what started all this for me. And I feel it has not been easy, it was hard. Because all I wanted to do was cry and sit on the couch and try to watch TV to get rid of my sorrows., I kept doing it a little at a time, I asked God to help me because I knew I could not do this on my own. I did get a support group and there are groups out there for you if you need one. My mentor offers a 15-minute call. I did not know if she could help me, but I knew I needed somebody to help me because I feel like I am drowning over here. It was the best thing I ever did. Which is why I am offering a free call to if you are interested in a free call, you can click on my Facebook page or in the YouTube. I have all my links listed. And you can schedule a 15-minute call. Whatever situation you are in, and you are in a funk, and you are like, I get out of this funk, I am here for you.
I know when I was a young adult, I did not want to reach out because I was ashamed, embarrassed, because I felt like I was in a situation where it was not okay, to be sad or depressed. It was not okay to have problems in your marriage. It was not to okay to have to yell at your kids because they are a bunch of crazy heathens, I mean, it was not okay not to have a clean house, it was not okay not to fix dinner. It took me a long time to realize it is okay, stuff happens to people. The situation I went through was out of my control, I felt like it was my fault. Do not get me wrong, I am not an easy person to live with. Those were things I am responsible for and only I can change. I think people do not realize they have a support system. If you feel like you do not have a support system, you need to reach out.
This is my decluttering story. And if you need help with stress in your life, if you are depressed, and stressed out, like I have been, then contact me, I can help you. We can do this together. We can work through this together, reach out.
