Category Archives: Clearing Out

Clearing the Rubble

Posted on by
1

As I have continued my 30 day challenge to clear out the shelves, drawers and closets of my living and working space, I paused to visit my sister who is doing the same.  She has been inspired by helping her husband prepare his family home for a spring auction.

If you have ever helped clean out an elderly parent or relative’s house when they are going to, or have left it, you know what is entailed.  It seems like an overwhelming job to go through a household where someone has lived for decades, or in some cases, for generations.

Deciding what needs to be saved or given to other family members and what should be carried to the trash or sold or given to charity can be exhausting.  My sister decided to start her own clearing out and not leave it to her children.

So she started in her attic and invited her daughter, nieces and their children and sisters to an “attic party” last Friday.  She is a seamstress who has been making clothing and household projects for herself and family over her whole adult life, and like anyone who sews, has quite a stash of fabric remnants and patterns.

In a stash we can find the left-over pieces that are big enough to use for children’s clothing and some that are small and could only be pieces in a quilt or to make something decorative for one project or other. We also found fabric that was purchased out of whim or divine inspiration but never used.  She is also a weaver and knitter who spins and dyes her own yarns, so there were plenty of skeins that she had not used and was giving away.

It was a festive atmosphere.  The children were laughing and running around, alternately playing, watching birds at the feeder outside the window and running up and down the stairs as the boxes were carried up and down the stairs from the attic.  The women were catching up with each other, commenting on the “finds” and telling stories about the remnants they found.  There were lots of suggestions about what new projects could be generated.

Proves that one woman’s trash is another’s treasure.

My daughter, who is learning how to sew for her toddler, was happy to find patterns, which can be quite expensive when bought new.  And there were a lot of pieces that she can turn into dresses, pants and shirts.  She is inspired to make her a jumper for her second birthday next week.

I was determined at the outset to walk out of there empty handed.  After all, the point is to have LESS STUFF not more!  I told my daughter to give me a sound whack if she saw me carting anything to my car!

Of course you know what happened.  Why does someone else’s stuff always look more interesting and fraught with possibility than one’s own?  And now I will confess this justification (yes, yes I know I am rationalizing!  Do I get a break for recognizing that I’m doing it?):  I have been feeling the need to break from my routines and do something creative with my hands.  It has been eons since I sewed or did any needlework, which I really enjoy.

So I ended up with a bag filled with wool pieces which I am inspired to use in patching a crazy quilt or comforter.  My grandma had one, handmade by her mother perhaps, which must have been filled with cotton batting or a worn blanket because it was heavy as lead.  I loved sleeping under it on cold nights; I loved the heft of it as well as the warmth.  No floating off into the ethers when sleeping under that!  I also loved the dark, rich colors of it and the hand-stitched embroidery that the creator of it made around the pieces.

One bag.  Will it be added to my collection of STUFF or actually be fashioned  into something of worth that will give me pleasure (and maybe someday my great-granddaughter)?  That all depends on whether I take inspired action, or just push it into the closet that I cleaned out 2 years ago and need to do again.

To countermand the effect of bringing a bag into my stores of belongings, I packed up another one to go out to the Salvation Army.  Right now I have a car trunk full of recycling and donations.  When the snow and ice melts from around the recycling center, I’ll be sure to finally clear it out.

Sorting It Out

Posted on by
Reply

In my last post I gave myself (and you too if you cared to join in) a challenge for 30 days of de-cluttering.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  You know, clearing the decks before beginning the projects of the New Year.

So I have made my beginning, and as promised, and am giving you an update.

There is no shortage of places to begin this process.  Wish I could honestly tell you otherwise.  But I decided to start in the room that I usually leave until last.  Probably because it is the least public space in my house, my office.

One day I started with my computer desk because someone was coming to do some service and it needed to be clear and clean.  Nothing like a little imposed deadline to get you moving.

And today I took on the other desk, which I have to confess was looking pretty deep.  I have a bad habit of bringing papers in (mail, paperwork, articles, books, and on and on…) at the end of the day and set them there.  I sometimes think that I’ll read it, file it or something later.  And most of the time I don’t really think about it at all.

There is the “look at this later” pile, and the “needs to be shredded” pile, the “needs to be filed” pile and the “will get recycled” pile.  In addition there is “pay this” and a big “this is interesting and maybe I’ll pass it on to someone else” pile.

So as I began, my rule for myself was that I would avoid handling any paper more than once.  In other words, make a decision! Maybe that is at the heart of the problem.  I have a hard time deciding what to do with it and then put it off.  Thus the piles.

I called my adult daughter, who happens to be a whiz at organizing (wonder where that gene came from?  Probably my grandmother who was also a genius in that department  How did this gene skip me?).  We have had many conversations about this.  She has made good suggestions and now just listens and encourages while I whine and complain.  The role reversal is not lost on me.

Then back to work.  A couple of years ago I bought an in-basket and out-basket on the advice of an organizer.  To tell you the truth I have never grasped the finer points of using them, so they were full of papers that had been there longer than I care to confess.

The shredder was very busy and the recycling basket is full.  Some of the papers are properly filed and a few are beside my computer because I need to take action on them during the coming week.

Now I’m stopping for the day because it’s late, I’m hungry and I swear that my brain is tired.  And although I felt quite frustrated at times, I did get into a groove with it.  And I feel some satisfaction in putting a dent in it.  Tomorrow I will cart out the paper to be recycled and have another go at it.

“Success seems to be connected with action.
Successful people keep moving.  They make mistakes,
but they don’t quit.”
~Conrad Hilton~

Clearing Out

Posted on by
2

Sometimes I think there is great value in knowing what you don’t want.  And even greater value in clearing it out of your life.

For the most part it seems that we don’t often take time to really assess what surrounds our daily lives.  We get into routines that are determined by what we think HAS to get done, and then after awhile are sleep-walking through the days.  Our schedules are full of daily or weekly events that lack luster and meaning.  And our rooms, closets and drawers are often filled with the physical manifestations of the same thing.

If you wake up to this, what do you see?

Appointments that “have” to be kept?  Activities that may or may not benefit someone else, or may be something that sounded like a good idea when you agreed to it?  Meetings that you may be reluctant to cancel because it may disappoint someone else?

Take a peek in your closet or at your bookshelves.  Are there clothes that might have fit your body or your lifestyle awhile ago, but are collecting dust now?  Do you have books that are partially read or ones that someone else bought you but never really interested you?  Or maybe some that you read and enjoyed but will never open again?

Do you have the supplies for that dessert that you thought you might make, but the expiration date passed long, long ago?  Or maybe the items necessary for that craft project that looked great in a magazine, but which never got done.  And the occasion that inspired it was years ago?  Or photographs that you intended to put in an album but never got around to, and now the occasions that inspired them are long gone and you can’t remember the names of some of the people in them?

I have noticed that it is much easier to accumulate this STUFF than it is to get rid of it.  After all the shopping or gift opening that got it in my house was more intentional (and energized) at the time.  If I bought it, I wanted it at that moment.
But now?

Now it is not something I want or need.  And moving, living and working around it is vaguely draining.  It is taking up space, collecting dust (or I have to make the effort to keep it dusted…but for what purpose?).

Deciding what I DO want for my life can shed some light on what I do NOT want or need.  And the benefit of clearing it out is obvious to me after I have begun carting it out to either donate or to the trash.  I always breathe easier when the surfaces are clear of clutter.  I always enjoy looking around me and find it easier to think and to work.

So why, you might ask, do I put this off?  I’m not sure I have a great answer.  I do know that I have a lot of company in this department.  I had a coach once who insisted when we began working together that clearing out my working and living space be the first task that I tackle.

I agreed (being the generally compliant sort) but didn’t really see the wisdom in her strategy until my progress was underway.  She outlined a specific and methodical approach, and I spent some time every day gathering and carrying out the excess STUFF until I was finished.  She asked me to ask myself repeatedly, “How is this (item) serving my life right now?”  I was further surprised that my answer very often was, “It’s not!”  So out it went.

As we are thinking about new directions for our lives and the goals that entails, I challenge you (as well as myself) to 30 days of clearing out! Some time, every day for 30 days, to look around you and decide on the starting point and clear out anything that is not currently serving a good purpose.  Donate what may benefit someone else.  I call this returning things to the “Abundant Stream,” which brought it to you in the first place.

Let me know how you make out, and I’ll keep you posted on my progress too.


What Do You Value?

Posted on by
2

In the five element healing tradition, fall is represented by metal, and the function associated with it is sorting out what is of value and what is not.  We have just passed the vernal equinox, so it’s officially fall now.  Hard to believe that we are down to the last 100 days of the year.

Although there is no bad time to think about your values and how you are using them to build your life, fall seems the perfect time to do this.  If you live in my neck of the woods, you can see that Mother Nature is doing the same; the old leaves, which served an important function during spring and summer, are starting to turn and fall off the trees.

Take a look around you.  Take a peek at your desk top and your inbox.  If you are like me, you may have a stack of papers or emails that you might “get around to” at some point, that are taking up space and providing distraction.  Periodically it helps to turn on the shredder and clear off the desk.  I also recently went through email and unsubscribed to a dozen lists.  There’s nothing wrong with them.  It’s just that I don’t want to spend all that time reading newsletters or wading through an inbox thinking that some day I will take time to read them.  As they age, I probably won’t.

Does the content of your storage spaces, your closets, drawers, book cases and files really reflect what is important to you?  Do those contents serve your creative or your business or family life? Or are they jammed with things that are from your past life or with items that you once thought seemed like a good idea, but that you have never really put to use?

Don’t hang on to them thinking that maybe some day you will use them. if you haven’t used them in the past year, you probably won’t.  Donate them so that someone else will benefit.  Or sell them in a consignment shop and use the money for some constructive purpose.  Recycle the things that don’t fit either category.

In this process, notice that the things you keep and live with reflect what is important to you.  Make sure that those items are truly speaking the truth about what you value.

Do It Anyway

Posted on by
Reply

My past weekend was mostly spent coping with my burgeoning cleaning out process.  Like many other aspects of life change, things have to get a whole lot worse before they get better.  At least that’s what I’m telling myself as encouragement to keep at it.

The furniture and drawers are replaced in the living room, so the space is usable again although it won’t win any prizes in a beautiful design contest.  The room is dominated by cardboard boxes, about half of them filled.  It looks like I’m moving.

And while I’m not leaving the geographical state, I guess I am moving.  It seems that changing one thing creates a chaos effect, and if you don’t clear the old stuff out, you will get stuck.  Not only stuck with the objects around you, but also stuck in the thing you most want to change.

Last evening I was channel surfing and came across the show Clean House. If you’ve never seen it, it’s a reality (?) show about people who ask for help in cleaning hoarded messes of their stuff from their houses.  Generally I detest reality shows but I found this interesting.  I was cleaning out storage bins while I watched.  Ironic, huh?  Where is the organizer and the designer when you need them, is what I wanted to know?

One of the themes is that a life transition has occurred or needs to occur.  In this case, a man had gone through a bitter divorce, not of his choosing.  He lived with his grown son in a state of utter chaos.  His business had failed and his social life was non-existent.  He was still hung up on his past marriage even though they had split years ago.

What caught my interest was that despite his agreement to have this team of people come help him clean up his train wreck, he was still resistant to letting go of any remnant of his past life.  He became quite emotional over the seemingly smallest objects in the mountain of stuff that was impossible to walk around, much live with.  Objects from his former life.

Lest we be judgmental, let’s look around to see what we are holding onto.  And ask ourselves what those objects represent.  Letting go of the object doesn’t mean losing the memory of past relationships or experiences.  Letting go of books and papers doesn’t mean forgetting what you learned from them.

If you can connect with the emotional meaning that comes up, ask yourself if you can release the emotion.  Have you learned what you needed to learn from the experience?  Is there something left undone?  Do you need to forgive someone (or yourself) or make amends?

I heard someone tell a story of a failed business which was a very painful memory.  She had an idea for a new business, and had discussed it with some trusted advisers and was encouraged to go ahead.  She had boxed the old brochures and marketing material, kept all her old appointment books as well as the financial records and was keeping them in the hall closet of her home.  Every time she opened that door to hang up coats, there were the boxes peeking out from underneath the coats.

She was feeling some pressure to get some income coming in again; she was running through her reserves.  The financing was in place for the new venture.  She had completed the legal paperwork and since she was going to be working out of her home office, was essentially ready to go.  But still she sat, feeling more anxious by the day.

We started with working on the “body in the closet.”  The remnants of the old business were haunting her.  She agreed step by step to clearing out the papers, saving only those few pieces that she might need for tax purposes.  Those she put in a file folder.  We discussed what happened with the business and how she felt about it as well as what she thought it meant about her.  She felt guilty and ashamed of her “failure,” being pretty sure that her friends and family would think her a fool to ever have a business again!

Instead of being “out of sight, out of mind,” those remnants were a huge roadblock to her forward progress.  A lot of fear came up in removing them.  What if everyone thought she was an idiot?  What if she failed again?  That thought really made her anxious!  As we worked through her feelings, she was able to validate them and then release them.  Soon she was reframing her mindset with a willingness to trust her intentions, entertaining new possibilities for her growth and her life.

New ideas began to occur to her for finding support and help in setting up her new ventures.  She began to be energized and excited about steps she was taking to create a new life.  And it all began with her willingness, despite her fears, to get rid of those boxes.



Moving Stuff Around

Posted on by
2

Today I had one of those little life experiences that reminds me of an important principle of life.  Funny how the most common and simple things do that.

I needed to have a large area rug cleaned, and arranged for the service guy to come pick it up.  Sounds easy enough.  But removing the foundation of a living room means getting all the furniture off of it.  And since I don’t have the power to levitate large objects, I had to strategically move, vacuum,  roll the rug, then move some more.  Some furniture was shoved into the kitchen and the rest around the edges of the room.

Honestly I clean that room routinely, but it sure doesn’t look like it!  Cat toys, real and invented, were rolled under a chest of drawers.  Dust bunnies looked like they had multiplied like the critters they are named after.  I had to unload the drawers to move the chest.

And this is when the life reminder occurred to me.  Why do I have all this STUFF?  It is neatly put away for years, so out of sight, out of mind.  I obviously live and move around it every day without giving it a thought.  Once in a while I use something in that chest, but not often.

There are linen tablecloths and napkins that I use for entertaining.  I have to confess to a secret passion for good table linens.  If I were independently wealthy, I would buy table ware for each season.  So I am not getting rid of the linens.

But the candles?  There are candles out the wazoo, most of them used at some time, but still with potential hours to burn.  A set of pink pillar candles that I used for a dinner party that I gave for my friend Linda.  The table looked spectacular, I must say.  But that birthday was almost 20 years ago, and I haven’t used the candles since.

And so it goes.  Vases, candle holders, an incense burner and a box of incense.  Incense is something I think I should like, but I really don’t.  The smoke bothers my nose.  It was a gift from someone, as was a glass vase that is very nice, but not my style.

And so it goes.  Objects from different times in my life that I once used, but don’t any more.  Or things given to me that I never used.  And some stuff that I thought I would use, but haven’t.  If it’s neatly put away, what is the problem with it?

It seems that having STUFF tucked into the nooks and crannies of your life it like a hidden burden that is dragging you down.  Or holding you back.  The minimalists are onto something.

As I was lugging this stuff around, I asked myself if any of it was bringing me joy?  It occurred to me to ask if having it was aligned with my life purpose?  The answer to the first question is certainly a resounding NO.  And I haven’t heard the answer to the second one yet.  I’m not sure yet how that applies.

But I will follow the basic feng shui principle of ridding myself of more clutter.  Thousands of years of an energy medicine practice can’t steer me wrong, even if I don’t entirely understand it.  I can feel the effects of too much junk and I can feel the effects of a cleaned out space.  That’s all I need to know to fill up some boxes and get it hauled out.

I will “return it to the Abundant Stream” as I call it.  Donating what is usable, recycling what I can and dumping what’s left.

Anyone need some used light pink pillar candles?



Taming Chaos

Posted on by
Reply

It is some complicated mathematical theory that the nature of things is to move from a state of chaos to organization and then back to chaos.  My desk top illustrates this concept very well.  I can’t do the math, but I can do the chaos.

During the last 24 hours my home office seemingly exploded.  My desktop computer, which has been limping along finally turned to toast last night.  Just before that I was out shopping for a new printer since the old one was acting up too.

Not being one with a technical bent (just ask my kids whose eyes will roll up in their heads when they read this) I feel especially challenged when the hardware goes awry.  Which it routinely does.  I usually confer with one of them, then call John, my computer wizard.  The trouble is that his wizardry has become well known, so it takes awhile before he can attend to my toasted computer and hopefully retrieve something from the hard drive.

Last night the young salesman was waxing on enthusiastically about the capabilities of the wireless printer I was considering.  He said he didn’t know how sophisticated my phone is, but I could actually send a printing command from my phone.  I restrained myself from saying that my phone (also new) is way more sophisticated than I am.   No point in getting into that.

This morning I am here in the midst of what looks like a hardware morgue, waiting for John the Wizard to call me back.  I decided to do one thing that I could accomplish and then I would feel better.  Write a post.

All this got me thinking about the general state of my office, which leaves something to be desired on its best day.  The connection between work and the place where we do it is an important one that is easy to overlook.

And the connection with chaos and stress is a big one.  You can get so used to your chaos that the stress is normalized, but if you pay attention, it is there.  Tame the chaos, reduce the stress.

My dad was an accomplished wood worker who built furniture, turned bowls, and made wood sculptures.  He owned tools that did everything imaginable and then some.  And his workshop was organized with everything in its place.

The mark of a good cook is an organized kitchen with tools that work. And anyone who cooks can tell you that the cleanup and chaos taming after a big baking or cooking project is an essential part of the process.

Take a look around your work space.  Does it work?  Is it clean and organized in a way that makes your work the focus, and not finding one thing and another that you need?  Does it promote your creativity and productivity or hinder it?  Do you feel energized when you walk in there, or bewildered and tired?  Do you feel stressed after being in the room?

You may have some work ahead of you.  I know I do.