Hello there and welcome (back) 😊
Over the journey of my life, I have discovered, adapted, and discarded many strategies on how to best live my life, but one that stuck with me is minimalism.
Minimalism is not about living poor - it's about living consciously. Like essentialism, it's a way of learning to say No and reducing clutter to what's really important. You can be a minimalist and have millions in your account! It's a mindset that helps you figure out what's most valuable to you.
So, let's get started, shall we?
First, a wee bit of my own journey. I grew up with war-generation parents. They were born in 1942 and 1943, and one of the ways that trauma impacted them showed up in hoarding. Luckily, it was more or less the "clean" kind at first.
We had tons of stuff, enough for three lifetimes. There was clutter and stuff EVERYWHERE. And nothing was to be thrown away, as it could be repurposed (which, for the most part, didn’t happen of course!).
That caused a lot of issues as I grew older, as my mother handed me down her old stuff. A lot of it was outdated or, in fact, unusable, and when I dared to throw it away, I would be guaranteed to get into trouble with her. And I mean real trouble. (And yes, both my parents inspected my trash).
Fast forward a couple of years: When I finally was able to have my own flat and live alone, I started to throw stuff away. It took me a lot of effort and debating with myself - we don’t throw stuff away, after all! - but I just had to do it. I felt as if I was suffocating. I had too much that wasn’t usable, outdated, or simply had served its purpose, and over the following decades, I became better and better at deciphering what’s really important to me.
One of the biggest impacts that life had on me was when they found my Dad lying in his own dirt on Christmas Day 2016. I was 600 km away at my sister’s place when I got the call from a concerned neighbour, which led to me calling the police, etc. After that, my brother and I had to tend to the house (where I grew up). It was horrifying. My father, having been an alcoholic and having relapsed shortly after my mother had died, became a hoarder like the ones you see on telly. It was so bad that the few animals left at home were in such bad states that they didn’t survive long after.
It was indeed one of the most horrific times in my life, but it only confirmed me more in my minimalism.
About 11 months later, my emigration to Scotland started. I had to organise a whole house move - I wasn’t just someone who packed a suitcase and came over. I had a life of 40 years and two cats, so a lot of my stuff just had to come with me.
On the day of my departure, I had reduced my household by about ¾. And the rest fitted into a 3.5-ton van.
That reduction was one of the most challenging but also most rewarding. The whole emigration thing only happened within under four months, and it was astonishing how much junk I had collected.
One of the things that helped me the most in dealing with it was Marie Kondo’s Tidying Up methodologies.
If you don’t know who that is, I strongly recommend seeking her out on YouTube, Netflix, and reading her books. It’s life-changing. Marie is a Japanese woman who has made it her mission to help those who are overwhelmed by clutter and junk live a much more organised life with loads of breathing space - and figuring out what’s really important to them.
Now, with every item I threw away, I applied her methodology: Does it bring me joy?
Marie suggests tidying up by category, and not by room, e.g., your books, clothes, or other items. With each piece you are holding in your hand, breathe, then ask yourself: Does this bring me joy?
When the answer is No, it will be either donated or thrown away.
Of course, there are also items that don’t bring joy at all but must be kept, like certain paperwork (look at the regulations of your own country here, how long you have to store certain things like bills, payslips, and so on).
Due to my upbringing - which was traumatic and abusive - I had kept a lot of junk that sparked pain, hurt and sadness in me, and brought up many bad memories. During the process of decluttering my life for the emigration, I developed a mantra based on Marie Kondo’s method:
This is MY life. I am the master of my life. Does this bring me joy? Am I free to get rid of it?
It was life-changing. Liberating. And throwing junk away felt like a reward. With each piece that I let go of, I felt lighter and lighter and became more cheerful.
Another couple of years fast forward to this point in time as I am writing this: My whole stuff that I have now:
Has meaning to me
Brings me joy
And fits in HALF a 3.5-ton van
Again: It. Is. Liberating!
So, how would you get started?
Choose a category today, then:
Pile it all up
Take each item one by one
Take a deep breath
Ask: Does this bring me joy?
And listen to what your heart has to say
Once you’ve done it a couple of times, you will not only see much more space in your house, but you will FEEL the space in yourself.
Suddenly, breathing becomes so much easier, and you will feel so much lighter.
When you clutter your house, it usually also means that there is clutter inside of you. Stuff you haven’t dealt with and might be unaware of.
For example, as I mentioned above, I had a traumatic and abusive upbringing. The majority of it came from my mother. I had kept a lot of stuff from her - cookbooks, dishware, DVDs, other books … It was a mixture of stuff she dumped on me, gifted to me, and stuff with which I grew up and thought I wanted to cherish after she had died (she was still my mother, after all) and wanted to keep when I emigrated to Scotland.
But the truth is, that each and every single item was a constant reminder of her behaviour towards me and the pain she inflicted.
Over the last couple of years, I found myself discarding so much “pain” that it still baffles me from time to time as to how addicted our brains get to such things (and that although I know the workings of the brain and why it happens. Still, fascinating!).
The rule of “Does it bring me joy?” got expanded by “What am I truly feeling with this, and what’s behind it?”
When an item sparked a millisecond of joy in me, but then the bad memories crept in, I had to discard it eventually. It was still a constant reminder of what I had been going through as long as she lived. And I kept torturing myself with the memories of her by keeping those items long after her death.
So, what are the benefits of minimalism then?
No unnecessary clutter around me, which means lower stress levels and more breathing space = clarity and focus.
I have only that which is truly meaningful to me.
I save a lot of money - and I mean a lot - because I do not spend hundreds on stuff that I actually don’t need, which also feeds straight into essentialism. But more of that in the next post.
I live much more sustainably because I do not produce unnecessary waste anymore and conserve resources.
I automatically choose quality over quantity.
Gratitude for what I have - each piece does spark joy, which produces beneficial hormones:
Dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin
Reduced cortisol (the stress hormone)
Fewer belongings which provides more flexibility and freedom to me (which feeds straight into my off-grid thinking and sustainable lifestyle).
I have more space for my exercises! You are much more likely to do your exercises when you do not have to first rearrange a whole room to have enough space to move around.
More mindfulness around your consumption habits
You see, the philosophy of minimalism stretches far beyond just living with “a bare minimum.”
Now, how about you start your journey now, by either tackling one category now, or just simply going on YouTube and checking out a video from Marie Kondo?
It’s a simple step that will take you on a journey you will soon cherish when you stick with it and let it happen. I promise, it will be liberating.
With love, compassion, and courage,
Heike
The Sustainalist
コメント