This is the first part in a series of my journey. I am willing to
share my process of how I regained…wait, that would imply I previously had , ok,
so this is my process of how I finally
gained control of things in my life.
So I have been on a journey. A
decluttering, organizing, gaining control journey. The things I have been
learning and doing the last 5-6 months are not things that have come easily to
me. In fact, I have never in my almost 39 years been able to gain control over
them. I was never taught HOW to clean a room. How to manage a space, how to
organize what I have, or to not overfill a space. I still struggle with time
management, I still have dust on my shelves and I still have places to gain
control over. However this will share how I have gotten as far as I have ….so
far…Some may help you, some may motivate
you, some may make you say, whatever, I’m not doing that or I don’t care… but
it is what it is. What it is, is a process. To begin the process you have to
understand the root of the problem.
My parents, like most of us, just told us “clean
your room”……ooookkkk, but I never knew HOW
to properly clean it. You would think (like most of us) DUH no brainer, except, there are many ways to
clean a room. It is NOT just put things back where they belong, especially if
not everything HAS a place where it belongs. The tactic I took often, even into
adulthood is to hide everything, under the bed, shoved into closets, crammed
into drawers. Out of sight gave the APPEARANCE of clean and was “good enough”.
It passed parental inspection anyway. Therefore now that I am a parent, the
exact same pattern I have, my kids have learned! The problem is, when you don’t
learn how to clean properly, how to limit the amount of stuff you have, how to
organize it, you just keep bringing stuff in (more on that later). So, what do
you do when every closet is full, every drawer is overflowing and you don’t
dare look under the bed? Well it starts
accumulating where you CAN see it, and it accumulates faster than a cage full
of rabbits!
You know how I collected so much
stuff? Several ways, one being family members moving…and being normal people,
who don’t want to move a bunch of stuff they don’t want, they say “do you want this?” well being the abnormal
person, who you would think lived during the depression by all the things she
hoards, thinks, well I might want it at some point in my life and I don’t want
to have to buy it so really I would be saving money to take it, so I went ahead
and took it, or a family member passing, and you hate to part with their things
because, gosh, I must hold onto it, it’s all I have left of them, if it is
something I would never want to display or look at too often, that doesn’t
matter because it was THEIRS!. Then you
add the high you get from purchasing new items, whether you need them or not,
whether you have a place for them or not, whether you really can afford them or
not, you like them, therefore they MUST be bought!! And you never take anything out…. Well, that
my friends is how people end up on hoarders! Which, is where I found myself
headed.
OVERWHELMED!
Sound familiar? That is how I felt
every day. I was drained of all energy when I looked around. No matter how much
time I spent trying to clean and organize, it would look like a hot mess in a
day or two. You know why? You can’t put lipstick on a pig and call it a
princess! I was never going to get truly organized and clean until I got rid of
stuff and I don’t mean a few things here and there. That was not enough! I have
lived in 3 houses since being married and multiple apartments. With every move,
instead of being like normal people and getting rid of stuff each time, I
tended to do the opposite, I would collect more because you never know what you
might need in the next place. I would drive by these little homes and wonder
HOW people could live in such a tiny home, where did they keep all their stuff?
What I never realized was, not everybody has as much STUFF as I did! Can you
imagine?! It was not normal for people
to have as much stuff as I kept collecting.
Anyway,
several times friends and family would come over to help me TRY to get
organized…. Guess what, it never took, because there was just too much stuff! We
are back to the pig and princess theory. Do you know another reason it was
never going to work? Because it was a process I HAD to do myself. I HAD to
mentally let go, I had to mentally organize. You can not have PHYSICAL clutter without
MENTAL clutter. You reduce the physical clutter, you will reduce the mental
clutter. More on that later as well. But I was never going to be able to
maintain anything until I got to the root of the problem…..letting go. Through
out this process, I have been posting on my Facebook my progress. People have
asked me how I did it, or what did I do so they can do it too. However often
times, if you start to tell someone and they start to immediately give you
excuses why they can’t do something, then they are not ready to let go. In my
case, I was finally done with the excuses and ready to take action. Can I tell
you, every excuse I gave in the past, were really not valid. They were fear and
emotional attachment talking. Because I was not ready for the change. I knew it
was going to take a lot of work and frankly I was lazy, and I knew I would have
to let go of things, that I did not want to let go of yet. Since then, I have
probably let go of a small house worth of stuff and do not regret a single
thing I have gotten rid of.
SUCCESS!
I would
love to say I have found success. In fact, in a lot of areas I have. But I still
have a long way to go. However I have learned so much and am dying to share it
with my family and friends. This has been something that has affected every
aspect of my life. My husband and kids think I am crazy or obsessed. They may
be right. I tend to give things 100% or nothing at all. Some would say,
obsessed or no interest at all, tomato tomaaaato! Haha What I do know is, I am
finally on my way to being the very person I have dreamt about. I have a very
long road ahead but I know now, after everything I have already accomplished,
it’s possible. I now know for fact, that as long as you start, you have a
chance. No matter how many times you fail, as long as you keep trying, you CAN
get there, it IS possible and every other cliché’ I hated before. I know what
looked way more than I could handle became “done” one day, one step, one room,
one closet, one drawer at a time. I do not pretend to have it all figured out, I
do know I am adjusting the process everyday. If something doesn’t seem to be
working, I adjust it. There is no law, no rule, nobody to say if it’s not
working, you can’t change it. In fact there are no rules at all, only what
works and what doesn’t. I can tell you a lot of ways that worked ….for ME and a
lot of ways that didn’t. But they may not be the same for you. This is my
journey, and the adventures I have taken. I hope I can inspire you to create
your own! I am not a professional blogger, I don’t’ even have very many
followers, it’s never been about that for me. I don’t want nor need that
pressure. My blogs have been about sharing with family and friends what’s going
on in my life. It’s also my way of holding onto memories for my kids. To look
back and see what their ol’ mom thought and did. So if you don’t like it, don’t
read it and if you do, I would love to hear it and be encouraged if I have
helped you at all. In the next blog, I will share how I FINALLY got started. If
you need to finally get started, I hope it will encourage and inspire you to
finally do that!
“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't
work.”
― Thomas Edison
― Thomas Edison
