12 December 2022

This week, although continuing my recent theme about simplifying things, I now want to talk to you about the need now to declutter your life, before you can start to simplify it!
If you really want to simplify your life, you always need to declutter it first. You will then always have more time and space to figure out how best to simplify things even further. It is a ‘vicious circle’ but, with effort, you can turn this into a ‘virtuous circle’.
Remember what I said to you before about how we all have a silent todo list that screams at us. These are constant messages and reminders that we get from seeing things around us, like ‘fix me’, ‘do this with me’, or ‘just decide whether to keep me or not’.
As I said, this can all be emotionally draining, as it is not ‘out of sight, out of mind’, but ‘in sight, in mind’. So, we must then appreciate that decluttering and getting rid of things, first requires an emotional change in us.
Decluttering is always an emoti
onal exercise. You find that you hang onto things because you usually convince yourself emotionally unconsciously that you may need them again at a later time, or may feel inwardly upset, because you paid money for things that you now won’t get back.
This is often why we hold onto things that we don’t need any more. But just holding onto things for emotional reasons, in the hope that you might have a use for them or can sell them one day, is only a remote possibility. This feeling always leads you astray.
The best way to simplify things in life is to just chuck clutter out that you don’t need or use anymore. Decluttering also helps you feel liberated and free, although you often need to reassure yourself emotionally that you know where to get things again if you ever need them.
You also have to throw out the old to make room for the new much of the time ot
herwise, if you don’t, you are just collecting clutter that makes it harder for you to get rid of it again emotionally one day and just ‘kicking the can down the line’.
Finally, please realise and understand too that we are always very good at seeing other people’s clutter, but somehow cannot see our own clutter. We are also often telling people how to declutter their lives, but are not very good at decluttering our own lives.
So, this week, remember that you always can find a reason for keeping something that you don’t need any more, because you still have an emotional attachment to it, but tthen ask yourself if you are only holding onto something for emotional comfort!




