We’ve had a few sunny days here and I can hear the birds getting revved up and chirping their little heads off outside the windows while I try to work. As the sun comes streaming through the windows I can’t help but notice the “stuff” of living that calls out to be purged now that Spring is promising to lend a new lease on life. It makes me think about how we manage (or mismanage) our “stuff” and how family life can get incredibly bogged down with clutter and things…
I have a confession to make, earlier this week, I finally boxed up some of my children’s old toys that had been taking up very organized space on neat shelves on the stair landing. I had kept the “good ones” available for a couple little children who occasionally visited and for whom I babysat. But the children moved to Sweden about a year ago and I knew it was probably time to put some things away. I kept the book shelves full of hundreds of favorite children’s books, and one big lidded wicker hamper with some emergency toys, but the rest got boxed up and stored away. Those of you who read my blogs know that my own children are all in high school and keeping the toy shelves full was really half habit and half my inability to face the inevitable and embrace my children’s growing up.
I also spent some time the past couple months cleaning out my closet. Having dropped a couple sizes and gone through some other personal changes, things I was clinging to had to go. Isn’t it strange how we cling to things we absolutely think we “have to have” and then one day, poof!, we’ve outgrown them? Now, granted, I am a person who gets quite attached to “stuff.” Not necessarily fancy or expensive stuff, but things that are fused with meaning and use and the “magic” of sentiment.
The Feng Shui and space organizing experts will tell us that our energy can get clogged and bogged with too much stuff or the wrong kind of things around us in the wrong way. Just as we can be energized by new things and things we absolutely love, we can also be laden and blocked by useless items, too many things, and things we’ve definitely outgrown. This goes for everyone in the family. Why not kick the Spring season off right with a big household purge? You’ll be amazed at how light and energized you feel, and the emotional cathartic process of letting things go is such a soulful way to say goodbye to Winter.