Marie Kondo seems like a pretty cool woman. I’m terrified of what she would do if she’d ever walk into my house but I still admire her. The nugget here is that she encourages us to throw out what we don’t love and keep what brings us joy.
Sidenote: Marie Kondo is a Japanese organizer who is passionate about keeping what sparks joy and ensuring we live our best life, away from clutter, not keeping things just because someone gave them to us (yup, you heard me! Not keeping it out of guilt) and that our well organized life brings us peace. She made an important discovery in the world of organizing: Don’t just organize and keep adding storage! Get rid of what you don’t need and doesn’t spark joy! Organizing too much stuff doesn’t work.
What about if we looked at our inner self that way?
Overshare: I’m a mental/emotional pack-rat. I try to keep everything I can! If I were to attempt to open the drawers of myself, I’m guessing they’d be jammed, hard to open and spilling out on all sides. You know the type. Drawers so full they even spill out the back and might even bust through the drawer’s bottom. Recently, I’ve hit the limits of what my phone can store. I simply have far too many pictures! Admittedly, most of them are quotes that I find online and choose to keep. The result of this collection is that I forget what I actually have, because there are so many! In fact, there are repeats that I’m oblivious to.
Today, I could really use a MiniBook that reminds me that I already have many of the tools I actually need within myself to deal with the circumstances of the day. I’ve had hard days before, we all have. And we’ve gone through challenges and made it through. We have learned so darn much over the course of our life and that deserves to be highlighted. But we might lose sight of that sometimes and not find the right tool within Ourself when we’re in the middle of it all, but I’m confident that we’ve all got some great stuff in there!
Let’s do this!
There are times in life that there are lessons to learn in what we’re living. We can learn a great deal from older wisdom, psychology, self-development books, our loved ones, and so many other sources! Heavens, even a meme can be just what we need to light our darkness.
Most of us simply cannot remember absolutely everything, find and select the perfect knowledge at the perfect time and use it perfectly in the moment we’re really needing it.
Overshare: I feel pretty lucky that I’ve read some great self-development work through the years. However, sometimes I hit an oldie that hits home immediately and brings tremendous focus on the situation I’m living. It was something I already knew, it was stored away in a corner in my mind, under a pile of brain-socks 😉
We know a great deal!
We’ve lived and learned a lot through our lives and there are good chances that we have already something within us that we could really use right about now.
Clutter-Dive
A lot of us have too much stuff and not enough storage space to press it all into.
The more stuff we have, the longer it takes to find something, right?
The more stuff we store, the less we might know about what’s even in there, right?
The more stuff we hoard, the more it can get damaged in the clutter, right?
I feel this applies to what we’ve learned and tricks for Ourself that gets all tangled up with all the other stuff we carry around within Ourself.
Overshare: What prompted me to initially Clutter-Dive within myself was because I was upset and I was initially looking outward for support, advice or something to pull me out. I had a flash about talking to others about similar situations in the past when I was supporting them and realized that I might have the answer within myself.
As we dive into what we know, how we feel and think, we might be swimming through all the clutter of knowledge, emotions and thoughts.
Our Personal Tool-Kit
What if we had our own tool-kit of the most pertinent pearls of wisdom we could need, knowing Ourself and what we might need to remember in our time of need?
The way I do this is by addressing my weakest points and 1-2 ways to boost when those points are challenged.
I like to cover all my areas of stimulus, like:
- Music playlist made to sync with me
- At least 1 quote for the subject
- A role model in the category
- Writing it out
- Nature time
- Reading on the subject or something related (this is why I write MiniBooks, actually)
- A yoga routine, Mudras (hand postures) and breathing all tailored for the situation
- Getting rid of stuff I’m not using
- Creating or fixing something I care about
The true goal in this practice is to know and remember key elements that inspire and encourage us. To have in the forefront of our mind, everything where it should be, so we remember that we’ve had challenges, but we made it through, and how.
There’s a lot of great stuff in here
When I go de-cluttering my things or someone else’s, I usually find some gems that the owner didn’t even remember having. I’m confident we have similar gems within Ourself.
So, let’s dive in with confidence that we’ve got a lot of great stuff inside and go and find that matching sock, that great t-shirt we thought we lost and that amazing photo that brings instant sunshine. They’re all in us, somewhere.
Get Rid of the Crap!
To get all the great stuff we have within Ourself, we’ve got to handle the crap we’re storing for no good reason.
Let’s get rid of the stuff that doesn’t fit, that makes us feel like crap, that others throw to us and everything that doesn’t bring us joy or bring us real use.
Like Marie Kondo and other de-cluttering experts, it’s about doing the initial clean-up, but keeping up our priorities to keep what suits and not accept what doesn’t.
Enjoy 🙂
Karine