Clutter and Couples: How To Organize Your Home and Transform Your Relationship

PASSED DOWN BELIEFS

It's always interesting to learn where my clients resist saying goodbye to their possessions due to their belief patterns, which I truly understand since I have my own tightly held-beliefs, too! It’s how we make sense of our world through our beliefs and what we’ve been taught, directly or indirectly. 

However, inside this book, I plan to offer some new and novel ways of seeing your possessions and invite you to uncover your beliefs by going deeper than just, ” Yup, that’s what I believe…”

What if I told you:

"You are not your stuff.” 

“A gift received does not need to live with you until you die, especially if you never liked it, used it, or needed it.”

“Releasing the broken antique table from your mom’s home that you’ve been meaning to get repaired for close to 15 years will now remove the nagging pressure of getting it fixed someday.”

“You could send all of your photos in a prepaid box to a service that will digitize them, and you’ll be free from the heavy burden of organizing them.”

These are some direct sentences I’ve shared with my clients over the decades, and some of them paused with this newly offered paradigm shift, considering if they, too, could change their current beliefs. Frequently, they couldn’t, but on some occasions, the person lit up with excitement to think that they could finally release that wedding gift they never liked; they just needed permission. A lot of what I do with clients is give them permission to let go, and I promise you can give that permission to yourself as you move through this process.

While decluttering, emotions can run high for some folks. There seem to be some universal emotions that come up in people’s processes. Guilt is a common one I witness when folks struggle with letting go of items of sentimentality or if the item was a gift. They are also much more reluctant to say goodbye if the item was expensive. Is guilt one of your go-to’s when releasing things from your life? 

Sometimes shame or embarrassment is present during a session, perhaps due to the high amount of one category they possess but probably don’t need or use. Books that have never been read, shoes that have never been worn, and bunches of clothing with tags still on them are hard for folks to come to terms with when they are faced with their shopping and spending habits, especially if the item was purchased in vain. It is a hard pill to swallow. 

Over the years, their reactions vary when I’ve shared some of these “radical” thoughts/beliefs or paradigm shifts with my clients. 

In a home a few years ago, you would have thought I had just suggested murdering their dog when I floated the idea of releasing their great-grandmother’s china set. I suggested such a crazy idea because they were already storing their grandmother’s china, which also sat boxed and never used in the deep depths of the basement. For decades, we’ve been taught to believe that our ancestor’s china plates are the Holy Grail to their immortality. Are they for you too?

Although, in all honesty, I get it. I spent my entire childhood with my two brothers playing in our basement and heard my mom continually yelling from upstairs, “Be careful of the china set!” That box rested on a shelf for the 18 years I lived in that house, and I never once saw it moved or opened. Would you agree that this programming leaves a bunch of head-scratching, curious beliefs in our psyche? ” Protecting the unused china is secondary to  children playing and the china’s well-being!” Hmmmmmm…Having something you protect fervently but NEVER use is a strange belief, no? 

I urge you to uncover the beliefs you may be carrying around with you that may have been planted by your parents, who got them from their parents, and so on. Once you uncover them, I’d be curious to know if you still want to let them have power over you and your ability to make different choices for yourself and your home. Check-in with your own china beliefs if you are indeed housing some (pun intended).

More often than not, the need to hold the item/s in high esteem is typically due to some person’s deep attachment to preserving the memory of an event or a person. This could be generational ancestry, as in the china example. My mom heard from her mom, who heard from her mom that china should be passed down through the generations since it was so expensive and, ahem, meaningful. It was meaningful to them during their lifetime, but does that mean it has to be meaningful to me now? Please ask yourself the same question without the family belief system wrapped around your answer. 

I’m constantly suggesting to my clients to USE these historical items rather than just storing them; this is to try and break the habit of having your home serve as a storage unit for the people who came before you. By all means, pull out the china, use it as your day-to-day plates, and remember all of your ancestors each time you eat off of them. Dishwasher safe? Who cares? Let Nana enjoy the fact that you are enjoying her wedding dishes every damn day.  That’s much more honorable to your ancestry than keeping them packed away to eventually “pass them down” (unload) onto your adult kids one day. 

How much guilt and obligation will you pass along to your children through physical objects?