Things that matter….

2015, Health, Journey, Minimalism, Motivation, Simplify 3 Minutes

I just got back after a few days in Oslo, the capital of Norway, hanging out with some friends who was visiting from US, and it’s time to get serious with my decluttering again. During this summer anyone that have been reading my blog, knows my items out-the-door have pretty much been non existent.

I’m not sure why I have this persistent thought that I need to declutter some more… my house is pretty much under control, I have gotten rid of tons of stuff the last few years, and in most peoples mind I never owned that much in the first place.

I think it’s part of this minimalist journey, wanting to shed more, I see it with a lot of the other “minimalists in making” that I follow as well, that as you declutter and get rid of things, it spills over in other aspects of your life.

As we declutter we become more aware of the things that matter, of what is important to us, either in the items we own, the people we are with, or the things we choose to spend time on. So we continue to declutter our; physical items, digital stuff, mental clutter, social interactions and work stuff, in hope that we will reach the right balance. The right balance between health, family, friends, work and you!

For most of us, it’s a work in progress, a continuous path we are on, one that might never end, as we slowly evolve into the people we want to be.

And this is why I think I still feel compelled to declutter, I’m not yet where I want to be, as I still have loads of “stuff” I want and need to sort through.

Sometimes it takes an event or a major issue to wake you up! An event or issue so big, that it compels you to change your ways.

Me getting sick a few years back, have surely been an eye opener! It has put a lot of things into perspective, and made me realise a few things. I also lost my dad to an illness about 2,5 years ago, which really brought home a few truths, about how I had some of my priorities wrong.

I know I never really write much about the inner changes, this blog has mostly been about decluttering the physical stuff. I guess it’s because the physical stuff is more tangible, it is something you can show the results of.

The inner stuff is harder to put down on paper, especially since the change often is so subtle, you hardly even notice that it happens, until your are way down the line. Then all of a sudden you realize that you have changed, changed the way you view a few things, changed what is important, changed some of your priorities…

It’s this change that made me realise that there are certain things in life that is no longer worth the cost of having it in my life. It’s this change that resulted in me finally deciding to throw in the towel with work and prioritize health. Without this inner change, I would still be at it, working away, ignoring my health, slowly working my way down in a ditch I might never have gotten out of, while at the same time do irreparable damage to myself.

It’s this inner change that might one day make us realise, that the things we used to live and breath for, no longer is the center of our universes.

We might suddenly realize that, “Hey, I don’t care all that much about this thing anymore, this thing that used to be the most important part of my life, this thing I prioritized over everything else, to very often, the exclusion of everything else… whoah!”

I don’t write about my inner changes much, because I don’t know what to say, I can’t quite formulate it all. The only thing I can say, is.. that the changes I experience on my minimalist path, makes me more centered, calmer, more aware of what’s important, less materialistic, more aware of where my energy goes and more in tune with whom I want to be.

It’s a slow process, and I’m on my way.. not quite there yet, but on my way!

And the strangest thing, that every time I shed some physical stuff, it seems to help me along my path to shed some mental stuff. It’s probably because I have to seriously think about if the item is important to me and why. It might also be because I’m getting into the harder stuff, the family stuff, the photos that bring back all sorts of memories, the stuff after my dad, the stuff that carries with them their own ghosts.. some of them my ghosts…

So this is why I declutter, so that I one day might get it all cleared out!

Published by Anne Lene @ MinimalistSometimes

Published

33 thoughts on “Things that matter….”

  1. I’ve noted the same things, Anne. When I declutter my closet, my head is lighter . . . and I sometimes am lighter when I step on the scales.

    In “Enough Already! Clearing Mental Clutter to Become the Best You,” Peter Walsh draws interesting parallels between the clutter in our living spaces, our heads, and on our hips. If he’s correct, working to clear clutter in any one of these areas tends to spill over ~ creating positive results in other areas of our lives as well.

    https://nrhatch.wordpress.com/2010/03/21/you-better-stop-shopping-around/

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  3. I could not agree more. I never truly thought about why the connection between the physical stuff and the mental stuff exists, bury that makes total sense.

    Whenever I’m having a tough time, I organize things and get rid of stuff. It really helps me clear my head.!

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  6. Isn’t it amazing? I’ve found the same thing. Physical clutter was causing mental clutter. Getting rid of one, helped get rid of the other. Hope you enjoyed your trip to Oslo!
    Please don’t be afraid to write more of the mental and emotional stuff. I love hearing about ALL aspects of dejunking our lives!
    Melinda

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    1. Yes, Oslo trip was nice, gave me a chance to meet people from the US that I had not seen in over a year, and some I had not seen in two or three years.. Good fun.

      Its kinda funny, when I sat down to write the post, my intention was to write about my Oslo trip.. Guess my head had a different idea, because the blogpost sure took a different turn 😉 Goes to show that things don’t always go according to plan 😉

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  7. Pingback: Simplify Sunday- Minimizing the Apartment  – How To Be Myself

  9. Last year I was on a declutter path, and it included the physical and the non-physical. I cleaned out my house, my life and my thoughts. And I try to meditate every day on a tree, and there are leaves that fall to the ground, unwanted thoughts and repetitive thoughts that I don’t need, floating gently down to the ground and being transformed and recycled. It’s a long battle, but it feels good to have space in my house and my head! 🙂

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  11. I like the idea of decluttering the mind, but the one thing that gives me pause is the thought that once I’d removed all the nonsensical gibberish floating around in there, there might not be much left. 😦

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  12. Identify with the sense of getting into the heavier stuff of old photos etc (those not already on digital or centring on lost family members) – I’m starting the process of scanning images into the same archive format as that for the digital, with associated notes, letters etc. Long job, but easy to translate to external hard-drive – which takes up virtually no space, unlike the originals.

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    1. I’m starting to look into scanning my photos and inherited photos… Struggling a bit with finding the most optimal tools to do so.. what kind of product do you use for scanning your photos? Flatbed scanner, dedicated negative scanner or other tools? Any recommendations for me? I want to get it all digitized so I can easily hold it all on one external hard-drive, oh yeah.. and one more for backup off course 😉

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      1. I may post on this soon as a few people have asked me about it. Had same problem as you with optimal tools but finally tracked down Canon Lide scanners (Amazon) with good reviews for speed and improved quality. They are not an exact reproduction, but pretty good – if the idea is to get a lot of material onto digital reasonably cheaply compared with outsourcing. Recently borrowed a slide scanner – but the drivers were out of date so can’t comment on that, although the Canon does a fair job on ancient b/w negs. Our original ex hard drive is seven years old – I replaced it with a slimline seagate drive (USB) at christmas – very pleased with it; then I inherited a more expensive and powerful drive, a My Passport Ultra, which I’ll use to back up the whole lot. I’ve got about 10k photos in pre digital format plus a lot of associated arts and biography stuff, so its a massive job – I was waiting until the technology got up to speed. Partial answer, but hope that helps.

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  13. I agree, the inner changes are much harder to pinpoint. You see all the stuff you’re getting rid of, but there is no big pile of inner changes for you to look at and think: “Oh wow, I’ve come so far.” But we have. As soon as we started questioning all our stuff, we got the ball rolling, and I don’t think we’ll ever go back. Keep changing, keep growing!

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    1. I wish it was possible to pile the inner changes up 🙂 It would be easier to see the progress we make, both in how far we have come and in the “maybe I could work a little more on this/that or the other issue?” way. I would love to see a map of what I have “mastered” and what I could spend more time on 😉

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