The cost of moving house, both in terms of paying for a removal company as well as the emotional cost of the effort and energy required, all of this can be high. In preparation for our most recent home move we each went through our clothes and decided what we wanted to take with us versus what we actually had in our drawers and wardrobes. We figured we needed to start somewhere with reducing the amount of ‘stuff’ we took with us. Being charged by the number of crates we moved was a motivator to reduce costs by moving with less. Why pay someone else to move the ‘junk’ and clutter you have accumulated?
One day in a very simple process I lifted out all the shirts from my wardrobe and laid them on the bed in a pile. I had two dozen shirts on hangers. Asking myself “Do I love this shirt and feel good when I wear it?” I went through them in ten minutes and let go of nine.
The fifteen shirts I hung back in the wardrobe are all smart, gorgeous or look great. In my chest of drawers I repeated the process and lifted out all twenty tee shirts, putting them on the bed so I could clearly see and touch each one. I repeated the process with a similar “Do I love this tee shirt and feel good when I wear it?” How many did I keep? Ten to keep and ten to bag for the charity shop.
In one hour I had removed the following clothes:
- Nine long sleeved shirts.
- Ten tee shirts.
- Three pairs of shorts.
- Three winter coats.
- Twenty seven neck ties.
- Three bed or sofa throws.
A total of fifty five items from one hour of focus. If I had looked through the items and thought to myself “Do I like this shirt?” or “Is this coat nice?” I may not have let any of them go. By putting a specific “Do I feel good when I wear it?” on the item I was making a much clearer, emotionally based decision. Four large bin bags went with me to the charity shop the next day and it felt great to hand them over and to understand that these clothes and the blankets could have a second life, being useful, good or comforting for another person. But when I stepped out of the goodwill store I felt amazing, I felt lighter in my own self.
This is what the ‘lighter life’ is all about, being in the place within yourself where you are letting go of the emotional baggage that comes with all the ’stuff’ that holds us back. Letting go of the physical so often brings with it a lifting of the emotional or sensed weight upon our shoulders. Much of the time we don’t even know this heaviness is there, but at the moment of letting something leave our space or our ownership, we then feel the lifting of the burden we had not known we were carrying.
Right, time to look in those wardrobes!