There will be some items that won’t have much of and emotional aspect to decluttering them, expect for the freeing feeling that comes from getting ride of unnecessary stuff. Some may be a more practical or logical, shall it stay, or shall it go.
Today the task is to take all papers, this means mail receipts, manuals, random paper laying around, lists, coupons, menus, take out flyer, business cards, important paper work, old notes and notebooks, recipe cards, notes, letters, postcards, all the miscellaneous papers in my life, the stiff you accumulated to scrap book, but never did, special event cards, all of that stuff out of it hiding places. Relocate them to one central locaton and go through it one by one. With just a few guiding questions.
1. Is this important? REALLY is it important enough to keep?
2. Is this just sentimental hoarding or does it really have value?
As a writer, someone who is constantly writing, I had a lot in the department of random notes. Idea’s jotted down on lose paper, old notebooks and sentimental items. Dispite that today wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be. I believe I was mainly just ready to let go.
As far as important papers and all legal documents it is wise to go through these thing once a while to make sure everything is updated and valid and still were it should be. For example if you recently traveled and took your passport out of it’s usual spot be sure to return it to that spot to avoid losing it, or the frantic search when you have to use it again. It is important to have all your legal papers in one spot and let that always be it’s home. The book on tidying up really recommends that all the papers that you are left with be put in one spot. But basically have a home for the things that you decide to keep. If there are any papers like banks statements, etc. that have sensitive info on it, that you do find you can get ride of be sure to destroy it by what ever means you have available, rip it up, cut it up or spread it if u can.
The KonMari method also says not to spend to much time reading your more random papers or notebooks. I totally get that because I did it I read stuff, my guiding questions went out the window and nostalgia and emotional attachment settled in. Thankfully I was able to snap back into reality and ask if these things really held value for me? I found that the answer was no and it was not hard to let go.
This method also said to keep getting ride of stuff until something shifts or clicks within you. I had one of those moments today. During me braking the rules and reading all the way through and old notebooks. It was a reflection on some harder and darker times I had gone through in my passed. As I read the words I wrote, it really had an effect on me. Not passed me, present me. My heart literally hurt, when I was done I was sitting at the edge of my bed. I didn’t think I was thinking about what I had just read, but I must have been because my chest literally started to hurt. The pain of what I had written was the perfusse.
Presently, I am in a much, much better place then I was in then. But, some of the beliefs ( limiting beliefs) I held back then, somewhere deep inside I knew they still held true to me. The thing is these things were not true I have been learning that, I have been on the road to recovery, the road to living my life now and not waiting for life to happen to me. But, just like this notebook I was holding on to. I found that I was still holding on to old beliefs about my life.
Needless to say dispite how raw and emotional what I wrote was I had to let it go. I got ride of that entire notebook. The act of getting ride of it was very liberating but even more then that something shifted with in me. Something changed. Deep, deep held beliefs about myself were unearthed, they were at the surface now there is no hiding from it or suppressing it. Now it made me question how I lead my whole life. I hate to think this whole time I identified myself by this big old lie and never acknowledged it for what it was….
Now I am acknowledging it. Now I am letting go of it. Now I am realizing what purpose it served for me in my life. But, now is the time to let go of it. I read somewhere a quote that said “once you think you have let go, let go some more.” The that is exactly where I have found myself currently, having to let go some more.
In conclusion, today was less about the paper and alot about self discovery. I had no idea this was going to takes place, it has set me on a whole new journey and kind of flipped this decluttering thing on its head. I have new intentions now. I’m becoming a new person, it’s terrifying and also exciting and it’s only day 3.
Photos courtesy of Unsplash.
akuasalomeh 
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