Your house is on fire...

Posted on August 24, 2017 by Ann Hyland, One of Thousands of Health and Fitness Coaches on Noomii.

One of my favorite movies is “Leap Year”, a romantic comedy about relationships, marriage and life stuff. This question “What do you grab when your house is on fire?” promoted deeper introspection. Obviously, I would grab people first, animals second, and things last. But what specific things would I absolutely have to have? Logically, I would grab my cloud server that has all my data on it, my MacBookPro laptop, my iPhone, throw it into my purse and put on a pair tennis shoes or boots, because most likely I’m lounging in my apartment barefoot and I don’t want to burn my feet. But is there any specific object that has sentimental value to me that I must have? For me, the answer right now is no.

Many years ago when my parents were in the middle of a divorce, I had to deal with piles of stuff that were in storage and make quick decisions about whether I wanted to keep the stuff or not. As I embarked into moving into a new apartment with all this extra family stuff, and I lugged things in and out of my new space in Federal Hill, however, all of a sudden my favorite childhood Christmas ornaments, family heirloom Silver coffee pot, china, clothing, books, jewelry, you name it were stolen right off the sidewalk, right off the moving truck. It’s as if clean sweep came in one second and erased all my family past memories and prized possessions. I was upset, shocked and outraged. But what really could be done? There was no way to prosecute. There were no witnesses. I wouldn’t be able to get that actual stuff back in that form. The stuff was gone. In that moment I had to let go of the stuff. I learned detachment.

Fast forward, years pass, I accumulate new modern contemporary stuff and fill a new apartment with stuff still lugging around piles of old stuff that were in the prior apartment that were the “undealt with items” because my life was so busy teaching 25 power yoga classes a week. “I didn’t have time” to deal with all my art portfolios and old boxes of business papers. Eventually, I moved the old stuff into storage in my aunt’s basement. Time passed. I moved the priority stuff into my new apartment, leaving all the old stuff in storage behind.

And then my aunt died and everything changed. My Aunt Dot was the kind of woman that warmed your soul. She made the best grilled cheese, real mashed potatoes and really listened to your heart. She was there for me when I was recovering from my car accident. She drove me to doctors appointments, grocery stores, and made sure I got to teach my yoga classes on-time even while on crutches. She watched romantic chick flicks and classic movies with me when my date stood me up. And then there was dead silence. It took me a while to stop automatically dialing her phone number to hear her voice. Her own death was delayed because we couldn’t find her marriage certificate or other important vital papers because she was a hoarder of stuff. So many extended family members had keys to her house and things started to mysteriously disappear, even my own stuff in storage in the basement was tampered with. She had extra cooking supplies, extra food inventory, extra clothing, huge movie library. In reality she wore her favorite smelly tennis shoes, her comfortable t-shirts and pants and went out to eat all the time spending quality time with family and friends. And in that moment I saw all the stuff that I was holding onto for “maybe someday”, and when I get around to it, those days that never seemed to come.

After preplanning, hosting 5 yard sale weekends, hours of uploading items for sale online, meeting people in person to sell the items, dropping off stuff to local consignment shops, carloads of trips to the Good Will and the dump, our family together, finally cleared out her overstuffed house and it was finally empty. There were still my piles of business boxes, art portfolios, books, and knickknacks to sort and go through. I hauled my stuff to my current apartment and dumped it in one room thinking, “I’ll have this handled in 3 months.” However, I teach yoga on location in the summer and do yoga retreats so I didn’t deal with the stuff. It just sat there. Then the grieving kicked in. I missed her. I finally sold her valuable solid quality furniture to a young couple. And this stuff of mine is still taking up space because I allowed it to. It’s my fault. I got to a certain point and then stopped the momentum and focused on other goals and this particular goal is still incomplete. Here’s the awareness, when your extra stuff is in the basement, attic, spare bedroom, it’s out of sight. It’s not impacting your daily routines. When you decide to make the spare bedroom a guest room or an air B and B and it is filled with stuff, that’s when it becomes a priority to complete the task, when we value it and give it importance. So then, it became an important necessity when I made it an important priority.

I studied decluttering and organizing and bought several programs and books. I went to therapy and coaching to discuss why I was holding onto all this stuff. I started with “Organizing” what I had already, started with my clothing, got rid of ¼ of what I had. I moved into the bathroom, got rid of ⅓ of what I had. I eased into the kitchen and reluctantly gave away ¼ of what I had. I have spent the majority of my income on books, seminars, classes and retreats. I let go of several car loads of books and have narrowed it down to one tiny bookshelf of books that I truly love. Then I shifted to the “Minimalist” program and did the same tasks over asking myself additional questions about my stuff. More stuff was eliminated, car loads taken to the Good Will and Salvation Army pickup and the dump. And lastly I moved onto the “KonMari Love Method” and removed 40% of all categories. What I discovered was that I had a lot of stuff that I didn’t even love, stuff that took up extra space and just sat there doing nothing. Now I am in the phase of creating exactly what I want, researching what I really need and want and making plans to achieve what is luxurious and comfortable and practical for ME. I slept on a hard mattress that I hated. I just bought a new mattress 50% off retail, new sheets and I love sleeping again and when I wake up I am totally refreshed. It’s amazing when you make a decision, get into action, and everything falls into place. So surrender that your life isn’t exactly the way that you expected it to be. Make a new decision and create the real reality that you want to live in and do it. You are worth it!