Growing up I held onto everything. Books. Notes and cards. Stickers. Swim meet t-shirts. Stuffed animals. As I got a little older nothing much changed except the types of items that I kept. Movie and concert tickets. Letters. Shot glasses. Beer steins. Magnets. If there was some thing connected to an activity or a place I visited, I definitely sought out some keepsake and then, you know, kept it. To me, these behaviors weren't unusual at all. It's just what I thought everyone did.
While working through an inundation of panic attacks, one area of research I came across was how minimalism can help reduce anxiety. Basically, there exists a connection between anxiety and the acquiring of material possessions and/or difficulty parting with possessions.
This relationship with material possessions can look like hoarding. It can look like compulsive buying, always in search of that next new thing (and in some cases doing so while ignoring rising debt). It can also be the act of over-sentimentalizing items and hanging on to those items.
The idea of minimalism is basically “to eliminate life’s excess, focus on the essentials, and find happiness, fulfillment, and freedom" while doing so. - The Minimalists
For me, my attachment to stuff was largely over-sentimentalizing items - believing that by keeping each little thing, I'd retain all the good feelings that came with a particular moment in my life. It was as if the memory wouldn't exist without the specific item(s) I had kept.
This resulted in boxes and boxes of stashed memorabilia as I entered into my early thirties. Between the ages of 19 and 32, I moved almost every year which also meant I spent a considerable amount of time rearranging and organizing my stuff with every move. Sometimes it felt exhausting caring for my "memories"; but I found it very difficult to say goodbye, even when I couldn't recall why I had kept something. I just knew it had once been meaningful and therefore I was obligated to keep it.
I've since learned just how freeing the act of letting go really is. All of that memorabilia (along with all sorts of other material possessions like furniture, kitchen appliances, decor, and whatever else you can imagine) not only take up physical space in our surroundings, they take up space in our minds without us even knowing. Clearing items from our home environment removes the connections we have to these items (and the feelings we may simultaneously attach to them).
Just for a moment, try to imagine sight as we experience sound, as the aesthetics of our surroundings strongly influence our anxiety levels. So while we might think we feel good because we're surrounded by all of our favorite things, our vision "sees" noise. My best analogy is how whenever I return from a hike or bike ride in the park there's a spot where the rocky dirt path transitions into sidewalk and immediately it's as if all noise ceases. I notice the reduction in sound every single time. It's a release from stimuli I didn't even know I was experiencing.
Our other senses experience similar changes in our environment. Having taught for many years, I've been inside a ton of classrooms. Classrooms that are full of stimuli can be exhausting. There's simply too much for the brain to process and ultimately everything gets tuned out as a result (making all of the external stimuli meaningless), while well-placed instructional or motivational items amid open spaces allow for a more conducive learning experience.
Our home environment is no different when it comes to the influence of stimuli and how we process information. We might be overwhelmed inside, anxiety increasing, without even knowing.
Tis The Season
It feels very appropriate to talk about minimizing as Black Friday typically opens the holiday shopping season. It's ironic, but I love how REI began the #optoutside trend back in 2015. I'm guessing people were already doing this prior to REI commercializing it, but I truly love that it's become a thing at all.
Consuming, and the act of gift-giving/gift-receiving, is completely embedded in our society as a means to demonstrate how we feel about each other. The amount of pressure created by a "demonstration of love", in an attempt to find a gift or gifts to show how much you care, can feel incredibly overwhelming (and it lacks the satisfaction we actually seek).
Also, an interesting aspect in all of this is how we place "value" on items (whether it be emotional, sentimental, or monetary). This value is ultimately what we use to decide if we keep something or let it go. And, guilt can increase an item's value when you consider items passed down or given as gifts by friends and family. This guilt can be further heightened with the expectation that the item will be asked about in the future.
Reading about the value we all place on items was instrumental in my being able to override feelings of guilt and sentiment. Now, no matter how a thing came to reside in our house, I simply ask myself do I need or want to keep this item? If the answer is no, the item moves on. If I can't decide, or my husband can't decide, we accept our feelings in that moment and readdress it sometime in the future. It's an ongoing process.
A few of the benefits of [a minimalist] lifestyle include: reclaiming time, the elimination of excess stuff, enjoying life, discovering meaning, living in the moment, concentrating on what is important, pursing our passions, finding happiness, doing anything we want to do, finding our missions, experiencing freedom, and creating more by consuming less." - The Minimalists
I haven't let go of everything and I wouldn't compare myself in any way to those who have made minimalism a "lifestyle". But, I've made a ton of progress; and, I absolutely believe it positively contributes to my mental health overall. I have one tub of stuff (not counting pictures and old photo albums) of random items that cover my entire life since birth, and it's much easier for me to go through my house now, room by room, to rehouse items that no longer serve us. Each time I do this, there's a chance I'll let go of something I wasn't ready to let go of previously.
In the beginning, it was time consuming because I debated every item extensively before rehousing or keeping. I was so worried I'd let go of something only to regret the decision later. And honestly, it has happened - but rarely. I've noticed it once with a set of dishes and a couple times with clothing; but, I've had to remind myself that the item probably wasn't exactly as I remember it, otherwise I wouldn't have let it go.
If you're a Ted Lasso fan, you might remember the scene below where the players are trying to remove a curse in the clubhouse. They decide to place their most prized possessions into a bin, later to be burned, as a means of appeasing the team's ghosts so the ghosts would move on. I have to say, it's not too dissimilar from us letting go of our material possessions to release the hold our possessions have on us.
References:
10 Benefits of Minimalism. https://www.becomingminimalist.com/10-benefits/. Accessed 27 Nov. 2021.
Hoarding: The Basics | Anxiety and Depression Association of America, ADAA. https://adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/obsessive-compulsive-disorder-ocd/hoarding-basics. Accessed 27 Nov. 2021.
Millburn, Joshua, and Ryan Nicodemus. Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life. Asymmetrical Press, 2011.
Puente-Diaz, Rogelio, and Judith Cavazos Arroyo. “The Influence of Personality Dimensions on Material and Frugal Values.” Anales de Psicología / Annals of Psychology, vol. 31, no. 1, 2015, pp. 37–44. revistas.um.es, https://doi.org/10.6018/analesps.31.1.167401.
Ryan, Lisa, and Suzanne Dziurawiec. “Materialism and Its Relationship to Life Satisfaction.” Social Indicators Research, vol. 55, no. 2, 2001, pp. 185–97. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011002123169.
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