Just a short book review today of a tool that helped me with my mindset toward clutter. Gail Blanke is a life coach who helps people clear out their lives of all sorts of stuff. She wrote this book, Throw Out 50 Things, as a guide to help readers walk through many areas of life and remove things that weigh them down.
From the Acknowledgements:
It takes courage to let go of the past. It takes courage to make a decision to throw something -anything – out. As you’ll see, for many of the men and women who have been generous enough to share their stories, actually throwing out fifty things wasn’t always (frequently, but not always) a laugh a minute. But they found the courage to do it anyway. And in some cases, it changed their lives. It’ll change yours, too.
This is Gail’s underlying encouragement. You will feel better when you let go of the past.
She prompts readers to start a list and to comb through each area of life, file cabinets, junk drawers, your mental space, your professional space, and so much more. By the time you’re done, you’ll have thrown out items or memories or beliefs in fifty categories. The running total will be much higher.
The principle I found to be most helpful in this book was realizing how much guilt we hold inside that keeps us from truly decluttering. Gail lists that guilt as one of the items to throw away.
So on my list, I threw away some old keepsakes, and with those, I threw away some guilt I had over keeping them because of the person who gave the items to me.
Some other stuff I’m glad to be rid of?
- Annoying musical toys
- Worn out baby items taking up attic space
- Leftover Easter candy
- My need to be the type who always has everything together
- The regret of the one B I got in college
- Decor I don’t need to keep just because it served a purpose once or someone gave it to us as a wedding gift
This book is one I found at the library and am so glad I picked it up. It really helped me practice letting go of mental and emotional baggage associated with the junk in my life.