Have you ever invited a friend over and just before they arrived, you saw what they will see (dusty shelves, overflowing with books, papers, piles of laundry clean and dirty etc. etc.) and felt pre-embarrased? So, you spent the next however many minutes before your friend arrived to stuff things in a room whose door you can close or in drawers/closets/behind the sofa… in other words, wherever. Now you hate your home and everything in it. You feel like all your stuff is old, crappy and you just want to throw it all out. Your home is not giving you energy, but sucking it out of you.
So what do you do? You can throw everything out, sure. If that is not an option, here is another strategy and I think it is kind of a trick but I also think it is possible this will help some people love their home again when all else has failed.
Switch your furniture. Create a new sitting arangement in your living room. Move your desk to where your dresser is and your dresser to where your desk used to be. Whatever! Just move some stuff. It will help you see your life through your possessions with new eyes. And it is more fun to think “I’m rearranging my furniture” than “I’m going to clean up this #*@$ mess!”.
Don’t get too fancy. Switch one end table in the living room with your bedside table. That will force you to transfer those items and you’ll notice if those things that have been living there deserve to remain and if nothing else, you’ll be reminded of what you’ve been sleeping next to for the last few years.
So, how do you keep from getting too overwhelmed?
Remember that this is a strategy to create energy and lift your ‘organizing metabolism’. It is not meant to be a whole organizing day. When you get in this place of hating your stuff and hating your home all you need focus on is to get a little energy. So maybe all you do is put everything back in your “new” bedside table without purging. That’s OK. The point is to feel different about your space and see new possibilities.
The other day I moved around the stuff in my bedroom. What energy it created! I walk into my bedroom now and just love it. My cat loves it too. She now has all these new nooks and crannies to hunt her favorite mouse.
Now go out and enjoy the perfect fall day!
(Writer’s note: I hate searching for photos that “go” with my posts or are inspirational. Hate it! and so much time wasted because what a rabbit hole is google images! But, I do love looking through National Geographics “photo of the day” on their website! No, these photos won’t “go” with my post, but hopefully you’ll enjoy them anyway. If you love my photos and wonder where i got them from, now you know.)