Lately I’ve been thinking about stuff, partly because I’ve been buying, or at least acquiring, so much of it lately. Nothing major, mind you, just little things. Brooches, books, picture frames, magnets, t-shirts, shoes. And whereas I don’t have NEARLY the amount of stuff I owned before I had my estate sale, it’s still the most I’ve had in the last three years. Granted, I’m enjoying it. I’ve got everything organized and displayed like I want, and my room feels cozy. Comforting. At the same time, there are moments when everything I have feels like “too much,” too much to own, too much to take care of. Earlier today my friend Aaron gave me several of his old t-shirts, and I thought, Okay, fine, I’ll take five of them. But I’m going to give away at least two of mine.
Since The Great Letting Go a few years ago, one of my “rules” about owning something is that I must find it useful, that I actually wear my clothes, actually get joy out of my books and knickknacks. That’s one thing I can say about the stuff I’ve acquired lately. Although I often feel like I spend too much time on Facebook Marketplace (searching for and buying brooches), I do get a lot of pleasure out of the things I purchase. What’s more, having taken time to get everything in my room (where I am now) just so, I always feel at home here. I always feel at peace here.
My therapist says stuff is grounding, so maybe that’s why the sudden compulsion to acquire. That is, at the same time I had my estate sale, I intentionally pulled up my roots–closed my dance studio, moved homes (twice), started down a new career path. In retrospect, it was a lot at once, a bit dramatic. Still, owning fewer things made all the changes easier. Not just from a physical perspective, but from a mental and emotional one. All I had to do was look at my bookshelf (with fifty-four books, down from over three hundred) or my closet (with eight shirts, down from dozens), and it was clear–I was starting over. And whereas I’ll never be able to prove it, I believe that my downsizing set the stage for this blog and all my personal growth that’s come as a result of it.
What I mean is that if you can let go of a physical object, you can let go of a mental concept. A limiting belief about yourself, for example. A harmful thought about another. Byron Katie says you’re not attached to your things, you’re attached to your stories about your things, and this is what I mean. If you’re holding on to something physical, you’re holding on to something mental–a thought, a story. Whenever you say, “This has sentimental value” or “I can’t sell those old plastic curlers; they belonged to my dead aunt,” you’re saying you can’t let go of your narrative about them. Because the truth is you CAN let go of your stuff. You do it every day when you go to work. Leaving everything you own (except your current outfit) behind you, you prove to yourself that you don’t HAVE to own a thing in order to survive or be happy.
I mean, how do you know you’ll ever see all that stuff again? And yet you just walk out the door.
Getting back to the idea of stuff being grounding, I think it’s fascinating that at the same time I was letting go my stuff, I was letting go of how I saw myself and the world. Likewise, I find it fascinating that having grounded my concepts of self and the world (for the better), I’m now beginning to physically ground. That is, as my therapist says, stuff is heavy. It’s hard to move around. This is what you want your self-esteem, your kindness, and your compassion to be–solid, not easily pushed about. Even when I get excited about new stuff/cool stuff, this is what I remind myself, that stuff is just stuff and it will ALWAYS come and go. Nothing lasts forever, not even gold. But a soul that’s at home, at peace regardless of what it owns or doesn’t? Now that’s real gold. That’s something moth and rust can’t touch.
Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)
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Sometimes you have to go back before you can go forward.
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