Know Thyself.
One of my favorite aspects of organizing is the ways in which it teaches you about your interior life. I love the truth and poetry in how our outer world reflects our inner, the oneness of self and environment, how by purposefully taking inventory of our possessions, we are taking inventory of our beliefs and what we value. One reason we get overwhelmed when we try to organize on our own is ignorance of this fact.
Time and time again I hear my clients say, “If you weren’t here, I would have quit 20 minutes in.”
And I remind them that they aren’t just doing the physical and mental labor of moving their things around and deciding what to keep or donate, they are making an infinite number of emotional evaluations about their past selves and their present values.
We are asked the question ‘How do you feel about X, Y and Z?’ more today than in any other period of our history. Today, we get to choose our partners based on how we feel and not on tradition and timing. We can choose our careers based on how we feel and not just societal pressure and the dictates of our gender and social standing. Our psychologists have confirmed that decisions made based on a strong feeling make us happier than just doing what we should. Knowing how you feel is coming to be expected, but it still isn’t adequately taught. We are in a transition period between blindly doing what our mothers have done for generations before us, and getting to develop and create a life that is authentically ours. This doesn’t mean we don’t honor our history, it has just introduced more choice, and with that often more confusion and overwhelm.
Organizing holds a piece to the puzzle of getting to know ourselves.
When I work with a client, we first gather up all the items of the category we are tackling. A huge pile of clothes on the bed or stacks and stacks of books in the living room. We behold this fantastic accumulation! Then we get down to methodically asking, ‘How does this make you feel? Does it spark joy? What does it spark?’ The brilliance of the KonMari method is in the order of operations. We start with clothes. And we start there because clothes are the easiest items to train yourself to learn how you feel. Our clothes already have feeling to them. They express a personal style, they reflect our culture and social standing, we use them to project an image of ourselves to others, they reflect our self esteem and body image, and we experience them kinesthetically. All of this serves as great training wheels when we are learning this new skill of getting to know how we feel. In the years since I got organized, I have become more discerning and more opinionated. I am more in touch with how I feel about things and have learned how to express it.
This past March I went on a road trip with friends. It was an incredible experience that I could write about for pages, but what I want to talk to you about is how on this magical trip, my yearlong search for a baseball cap came to a satisfying end.
Since I now have high requirements for what items make it into my closet and into my home, when my old baseball cap was no longer bringing me joy, I graciously donated it and began a casual search for it’s replacement. I hike a lot and love wearing a good ball cap while doing so, but I also don’t compromise on feeling joy. Every cap I saw I tried on with a discerning eye. None of them were giving me that spark. And then I set off on this road trip through the American south, or as I now call it, baseball cap country. 10 days in, we made our way to Tennessee and spent the day at Dollywood, Dolly Parton’s theme park homage to her Tennessee roots and American craftsmanship. It was heaven—a glass blowing hut, candlestick making, a creek running through the property and little love notes from Dolly all around reminding each park-goer that ‘I will always love you.’ By the end of the day, I was 100% confident that Dolly Parton is personally rooting for me to fulfill all of my dreams and loves me like a mother loves her child. As I’m sure you could guess, I am not a big souvenir person, but I needed a little piece of this Southern utopia to take home with me. As we made our way toward the exit, I spotted a clothing stand with a baseball cap section. I walked over and that’s when I spotted it: a baby blue baseball cap that read, Dollywood est. 1986. That’s the year I was born! I got goosebumps. This was my baseball cap. I tried it on and it fit perfectly, made my blue eyes bluer and my feet start dancing. This is what joy feels like, my friends! It cost me $12.99 (because Dolly Parton loves you and is not trying to make a quick buck) and it has been keeping me shady and looking good on the trail for one glorious month.
All of our items are paying emotional rent in our homes. When you see them and interact with them, they either support you and encourage you, or they make you feel less than, too fat, too thin—choose your preferred brand of not good enough.
Now if you want to make it on to my shelf, you’ve got to send me over the moon with joy!
Getting to know your feelings gives you the opportunity to choose joy and not be swayed by the tides of social pressures or someone else’s values stowing away in your psyche. Be accountable for what you own and how it makes you feel and you will become an unstoppable advocate for yourself.
Be well, friends.
Raleigh
