Hold on tight folks – it’s about to get emotional!
This week on the podcast, I talk about how to manage items related to your hopes, dreams, and memories that are still in storage.
The Hot Mess Room Challenge
As my podcast episodes related to the Hot Mess Room Challenge series draws to a conclusion, I’m still in the middle of organizing all of my crafts! Organize 365 is my passion now so I no longer need to keep all of my crafts. It is time for them to go!
In an ideal world, I would love for my storage room to look like it should at the end of the Hot Mess Room Challenge. Guess what, though? It doesn’t look great yet and it probably won’t look like that… ever!
The reason? It’s often because it takes us up to 3 times or more to go through a space to get it to a point where you’d want to share the finished result with anyone, let alone announce it on Pinterest!
Tackling Difficult Memories
Our storage room is full of memories.
There are many items in my storage room that remind me of the future that I thought I’d be living.
They represent an unusual kind of loss because the items aren’t attached to the loss of people or money. Instead, they represent a future that I thought I would have, but haven’t yet, or that I know will never happen.
We all have hopes, dreams, ambitions, and pictures of our future that don’t materialize in the ways we thought they would. It doesn’t make it bad. It doesn’t make it good. It is just the reality of our current situation.
Are there items in your storage that remind you of…
- The mom or woman you thought you’d be?
- The person you thought you’d marry?
- The lifestyle you thought you’d have?
- The career you thought you’d have?
- The free time you thought you’d have?
These are difficult, but important questions.
Often, we’re not holding onto things for financial reasons. Instead, we feel that if we keep them, then one day that dream or ambition may come true.
Flip Your Mindset
Instead of focusing on what may have been, focus on what you have. For me, I never thought I’d have a dog, but here I am with Hunter and I couldn’t imagine a world without him.
What do you have that you didn’t think you would?
I never imagined that I could talk to people from my bedroom and inspire others to change their life based on their goals, hopes, and dreams to get organized.
I’m teaching and using my gifts in ways that I never imagined I would. However, it was extremely hard to get rid of all my teaching supplies. Giving up on my dream of owning a day-care center was a process. It took me years to let my teaching license lapse and let my supplies go.
A Yard Sale, Charity Event & Party All In One!
It’s wonderful to receive your emails and see the successes that you’re achieving when you’re getting your homes in order.
On the podcast this week, I had to share Lynn’s story because I LOVE it! She was debating over what to do with all of the things that she no longer needed and she finally settled on a yard sale in her basement.
Everything was free, but people were asked to make donations to charity. She was partying with her friends in the kitchen while people were taking things away and at the same time donating to help others. After 2 hours, most of the items were gone and she’d made over $800 to donate to a local charity. She told me how good it felt on all levels.
Supply & Demand
Steph emailed me to share that smaller families may be the reason why people don’t want to inherit so much stuff anymore. With parents tending to have fewer children these days, we often don’t battle with siblings for nostalgic mementos like we may have done in the past.
Mind blown! She’s absolutely right. It’s certainly true for when my sister and I were going through the family home as there was so many things and only the two of us to sort and acquire them.
Take A Deep Breath & Start
I really want you to look at the things you are storing and ask yourself whether you really need it… BUT at the same time, give yourself more grace if required. Maybe it’s time to get rid of things, but equally, maybe it’s not. It could be that you just needed to hear the words this time and then the next time we talk about it, that’ll be the time to take action.
We know that intellectually we need to get rid of things, but it’s the physical and emotional ties that hold us back from getting rid of things until the third or fourth time.
Previous Podcast Episodes
The main podcast episodes that I recommend you listen to, where I talk about my own childhood memories and how to deal with items when someone passes away, are:
