As an affiliate marketer and Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This just means that if you click on a link in my blog and make a purchase, I may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post at no additional cost to you.
Do you struggle with the emotional side of decluttering? I completely get it! It can be really difficult to let go of things if you’ve formed some sort of emotional attachment to them. We see small children with their “special toy or blanket,” and it’s cute. However, we don’t realize that our own attachment to things as adults may be impacting our happiness.
The emotional side of decluttering is a very real problem, and one I battled for most of my life. Some people reading this are probably thinking, “It’s just stuff!”, but for some of us, that viewpoint is very different and not so simple. I grew up in a very sentimental home. My family placed great value on people, places and memories. As a result, great value was also placed on the “things” related to those special people or events. Because of this, when I became an adult I had a really hard time letting go of nearly anything.
After being married for a few years, I realized that I had accumulated far too much stuff. We lived in a very small house, and I came to the conclusion that I needed to start seriously decluttering. For some people, this is super simple. They get some boxes and start tossing anything they don’t need inside to donate, or else it goes in a bag for the trash. For me, this was anything but easy. I felt like I was losing a piece of myself every time I tried to declutter. It may seem ridiculous, but that’s how it affected me. It didn’t take long until this irrational attachment to things I didn’t need really started to wear on me. You see, I LOVE a clean home, but all of my stuff was making house cleaning a daunting task.
Emotional Decluttering
Because of my struggle with the emotional side of decluttering, I had an attachment to everything I pulled out to get rid of. I had a lot of gifts given to me by people that I dearly loved, but they were either not my style or I just didn’t have any use for them. I foolishly transferred my love of that individual to an item that was completely useless to me. Another thing I worried about was, what if the giver expected to see the item in use when they came to visit? All of these thoughts made decluttering nearly impossible!
Here are some other posts you may enjoy.
- Homemade Laundry Detergent
- No Fuss Busy Box for Toddlers
- Gifting Your Child With a Love of Reading
- What Is A Cricut Maker and What Can It Do?
- Candy Cane Glitter Candles
- Wild Rice Soup
- Miniature Pepper Jack Meatloaves
- Deep South Mustard Greens
- Strawberry Cheesecake Jello Eggs
Is It REALLY Worth It?
Another pit I fell into was thinking, “this may be valuable one day.” There are a couple of problems with this line of thinking. First of all, if it’s not in the original packaging and in mint condition, then you’re probably out of luck. Second, if you have to keep shuffling it around for 25+ years before it becomes valuable, how much is it really worth? Too often we fail to realize the value of our time and how frustrating it becomes trying to find space for all of our “valuable things.”
Too Many “Heirlooms”
My final biggest decluttering battle came with what I had considered heirloom items. Now I know this one is tricky. Here you need to be really honest with yourself and what you actually consider a family treasure. I had SO many things that were given to me by people that had since passed away. A lot of those things were collecting dust on a closet shelf, or in boxes cluttering up space. I didn’t look at them, I didn’t use them and some of them I didn’t even particularly like. I only kept them because the giver was someone I had loved and lost.
Keep Your Memories, But Ditch What You Can’t Use
It actually took me many years to stop associating all of my precious memories of loved ones to the things they had given me. One of the worst times of learning to deal with the emotional side of decluttering was when I lost my grandmother. We were very, very close. After she passed away, all of her belongings went to my mother. Because I’m the only granddaughter, all the things my mom couldn’t use came to me. Needless to say, I wanted to keep ALL of the things. However, it didn’t take me long to realize that it wouldn’t be possible or practical.
Decide What You Should Really Keep
After a whole lot of thought and deliberation, I came up with a solution that works well for me. If it’s something that is passed down to me and I really love it, can use it AND have a place to keep it, then it stays. Some of the things I’ve kept are a musical teapot and the matching cream pitcher. My grandmother used to keep coins inside of the teapot that my grandfather collected when he travelled to other countries while serving in the Air Force. It holds a special place in my heart and has a pretty amazing story attached to it as well. You can read more about it here.
Another thing of my grandmother’s that I particularly love, is a colonial style picture that hung over her couch during my childhood. It was always special to me and it now hangs in my living room. Items like this are the types of things that I now choose to keep. When my great-grandmother passed away years ago, my grandmother gave me a small table and a little blue vase that belonged to her. These are the only things of hers that I have, and I’ve found uses for both of them.
Decluttering shouldn’t be so hard to do, but for some of us, it’s an emotional struggle. My purpose for sharing my experience is to help you realize that letting go of an emotional attachment to “things” will make life much easier for you. You owe it to yourself to see how much decluttering can improve your life.
Decluttering = Calm
I didn’t realize how much harder it was to clean and organize my home with all of the stuff I had accumulated, until I started getting rid of it. Suddenly, I felt like I could breath again and housework became much quicker. It may seem like a cliché, but decluttering brings a wonderful feeling of calm into what was once a place of chaos.
I still have an occasional struggle with getting rid of things, but with practice, it’s become so much easier! Another thing I’ve learned, is that decluttering is not something you ever get finished with. It’s an ongoing process. I’ve tried to teach my children to declutter on a regular basis. I dare say that they are even better at it than I am! Rarely two weeks pass without one of the children decluttering their rooms and having bags or boxes of things to donate.
How I Conquer Emotions When Decluttering
If you are really having a hard time deciding what to keep, try this. Write down the name of the item, why you think you should keep it, what you can do with it and where you will keep it. Sometimes putting why, what and where into the equation can help simplify your thought process and give you more clarity. If you can’t easily answer these three questions, then you will probably be better off donating the item in question. To make this process a little easier, I’ve created a free printable Decluttering Worksheet for you. You can have it sent directly to your email. Just fill in the opt-in form above and I’ll get it right out to you.
If you struggle with the emotional side of decluttering, then you are definitely not alone. You can, however, overcome it. It won’t be easy at first, but start small. Try decluttering a problem closet. Once you’re finished, you’ll be amazed at how good it feels! Here’s another thing that may really shock you. You will most likely not miss one thing that you get rid of. I can’t tell you the times that I finally made a decision to declutter and made some difficult decisions about what needed to go, and afterwards, I didn’t miss anything that I chose to toss! If anything, it feels really great to have some extra space and less clutter, I promise! Don’t forget to grab your free printable above. If I can learn to declutter, then you definitely can too!
I have just re-read your sweet article about the Teapot and Cream Pitcher. This time I read it to my husband and he loved it too! I just love this story and its sentiment. It is an excellent example of what we should value as a part of our life story. I am reevaluating my “things and stuff”.