Creating Space for the Life I Have Now

Real Life Wednesday — Episode 48

Hello, and welcome to Real Life Wednesday, episode 48.

So yesterday for Tip Tuesday, I talked about not doing so much when you're decluttering that you completely drain yourself.

And then there's me, because today I have been doing a lot.

And when I say a lot, I mean a lot.

But there was a reason for that.

Right now, I'm in between tenants, and for a short period of time, I have my home completely to myself.

Because of the way I rent out different spaces in my home, I needed to move some things around anyway.

So I knew this was probably the best opportunity I was going to have to really go through some things, and I decided to take advantage of it.

Different Seasons of My Life

I have wanted to do this for a long time, and I have a lot of things that I have collected throughout different seasons of my life.

There are things from when I was a teacher, things from different hobbies, things I thought I was going to use, things I did use at one point but don't really use anymore.

And I've also talked about how, at one point in my life, my things felt like a security blanket, like something that I could always rely on.

So going through all of this isn't just about picking something up and saying, "Keep it or get rid of it."

There's an emotional side to it, too.

And I don't think I fully understood that when I was younger, but I'm in a different place in my life now.

My life has changed.

I have changed.

I'm realizing that what I want from my home has changed as well.

I Feel Different With Less

One of the biggest things I've noticed is how differently I feel when I have less around me.

There's just more peace.

And I don't think I really understood that before because the more things I have, the more things I have to maintain.

Everything needs a home.

Everything has to be put somewhere.

Everything has to be moved, cleaned, organized, or remembered.

And when I have less around me, I feel like I can move differently in my space.

It feels calmer, it feels lighter, and that's really what I'm trying to create.

I'm not decluttering just so I can say I got rid of a bunch of stuff.

I'm thinking about how I want my home to feel when I'm done.

How Do I Want the Room to Feel?

And I've tried a lot of different ways of decluttering over the years.

But I'm realizing that for me, it helps to picture what I want the room to look and feel like when I'm finished.

So instead of only looking at something and asking myself, "Do I want to keep this?"

I'm also thinking, "Can I see this in the room when I'm finished? Does it have a place? Can it fit without making the space feel tight or overcrowded?"

And that has helped me look at some of my things completely differently because I can like something and still realize that it doesn't really fit the space or the life I'm creating now.

That doesn't mean I have to get rid of everything.

There are things I'm keeping, there are things I'm selling, and there are also things that I'm just not quite ready to make a decision about yet.

And that's okay too.

Decluttering Can Be Mentally Exhausting

Because let's not get it twisted, decluttering can mentally be very exhausting.

You're making decisions after decisions after decisions.

Do I still use this?

Do I want this?

Where would I put it?

Am I ready to let it go?

Do I want to sell it?

And then you pick up the next thing and do it over and over and over again.

For me, I've learned that about ninety minutes is usually my max when I'm doing this by myself.

After that, I need to do something else for a while.

And today that meant I needed to take a nap.

So I would work, take a break, take a thirty to forty-five-minute nap, and then come back to it.

Because even though I wanted to get a lot done during this window, I still had to pay attention to what I needed.

And Then There's Real Life

And yes, I know yesterday I literally told you to keep your decluttering sessions manageable and not push yourself until you're completely drained.

And here I am telling you that I've been doing this for a day and taking naps in between.

But that's real life.

I made a choice to make a bigger push because I have this small window where I have the house to myself, and I knew why I was making that choice, but I also had to find a way to make it work for me.

One of the things that has helped me is having what I'm calling my future guest room.

Right now, I can use that room as a staging area.

So if I don't finish something, I have somewhere contained to put it.

It doesn't have to stay in the middle of my living room.

I'm not creating that obstacle course we talked about yesterday.

I can put it in the future guest room, close the door, and come back to it whenever I have more time and more energy.

That gives me some flexibility.

It Took Me My Entire Life to Collect These Things

And I'm still not done.

I've gotten a significant amount done.

I have a lot of things ready to sell.

I have reorganized things.

I've made space, and I still have plenty of things left to go through.

But I had to remind myself, it took me my entire life to collect all of these things.

I don't have to make a decision about every single item overnight, especially when I'm doing all this by myself.

I don't have a crew of people coming in and helping me knock this out in a weekend, so I'm giving myself grace with that.

Some decisions are easy, some take a little longer, and some can wait because the goal for me isn't to get rid of as much as possible.

The goal is to create a home that fits the life I'm living now.

A home that feels calmer, a home that feels more peaceful, a home where the things I choose to keep have space to actually live or be.

How Does Your Space Make You Feel?

So that's what I want to leave with you today.

Take a look around one of your spaces.

It could be your bedroom, your office, your kitchen, your living room, even one shelf or one corner.

And instead of immediately thinking about what you need to clean, organize, or get rid of, just notice, how does this space make you feel?

And then think about it.

How would you like to feel in the space?

You don't have to change anything today.

You don't have to make any decisions.

You just notice.

Because maybe knowing how you want to feel in your space can help you decide what you want that space to become.

Until Next Time

Thank you for spending a little bit of your day with me.

Until next time, I'll see you for Soul Shift Thursday.

Until then, I hope today's episode helped you create a little more clarity, feel a little more calm, and have a little more confidence.  💜💚