Nothing outside you can ever give you what you’re looking for. Byron Katie
I’m late in writing you, my readers and friends, and I want to apologize because my intention is post each week. I wanted you to know what I’ve been doing so you have a more transparent sense of what’s going on with my life.
Have you ever had a year that has been full of big life changes – such as life events that rank 10 on the stress scale?
This year has been a big one for me/us. We have journeyed through a diagnosis of a family member with a life threatening disease. We went through six months of surgeries and treatments, and I am so happy to report that this family member is now cured and back into his second chance at life.
One month later John and I sold our home (late July) and had five weeks to pack and move out of 2800-square-feet town home into an 1100-square-foot apartment.
Right sizing instead of down sizing
We’ve decided to shake things up. We want to live in a smaller home. I call this “right sizing” instead of “down sizing.” Which sounds better to you?
We have been getting rid of things we do not use now for four years. We were proud of ourselves. However, we are now the not so proud renters of two large and two small storage units! We are shocked at how much stuff we had accumulated. Now our plans are to keep only what we love, use and must have and the rest goes.
In this country, we support our economy by continuing to buy things – newer, better, faster or sexier. I bought into this American dream growing up by working to get an education to get me a job that would pay me enough to buy a home, a car, and more and more stuff. Now I know that this “stuff” has a hold on us. It takes energy and money to maintain it. It’s not the stuff that makes us happy.
Here’s a sad fact: according to the Self Storage Association, one in 10 U.S. households or 10 percent (10.8 million of the 113.3 million US households in 2011) currently rent a self-storage unit; that has increased from 1 in 17 U.S. households (6%) in 1995 – or an increase of approximately 65 percent in the last 15 years.
How do you want to feel?
When we want something – it doesn’t matter what we want – it’s always the feeling we are after when we want something.
We don’t know what the future of our home looks like and that’s ok. We are taking time to dream it into being based on how we want to feel in this space.
We are talking about how we want to feel in this new home and making time to sit together to dream and talk about it.
BIG QUESTIONS FOR YOU:
What do you want to have most in your life?
What three feelings would you have when you get this thing you want?
Start bringing those feelings in now and cut out the middleman (wait till I lose weight, wait till I have more money …) and feel them right now.
What thought would you need to think to feel that feeling?
I’d love to hear from you about anything I’ve talked about in today’s blog.
Thank you always for allowing me into your inbox. I know that is another form of clutter. I hope to bring you more valuable content each week.
Related Posts:
Comments are closed.