Purge Your Life
Purging is the ultimate cleanser and the most amazing way to create space in your life. We are energy and the things we surround ourselves with are too. Your clothes, shoes, books, pictures, furniture, and people too! So, the more stuff you have, the more energy you consume.
Make it stand out
It was time to live my life differently to get different results.
Marie Condo’s book The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up is an amazing book. Read it before you get started or read it to help you get started. She outlines a very loving and healthy way to declutter your life. Yes, she has a system! If you love systems as much as I do, you’ll be thrilled with this step-by-step approach. It’s not easy to purge especially when you’re emotionally attached to things. Sometimes that emotion is sentimental and irreplaceable. I’m not suggesting you declutter meaning, but a lot of what we hang on to are emotions that don’t help us move forward - it just holds energy when that energy can be used differently.
The first time I heard that purging can actually make you happy was when I read Gretchen Rubin’s book The Happiness Project. She studied what made her happy for one year – each month she tested a new concept to see if it made her happy. Purging was one of the months and she found it to bring great happiness. So ever since I read her book, purging has become part of my life. At least twice a year I purge my closet and cabinets. It’s amazing what you can accumulate in six months!
Most recently, I purged my life after going through a divorce. That purging experience was about letting go. It was about starting a new chapter, moving forward and not remaining stuck in a life that no longer existed. Now you don’t need to go through a divorce to begin purging your life. Just start by purging areas of your life that feel heavy.
Two years after my divorce, I took my love of purging to a new level. I decided to take a one-year travel sabbatical in search of a new place to live, finding my joy, and learning how to live with less. How’s that for a purge! This wasn’t a random, unforeseen mid-life crisis. In 2019 I got divorced, in 2020 there was a pandemic and in 2021 I realized it was my last year in my forties and I wasn’t feeling fulfilled.
Going through a divorce was one of the most difficult times of my life and it truly changed me…it changed me in a good way. Being alone wasn’t something I was used to, and it was uncomfortable.
I felt lost after my divorce so naturally I thought I needed to find myself. It wasn’t until a friend shared this quote with me that I stopped thinking that way:
“Finding yourself is not really how it works. You aren't a ten dollar bill in last winter's coat pocket. You are also not lost. Your true self is right there, buried under cultural conditioning, other people's opinions, and inaccurate conclusions you drew as a kid that became your beliefs about who you are. Finding yourself is actually returning to yourself. An unlearning, an excavation, a remembering of who you were before the world got its hands on you.”
It was time to live my life differently to get different results. The result I was looking for was pure joy. I sold my house and all my shit and set off on a journey that would change my life forever. Little did I know at the time that lightening up my life would give me such freedom. Yes, I was looking for joy and a new place to call home, but what I really found was freedom.
When you are not attached to the things in life that consume your energy in a way that feels heavy or hard, you’ll find freedom too. Try it out. You won’t be disappointed.
Live You Now: Try purging one space in your life, a drawer, a person, a thought, and write down how it makes you feel. Do this for 11 days before you actually reflect on how purging can transform your life.
XOXO