3227: Confessions of a Hoarder by Rose Lounsbury on Minimalism, Decluttering & Simple Living

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[00:01:36] sure to pick the one from Optimal Living Daily. It's a Minimalist Monday edition of Optimal Living Daily, episode 3227, Confessions of a Hoarder by Rose Lounsbury of roseloundsbury.com. And I'm Justin Mulloch. Hope you're having a great start to your week if you're listening in real time.

[00:01:55] This is where I read to you from some of the best blogs I can find and get permission from. So with that, let's get right to today's Minimalist Monday post and start optimizing your life. Confessions of a Hoarder by Rose Lounsbury of roseloundsbury.com.

[00:02:16] I have a confession to make. I am a hoarder. Of school supplies, that is. It started in the early days of my teaching career when I scoured back-to-school ads for ridiculous deals like

[00:02:29] composition notebooks for 10 cents. I'd click my heels with teacher glee as I loaded up my cart with notebooks, pencils, highlighters, and glue sticks all bought for a fraction of the usual cost. And while I used most of these supplies during the year, I always had a safe supply

[00:02:46] left over for the next year. This was my stockpile, my security. Fast forward to now, I've been out of the full-time classroom for two years and my safety net of school supplies still

[00:02:59] exists neatly boxed away in my attic. Every time I see it, it nags at me. I know I need to let it go. It's not very professional organizer-like to have a hoard of pencils and glue in your attic after all.

[00:03:13] It's kind of like knowing that your personal trainer keeps a hoard of Twinkies and HoHos in a secret lockbox or your grandma uses Twitter. But it is hard to let go of things that make us

[00:03:24] feel safe. I remember the days when I needed these things, when having extra packs of loose leaf paper and boxes of pencils in my classroom meant my students would be able to write first

[00:03:35] drafts. This made me feel like I was prepared for my job, like I was successful. And it's hard to let go of that feeling. I see this type of thinking in almost all my clients and it's hard

[00:03:47] to admit that I see it in myself. But this points to an important fact. To a certain degree, hoarding is human behavior. Our survival instinct tells us to stockpile supplies and that instinct is still

[00:04:01] there even when those supplies are no longer necessary. It's important for me to feel this, to realize that it is natural for people to have a hard time letting go, and to understand that

[00:04:12] possessing objects can and does often make us feel safe. But most importantly, I need to feel what it's like to push past those feelings and recognize when it is time to let go. That time

[00:04:26] comes for all of us. For me, it was last week. I'd planned a happy hour with some former teaching colleagues, the exact people who could use my hoard. It was time. I went to the attic and boxed up two

[00:04:39] crates of pencils, highlighters, sharpies, index cards, and the like. I'll admit as I boxed them up, I felt anxiety. Fearful questions, similar to the ones clients ask me, popped into my head. But what if

[00:04:53] I go back to teaching? I might need some of this stuff. I spent time and money on these things. It feels like a waste to just give it away. I could just hold on to this stuff a little longer. My own

[00:05:03] kids could use them. To get past this anxiety, I treated myself like a client, using logic and questions. If you go back to teaching, you can buy more. It won't cost you that much. You know, school

[00:05:17] supplies always go on sale at the beginning of the school year. Yes, these things are perfectly good, but they're no good to anyone in your attic. In fact, some of these things, highlighters and markers,

[00:05:28] will go bad if they aren't used. Remember what it was like to have students show up to class without pencils and paper? Teachers face that every day. You're helping them by giving these

[00:05:38] things away. Come on now, are your own kids really in need of 200 pencils and 500 index cards? For real? They're in kindergarten. Note I would not talk to a client that way, but I can get pretty

[00:05:51] tough love on myself. And so on and so forth, until I talked myself down from my ledge of fear, which by the way is the base emotion that this anxiety stems from, and put the two crates in my van.

[00:06:06] My colleagues were happy to have them, and I haven't missed any of that stuff. Not one bit. Yes, it's only been one week, but I doubt I'll find the need for five packs of yellow highlighters in the near future.

[00:06:18] What did I learn from this experience? The all-important lesson of putting myself in someone else's place. Quite often, it is easy for me to see that clients don't need certain

[00:06:28] items and it's hard to understand why they can't let go. But if I look at the items I hold on to, and the rationale behind that, I can see that my clients are rational, and they have reasoning

[00:06:40] for holding onto objects. It's important for me to honor and remember that. Is my teaching hoard totally gone? Nope. I still have excess teaching items, mostly books from my classroom library, stored away. I'll get to them probably this summer. And I think that's another important

[00:06:58] lesson. We can't always let go of it all at once. Minimizing is a process. A step here, a step there, when we're ready. Slowly we learn to let go, and as we do, we realize that nothing truly terrible

[00:07:14] has happened. Thus we can go back and let go of even more. In this way, slowly and steadily, we free ourselves of unnecessary items. Why should we do this? Because when we do,

[00:07:28] something wonderful happens. We create space in our lives for things that reflect the way we are now. My attic now has a little more breathing room for items related to my business, my kids, and my current hobbies. And as an added bonus, somewhere in Dayton,

[00:07:43] some kid has a pencil to use in class today. Right on, kid. Right on. You just listened to the post titled Confessions of a Hoarder by Rose Lounsbury of roseloundsbury.com, and I'll be right back with my commentary. It goes without saying that a lot of people don't

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[00:08:56] provides incentive to positively promote Acorns. Investing involves risk. Acorns Advisors LLC and SEC Registered Investment Advisor. View important disclosures at acorns.com slash old. Take it or rose. I'm sure we can all relate to this one, at least to a certain extent.

[00:09:12] I know I have things collected over the years that are very sticky, as in they stick around the house for absolutely no reason at all it seems. Yet it's difficult to get rid of because of sentimental

[00:09:24] reasons, laziness, thinking that it would be a waste to get rid of it, the just-in-case argument, so many reasons. And that, along with what she said about it being human nature and built in us

[00:09:36] to hoard things, it's easier said than done. I do find this example true though, that if someone you know really could use whatever it is that's been sitting around, it makes it a lot easier to get

[00:09:48] rid of. When it has more value to someone else than to yourself, it's a win-win. You make someone else happy, you declutter, and you get that feeling of actually helping someone. Donating can do this too,

[00:10:02] but when you actually see someone who is thankful, it's sort of a different level, similar to volunteering. When you see what you're doing is actually affecting people, it affects you in turn, bringing happiness and meaning into our lives. So yeah, I really like that example. And speaking of

[00:10:20] doing something that's helping someone else, this podcast was a mix of helping myself really, forcing myself to speak and learn and consume just good things daily. And anytime I hear that it's helped someone, which is most often a stranger writing in via email, replying to my weekly newsletter,

[00:10:39] I get that feeling again, that this is bigger than it feels when I'm sitting in a room alone speaking to myself. There actually is someone on the other side listening and enjoying the show,

[00:10:50] and it's actually making a difference. That really has an impact on me, so thank you if you're one of those people that's written in. I've even been fortunate enough to meet a handful of people who

[00:10:59] listen to this show, which is always super motivating too. But even if you're a quiet listener, I know someone's listening, and that's still a big help and push for me. Sometimes I have

[00:11:09] to record at not the best of times, so yeah, you listening makes all the difference. All right, I think that's enough to start the week. Hope your week and month is going as well as possible.

[00:11:20] Have a great rest of your day, and I'll be back tomorrow reading to you, where your optimal life awaits.