by kathilipp | Sep 26, 2018 | Blog, Clutter Free |
Every day, the email shows up …
“Create the perfect pumpkin landscape!”
“When stripes and paisley collide …”
The headlines, the stand-up-and-take-notice headlines, greet me every single day.
I subscribed to these emails because I adore my friend who is sending them. She is crazy-gifted, super creative, and incredibly generous with her time and talent.
The whole package, really.
I love to open the emails and look at the projects she’s working on, the colors she’s chosen, and how she is growing her business.
Until one day, I didn’t want to open the email.
I felt a poke. Not a pang or twinge of envy. Just a poke of … something …
I knew it wasn’t jealousy. I don’t enjoy painting bookcases or haunting garage sales for the next perfect piece of milk glass. As the Clutter Free girl, I’m not into any of that. I didn’t covet her living room (we have very different decorating styles) or even her laundry room (which is adorable).
So what was it?
I realized that I did envy her.
I wasn’t jealous of her stuff, but I envied her life.
Why does she get to be the make- it-cute girl, while I’ve struggled with clutter my whole life?
Why does she get to have a house that is inviting and adorable, while for decades, I was the one that you needed to give a week’s notice before coming over for a cup of coffee?
And for a while? I stopped opening the emails. They made me feel less than who I was.
And then I figured out, it wasn’t the emails making me feel that way. It was me.
It was me rejecting this path that God had sent me on. The path of recovering from clutter, which taught me so much about myself, about who God is and about how to serve his people.
If you asked me if I would trade in my journey, I would tell you, “No! Not in a million years!”
But if you compared it to someone else’s journey, I start to think, “Well, maybe I could just try it on for a while …”
I was jealous of what it must feel like to have a house that people walk into and just fall in love with.
So, what did I do?
I bought a new throw pillow.
I bought a decorating book.
I bought a few decorating magazines.
(Oh, don’t you hate when old habits that you thought were dead spring back to life?)
Nothing earth-shattering. It wasn’t exactly a binge.
But it was a blip … A definite indication of something being off in my life.
Buying stuff out of discomfort is familiar territory. So now, when the pangs (or pokes) pop up, I have a plan to get me back to a place of peace and joy.
Here are the steps that get me back to where I need to be:
Identify the feelings for what they are.
Understanding that I’m feeling envy used to send me into a spiral of shame (and I would envy women who didn’t have these feelings). Now, I recognize that feeling for what it is: a dissatisfaction in my own life.
When I realize it’s not about the object of my envy, but about what is going on for me, I instantly shut down anything that comes between me and that person. It is not about our relationship, it’s about how I’m relating to the world around me.
Feast on some truth.
When I get to that place where my heart is bruised, it’s time to get some truth in front of me. My favorite verse when it comes to envy (one that I can quote you on the spot – that’s how much I need it) is 1 Corinthians 10:13:
“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”
Lately, I’m also loving Seeing Green: Don’t Let Envy Color Your Joy by Tilly Dillehay. She says the way the way to the jealousy-free life is not by suppressing envy, but by embracing love. Not by shaming ourselves, but by loving others.
Practice being happy that someone else has what you want.
In Seeing Green, Dillehay talks about our reactions to other people’s blessings. She asks, “What if your first response was joy?” I love that question.
In the book, she talks about how to change the direction of our first impulse, response, and reaction toward joy for others. This is where I strive to be: genuine joy for others before calibrating the event to my hopes and dreams.
And if we wrestle to love deeply even when our initial reaction is to feel our feels, what we will see is that our reactions, for ourselves and for others, moves to a place of joy.
A place our hearts long to dwell, no matter where our circumstances may take us.
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by kathilipp | Sep 21, 2018 | Clutter Free |
Want Inner Peace? Get Rid of Clutter One Step At a Time!
Melody stumbled onto the Clutter Free Academy Facebook Group after she sought online groups to support her in dealing with decluttering. In late 2017, she moved her father into assisted living; anything that didn’t fit in his new home just got stacked up in the front room of her house, adjacent to the front door. The clutter caused tension with her husband. She explains, “He kept bugging me about getting it cleaned up because he was tired of having to explain the clutter whenever someone came to our house.”
Melody says, “At the beginning, I felt overwhelmed. I wasn’t sure where to begin. But, I just took one box or section at a time and worked in 45-minute to one-hour intervals, taking a break in-between. I kept telling myself that even baby steps are progress. I also took pictures along the way to remind myself of the progress I was making.”
Melody’s teaching job keeps her busy, so she decided to tackle the clutter come summer. She set aside two days to work on decluttering this area. She used Kathi’s system of 3 bags, with a slight modification. Instead of Put Away, Other Room, and Give Away bags, she had 3 piles: Other Rooms, Give Away, and Sell. Plus the Trash/Recycle pile.
She’s proud to be able to say, “The result of two days of work was that I felt very proud of myself for tackling this room; a load has been lifted from me. I was also very happy to hear my husband tell me what a great job I’d done.”
Working on this room has given her a renewed sense of optimism about what’s possible. “By decluttering this one room, I learned that I can get other areas and rooms of my house decluttered as well. I know it’s a process which will take time. But in the end, I will gain things like inner peace and being able to bless others because I will be living with less clutter.” Melody experienced the peace that comes from living with less, not more stuff!
How can you live with less for the sake of more peace? What are you no longer using that you could share with someone in need?
by kathilipp | Sep 20, 2018 | Clutter Free, Organizing |
When You Don’t Know Where to Start: Handling a Whole House Clutter Makeover Like a Pro
Tackling the whole house at once? Oh that can feel so overwhelming. Whether it’s a move you are excited for or one that is out of necessity, you don’t want to move the clutter with you. Today we talk about how to strategically get rid of what you don’t need to box up and move. If you aren’t moving but you have just had it with the clutter messing up every room? Well this one is for you too.
You don’t have to feel held hostage by your clutter one more day and you definitely don’t have to move it to your new place.
by Cheri Gregory | Sep 17, 2018 | Clutter Free |
I asked for help today.
It was tempting to wait a few more days, to see if I really needed help or if I could manage on my own.
But last night, I asked myself, Why wait?
And the only answer that came to mind was from my People-Pleasing past.
A Woman Who Helps Others
I grew up hearing, “Some things ought not be spoken.”
Although “some things” was an unwritten list, I knew it by heart.
And I knew that “needing help” and “asking for help” were most definitely on The List.
Because, of course, needing help and asking for help might be interpreted to mean that we weren’t perfect.
That we were failures.
So, I kept quiet about my own needs.
I tried hard to be a woman who always helps others but never needs help herself.
What Asking for Help Does NOT Mean
I asked for help today because I refuse to believe the lies of the People-Pleasing bully. All day, I’ll be reminding myself what asking for help does NOT mean:
1) Asking for help does NOT mean that I am a failure.
I may be in the midst of failing. But failing does not make me “a failure.” It just means I’m human.
2) Asking for help does NOT mean that I’m lazy (and should “just try harder”).
I may be trying harder than I’ve ever tried in my life. But I may be doing the wrong thing or doing the right thing the wrong way. Both of which mean that “trying harder” will only make things worse…faster.
3) Asking for help does NOT mean that I’m stupid or incompetent.
No matter how smart or capable I may be in some areas, there’s so much more I don’t know and so many more skills I don’t have. Believing that I should “know it all by now” and be able to “do it all by myself” is pride, pure and simple.
What Asking for Help DOES Mean
I’m also reminding myself, today, what asking for help DOES mean:
1) Asking for help means that I am learning.
Trying and failing means I am learning. On this planet, failure is a key part of the learning process.
2) Asking for help means that I value myself.
Refusing to “just try harder” once I recognize that I’m doing the wrong thing, or the right thing the wrong way, is a sign of self-respect.
3) Asking for help means that I am teachable.
Rejecting the idea that I “should already know ______” or “should just naturally be able to ____” is an act of self-compassion.
4) Asking for help means that I value others’ input.
Welcoming others’ experience-borne expertise demonstrates trust, humility, and receptivity.
5) Asking for help means that I choose not to do life alone.
Recognizing that I need other people reflects acceptance of God’s plan for me to live in community.
A Woman Who Asks for Help
I asked for help today because I’m struggling with a new situation that’s dragging me back toward old destructive habits. But I don’t want to slide back.
So I’m asking for help to make sure I don’t.
In this new situation, I’m not sure how to be my best self. Should I speak up or stay quiet? Should I take action or wait? I want to live as God’s masterpiece even in the midst of difficulty.
So I’m asking for help so I can be 100% me.
The various people involved in this new situation each have their own agendas, and People-Pleasing is trying to convince me to tap-dance to everyone else’s tunes. I desire to live in the center of God’s will.
So I’m asking for help to make sure I do.
If you’re a woman who only offers to help, here’s the truth you most need to know:
You’re created to be a woman who also asks for help.
Today … and every day.
