Dealing with Possessions

 

One of the best things I’ve done is decluttered my life, getting rid of a lot of junk and unnecessary possessions — from furniture to clothes to gadgets to tools to books to dishes to memorabilia and much more.

 

The uncluttered home is a thing of beauty and joy to me. But even more importantly, I learned about myself in the process of letting go of possessions.

 

Why had I accumulated so many possessions in the first place? It turns out that my family (including me) had a habit of impulse buying, and buying out of tradition. We also habitually  acquire things without getting rid of old ones. We stuff things in storage to make room for new ones, and then forget about them.

 

But why was I holding onto them? A lot of the possessions were surprisingly easy to get rid of, but a lot of them were also very difficult to part with. I had emotional attachments to these items.

 

It turns out that they were serving emotional needs for me: they made me feel secure and safe, they gave me comfort, they gave me memories (and love), they were hopes that I had for the future (unread books, exercise and sports equipment). In truth, I didn’t need these items for any of these emotional needs — I could meet those needs in other ways, without possessions.

 

And so letting go of possessions meant letting go of what I thought those possessions meant to me. It meant letting go of the self that I was when I had those possessions. It meant letting go of the life I had when those possessions were in my life.

 

It was a wonderful process, this letting go. It taught me that I was capable of living happily without things I thought were needs.

I taught me that letting go can be both painful and joyful, a process of loss and of liberation.