I want to share something Angela Victory just sent me (used with her permission). Angela is one of many who have embraced this process of tidying wholeheartedly. She has experienced a deepening spiritual connection through choosing only things that bring her a spark of joy. Strangely, this focus on material things makes us feel closer to God; we feel a new and lighter energy throughout our home. My hope is that you will enjoy Angela’s writing, but more than that, you will be inspired.
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Picture: Angela burning the past: letters that had already served their purpose.
This method of tidying has, and continues to be, an inspiration that has preoccupied my mind. Driving home the other day I felt driven, so so driven to conquer the stuff in my home and my life. It’s hard to really convey this feeling other than to say it was a burning desire. Not something that takes energy away from my constitution, but brings me everything I need. Drawing on the life-force energy from behind: it’s calm, it’s strong, and it’s wonderful. My whole body resonates with letting these attachments go—without pain, but with joy!
I never imagined that I would ever have gotten here in my life…..gone is my attachment to my worn white leather baby shoes; still in their perfect condition cardboard box. They were bought on a special trip that my mom and dad took to Hastings Street; quality baby shoes for my feet. These shoes were kept by my mother, and now kept by me—moved from box to box, location to location, from her home to my home.
Recently, with this cleaning-up-my-life obsession, I looked at those baby shoes in a new light, and I said, “I know exactly where you need to be, you need to be in my loving pile of donations.” The transition seemed so simple, and then it led to Barbie dolls (one being my authentic Princess Leia doll), and clothes my mother wore on her honeymoon, my beautiful yellow-golden grade 12 signature high school vintage jacket—I was an art class chic artist.
This jacket: it was so individual and I loved it. I could still wear it today, but I feel more strongly about donating it than trying to find a place in my closet to keep it—and for how long? Forever? I am not the jacket, yet it has defined me. I saw in my mind a girl searching for vintage things in today’s world, and her coming across that jacket and seeing the potential in it—and her having the opportunity to find it—and it now defining her. I joyfully donated it.
The jacket brings fond feelings, like the feeling I get when I reflect on God. I close my eyes slightly and I remember the feeling to be “connected.” Wearing my jacket, or keeping the jacket in the back of my closet is not my connection with Him—that feeling of connection comes from tuning in directly with Him: there is where the love is, that is my gratitude.
Keeping only the things I love—it can be described as a switch, a switch being turned on. Moments before I was so attached to so many things, and then I was not. It doesn’t mean that I don’t love so many things that I donated, but they no longer serve a purpose in my life.
My stuff was actually starting to make me sick: giving me headaches all the time, I was feeling like I couldn’t see properly, a foggy cloud around me, I was bothered and feeling worn out. Today, as these things that no longer give me a spark of joy leave my house I feel fresh air around me, I feel my mind opening up and making room for a larger altar for God.
It reminds me of the story of the man who had royalty (God) come to his house, but the man felt his house wasn’t ready to receive such a royal guest. So, I can use my body to physically move things out of this house to make room—there isn’t a greater love I know of than to make room for God.
I know that my mom wanted help tidying up her stuff up, and we never really knew how, or what to do with it. But now, with the concept of only keeping things that bring us joy—I get it!
I opened my dishwasher this morning to unload my clean dishes. I looked on the top shelf and I looked on the bottom shelf inside the washer, and all I saw were all my favorite dishes—joy! It was a thrill to put them away, not a task. I love each and every one of them: the Anthropologie mugs, my mom’s glass jug for sauce, simple Ikea tumblers, French style plates, white plates, a water jug for two, shiny matching silverware and my vintage made-in-England dish—that is the dish that I set my Rice Krispy squares in. The evidence was right in front of me, and I smiled big!
To be connected with my things means to be connected with God. If I am connected with absolutely everything I own, then I hope to be connected with God in absolutely every way as well.
Book reference: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up; Marie Kondo