Extreme Declutter Results,HOARDER TO MINIMALISM Family of 4

2023年8月6日发(作者：闻一多)

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two weeks ago i finally unpacked my most precious possessions, the few that were left after decluttering 30 years of emotional hoarding.

a process that took me 5 years in total to complete.

i didn't start decluttering with the intention of becoming a minimalist.

and yet here we are five years later and my family of four decluttered our entire home

sold and donated almost everything that we owned and moved to europe with eight suitcases. today i want to share with you the triumphs and the tears as well as the incredible

decluttering results from our five-year minimalism journey.

so hit that like button

and drop a door emoji down below if you are on your own decluttering or minimalism journey and remember the first step in crafting the life you want is to get rid of everything you don't.

this is a trigger warning to those of you who are sensitive to content that contains references to death, grief, trauma, hoarding emotional neglect and other forms of mental distress

please proceed with caution.

i was nine when my mother died after a long battle with cancer

that's when we started putting things into boxes and

i guess we just never stopped my dad would say things like just in case and to remember her by we got really good at putting things into boxes.

even our emotions i think i boxed up my emotions for too long

and that's why they constantly spell out 

now my father didn't talk much about my mother after she died

i don't even know how they met or how he proposed

he wasn't very good at talking. he was really good at collecting things

though our home was a constant stream of new cars 

and collectibles at one point he had three harley-davidsons and that was on top

of all his other cars and trucks every christmas i got boxes and boxes of presents

i am asked a huge collection of swarovski crystals barbie dolls beanie babies and so much

more my dad loved to tell me how much these things were going to be worse

someday that they were going to pay for my college spoiler they didn't but we'll get to

that later

i wasn't allowed to touch or to play with any of these things

we kept them in boxes or nicely displayed in cabinets for later always for later the year that he died it felt like the whole world collapsed around me

i was in my early 20s when i lost my father my home and everything in it 

i remember breaking down and sobbing on the floor of my tiny apartment

because i didn't have enough space for everything

and a lot of it had to be sold or donated

it felt like everything was being ripped away from me outside of my control 

i never wanted to feel like that again

i saved as much as i could but it was too much for my one home

what i couldn't fit got stashed in the basements and the closets of friends and family

members, but it didn't stop there that year started with the death of my father and

by the time it ended 

i had lost eight people that i cared about 

clutter is a mirror our internal clutter is reflected as external clutter

what does your clutter say about you

i am sad i am lonely

i am afraid to let go

that's what my clutter was saying flash forward to 2015 and i'm married to a wonderful man

we have just finished a two-year expat assignment in shanghai china

and moved back to our small and cute condo in chicago

the 900 square foot two bedroom in chicago that was perfect for us as a newly married couple started to feel pretty crowded after the birth of our second son honestly it was a mess my husband worked long hours

and because both of my parents were gone and we had no family members nearby

i never had any help and i felt constantly overwhelmed

a few months later we ended up getting sent to my home state of indiana

we went from a small 900 square foot apartment to a 1900 square foot town home with a

two-car garage

i finally had enough space to bring all the things that i had saved into one place

but it still felt like it wasn't enough space and instead of comforted

i felt stressed out and overwhelmed

there were always toys on the floor appliances and baby stuff crowding the countertops and of course the boxes and boxes of sentimental items left behind by my family

hiding in the shadows of the garage and lower level

i didn't even know where to start 

i was chatting with my neighbor one day when it happened

she told me she had downsized from a 5 000 square foot five bedroom home to a town

home the same size as ours and she had already made thirty thousand dollars

decluttering and selling her clutter i was floored and i decided i wanted to explore this thing called decluttering.

so i ordered a pretty little book you might have heard of it

it was the life-changing magic of tidying up by marie kondo

i am so glad that i started with her book

did you know that marie kondo spent five years as a shinto shrine maiden in japan

her reverence and empathy resonated with me have gratitude for the things you're

discarding by giving gratitude you're giving closure to the relationship

with that object and by doing so it becomes a lot easier to let go well letting go still

wasn't easy.

it was like tearing off a band-aid it hurt but i could also see myself healing slowly

along with the book i also ordered a small rose gold scale some plastic mailers

and a torso mannequin i fondly called marie antoinette

here she is modeling a vintage adidas crop top that i bought for 50 cents in high

school can you believe i sold that baby for 25 almost 15 years later slowly lovingly

i continued to declutter 

we moved two more times ending up in new jersey

that place was smaller so the clutter stood out even more

but i kept at it it felt so good to know that i was sending my things on to a new home

a new life a new chance to be loved the kind and thankful words from the people that i sold to also helped me heal remember the collectibles my dad said would pay for my college most of them sold for less than a half or a third of what my dad had paid for them in the 80s and 90s.

i hope that the people who bought my barbies have little girls of their own

and those boxes will finally get opened 

the more we got rid of the freer we felt doors we didn't even know were there

started opening my children were happier 

we were happier something inside of us shifted my husband and i made the

decision to do something drastic we decided to get rid of everything and move to germany where my husband's family lived

my children would finally get to be around grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins .

i wish i could go back and hug the me from five years ago and tell her

it's not okay but it's going to be hang in there

our life now is totally unrecognizable to what it was before

if i had to use three words to describe our life

they would be peaceful loving free

now i spend less time cleaning up and feeling stressed out

and more time playing with my kids and relaxing with my husband

[Music]

our home is filled with light and laughter from the outside you might think it's too much space

too many empty corners i know i get a lot of comments about the echoes sorry about that guys you can't see it but that empty space is actually full 

it's full of happiness and love we fly paper airplanes and do cartwheels in those empty spaces.

we build incredible things out of legos and blocks

we collect moments instead of objects

i didn't keep much but the sentimental things i did keep have a special place in our life i use

my father's knife set to cut fresh bread from the cute little bakery on the corner

and i share stories about my grandparents treasures

that are proudly displayed on my bookshelf

my children get to eat fabulous home-cooked meals off the plates

that my parents received when they got married

i've been eating off the same plate for 38 years and now my kids can as well

isn't that amazing this is what minimalism looks like to us

i am done putting things into boxes 

we are surrounded by possessions that have so much meaning and history but if they

should break i won't be sad i will know that they have served their purpose

not only in my life but also the lives of my loved ones

the ones who went before and the ones who came after my name is marissa

and i am a recovering hoarder turned minimalist mom

thank you for listening to my story today if you struggle with clutter

please consider joining my family on youtube

and remember the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step but you don't 

have to walk it alone take care bye-bye.

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