My Minimalist Life

I struggle with anxiety, sometimes to the point where I can’t leave the house or even the bed.

Something I found set my anxiety off or made it one hundred times worse was clutter!

Clothes strewn on the floor, dirty nappies and wet towels creating this musk of wee and damp, dirty dishes rotting in the corner.

Not being able to move without feeling like you're taking part in an assault course.

One afternoon (in the middle of one of these days filled with rubbish and worry) I was flicking through Netflix and came across this documentary Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things.

Not having much else to do apart from wallowing in a pit of depression, I clicked play.

THE BEST THING I EVER DID!

After watching and rewatching this revelationary documentary I had come to the realisation that,

1. My house was a mess.
2. My mind was a mess.
3. I was the key to finding my own happiness and that I had wasted so much time trying to find fulfillment through material items.

Minimalism is a way of life where you focus on the important things, the important people, and not being involved in the constant consumption of the unnecessary.

There is no one set way of becoming a minimalist. You don’t have to live in a tiny house, only own 34 items, or travel the world with only a backpack and a map.

You could do that if that’s what makes you happy—that’s the joy of minimalism.

I highly suggest if you have Netflix or have the available resources to buy the DVD (and minimising it after, of course) to watch Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things.

Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus who lead you into the world of minimalism also run a popular podcast amply named The Minimalists which delves a lot deeper into the subject of minimalism and how it applies in every aspect of your life, not just getting rid of unused or pointless items.

You can listen to this through YouTube, Spotify, or any podcast platform.

After a couple of months of deep research, I finally decided that I wanted to start decluttering.

The first thing I did was go through my Facebook and remove the people who I didn’t talk to anymore, people who I didn’t want to talk to anymore, and the people who didn’t contribute to my life in a positive way.

This in itself was incredibly cleansing.

Then I went through the rest of my phone deleting apps, emails, and games that were distracting me from more important things in my life.

Next was the huge task of the house, filled to the brim with stuff. Shelves full of dusty DVDs, books piled high in almost every room, old toys that my 3-year-old had grown out of and clothes that were never worn or didn’t fit.

I decided the best way to proceed was to take it room by room as not to burn out before I’d even started.

(There are other methods which are further explored in the podcast).

Which brings me to today; the bags you see in the picture above is everything that is going to the charity shops. The items are primarily from my kitchen but also from my downstairs hallway.

I wish I had the forethought to take a before picture.

It was difficult. Items that were sentimental but gave me no joy, had no use or no purpose ended up in those bags as well as plenty of knives and forks, endless plates, bowls and cups collected over the years, appliances I’d never used, teas towels and odd socks, bags upon bags, cooking supplies, and a spare kettle to name a few others.

I had decided I no longer wanted to be surrounded by the unnecessary, the unneeded.

Yes, it was exhausting, draining but also freeing, enlightening to see how much stuff I had piled up just in one small room of my home.

Already I feel a shift, my anxiety is lower, my head a little clearer, and I see a bright clutter free future in both mind and my surroundings.