No Shame

Don’t be embarrassed by your mess (at least not with me). The truth is sorting, organizing, decluttering, & purging are not things that we were taught. Our parents probably taught us to clean our rooms (i.e. get dirty clothes off the floor and into the hamper) and to throw junk away (like holey socks & gum wrappers), but most of our parents didn’t teach us to seriously contemplate the things we own and downscale if and when we realize we have too much. And I can’t blame them.

Our culture has become way more materialistic in recent years. In the US today, there are over 1 billion square feet of self-storage unit space. That is over 5 square feet per person. And over 10% of households rent a storage unit (U.S. Self-Storage Industry Statistics). Those numbers are insane! That doesn’t touch at all on the household clutter stored inside American homes.

All that to say, we have a lot of stuff now-a-days. Most people have way more than they can handle, you are NOT alone. And we weren’t taught how to deal with it. That’s okay. There is no reason at all to beat yourself up every time you walk into your house and see all the clutter. You are normal, you are acceptable, your clutter does not define you.

So.. what now?

Give yourself a break from the shame.

And STOP giving yourself a break from actually dealing with the mess!

Give yourself an nice loving hug (cause maybe you alone in quarantine) or hug someone else you’ve been stuck with for far too long, tell yourself you are normal, and then start sorting.

Start somewhere. Start anywhere.

Start small. Or Start big.

But start.

And if you forget to sort something tomorrow… remember… no shame.

Comment with your reactions to reading this. Have you felt like you were the only one?