I came across this this morning and thought it was interesting.
http://www.lianneraymond.com/2010/10/red-winkle-picker-regret-and-the-dark-side-of-decluttering.html
Overall Rating: votes
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Posted 1 year ago #
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Interesting. I've never considered decluttering and organizing to be masculine traits, though. I've never thought of making a home a strictly feminine one either. I know plenty of cluttered and unorganized men, and many men capable of decorating and running a cozy home for their children.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Interesting but, at least from my point of view, complete BS. If I hired a life coach and she came in and told me that my messy, cluttered home was fine because it was just "lived in," and my bulging, overweight body was fine because it was "feminine," and that I should just embrace all the chaos because it was "natural," I would ask for my money back.
I don't WANT to accommodate my bad habits just because life is "easier" that way! I think it's OKAY to judge my bad habits and call them out! Good lord. I'm getting more annoyed the longer I think about it, so I'm stopping.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Okay, read it again, and I still think it's BS. She is reading decluttering as proceeding from a place of fear - "I am a bad person if I don't get rid of this." I believe the exact opposite. It is when we cease to fear (abandonment, scarcity, etc.) that we are free to let go.
There is a huge, HUGE difference between the person who looks at her life and sees unsatisfying excess, and the person who starves herself into amenorrhea. If anything, eating disorders are more apt to accompany hoarding behavior, not conscious minimalism. Grrr.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Hi all - Inoticed a number of hits to my site from here so I thought I'd check it out.
I'm glad you found it interesting, mdfloyd, and thanks for sharing it. I certainly don't expect everyone to agree with me (thank goodness!) but I would like to clarify a couple things.
When I talk about masculine/feminine I am not talking in terms of male/female. We all have a combination of masculine and feminine energies we draw upon that have nothing to do with our gender. And our culture as a whole can be more representative of one or the other of these energies. So yes, jbeany, making a home is not the sole purview of women nor does decluttering etc. belong to men.
Chacha1, I am not saying decluttering necessarily proceeds from a place of fear, I am saying it's good to examine where it is coming from. Sometimes these trends become very prominent in our culture and it's easy to just do what everyone else is doing without a deeper examination of our own motivations.
And you are right in that if you believe that personal growth and self-actualization come from judging yourself and needing to "fix" yourself, then I am absolutely not the coach for you. It's not my approach at all. And still, I understand your frustration.
with love,
LiannePosted 1 year ago # -
I found the article to be very interesting. I like how Lianne is advising people not to just jump on the bandwagon because it is the "in" thing to do. I don't think that she is referring to us "unclutterers" in her article. Her article speaks more to people who are decluttering because it is trendy. That doesn't pertain to the majority of us at unclutterer.com - most of us researched uncluttering/minimalism because this is the natural path our lives have taken.
I believe that if people are just getting rid of stuff without having a life's goal in mind then they are doing themselves a disservice.
I have a friend who declutters like a maniac every couple of months. Things get shoved into bags for Goodwill, most of them still in the original packaging and with tags on them. Her problem? She is a compulsive shopaholic who literally "binge shops" and then freaks out when she sees how much she has accumulated. To get rid of the problem she "purges" all of her items in one big sweep, never addressing why they accumulated in the first place.
Posted 1 year ago # -
^Very true. It IS interesting, and resisting trends IS wise. And most of what she writes does not directly pertain to "unclutterers" because generally we are making a personal lifestyle assessment, not reading about minimalism in Real Simple and thinking, Oh I should do that! And based on what I've read here, very few (if any) of us engage in binge-and-purge behavior like your friend.
But there's still a disconnect for me. Even in Lianne's reply - I wrote that I want to judge *my bad habits,* and she read that I want to judge *myself.* Not the same thing at all.
I guess I am more attuned to the drill sergeant kind of life coach. None o' this kinder gentler stuff for me! LOL
Posted 1 year ago # -
Lianne, I understand what you were trying to get across. I appreciated your article, especially this part that really spoke to me. "I gave them {your mother's shoes} away thoughtlessly, carelessly. At the time, there was no practical reason to keep them."
I too went on several purging frenzies and got rid of a few things, one in particular, that I still regret. After reflecting on my mistakes, and why I was getting rid of things so mindlessly, I decided to keep a bin in the walk-in attic all those little treasures I didn't use yet didn't seem right to part with.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Ok, so I read it again. And again.
To declutter is a "hollow pursuit" just as trying to lose weight? Excuse me? I have done both because for one, I was tired of having junk in my house that I didn't touch or use, but had to dust it and use up valuable space and I decided I didn't want that anymore. I was tired of being seriously overweight and did something about it. Neither are "hollow" pursuits. Waiting to "let go" and it will be a "process" not a project is ridiculous, highty flighty mentality that usually gets you nowhere.
I decided to declutter as a project. A project to make my house easier to clean and get rid of things that are not "useful or believed beautiful". Really, why did my husband need nearly 50 pairs of socks that had holes and were to dirty to wear? And it is a project to lose weight, let me tell you, if I just "let go" and "believe" I would still be waiting for the process to begin and be 46 pounds heavier.
And the only "FEAR" I have faced in either project was the fear that I would not lose weight before health problems just got worse, and I threw out my knee again by getting off the couch! I have no "fear" cleaning up my house. I know that some people with hoarding issues do have that fear, and it is a very real one. But saying we are ALL decluttering out of fear is a bunch of nonesense.
And don't even get me started about the male - female thing...
Posted 1 year ago # -
I wonder if the idea of minimalism is more of the concept Lianne is discussing. In the dieting metaphor: losing weight for the sake of losing weight; because we have an ideal about who we should be and we aren't good enough until we lose those last ten pounds.
As far as uncluttering, I think a lot of us here are starting from a clutter level of morbid obesity: the things we own are literally in the way of our ability to do the things we want to do, and may even be at the point of being unsafe or dangerous. Having so many toys around that you step barefoot on a stray Lego and start cursing up a blue streak in front of your family, for example, probably isn't that good for the soul.
There is a difference, then, between getting rid of things for the sake of getting rid of things, and uncluttering for the sake of improving (not perfecting!) your life.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I don't think she's saying that decluttering comes from a place of fear. She's saying it COULD come from a place of fear.
She's not saying decluttering and losing weight are hollow pursuits. She's saying they CAN be hollow pursuits.
She's saying to review your reasons for decluttering.
It does have some parallels with trying to lose weight. She described them very well.
I did a quick review of my own reasons for decluttering/trying to lose weight and my own successes.
I wanted to lose weight because I thought it would make me more beautiful, make me happier, I was afraid I would always be alone if I didn't make myself more attractive. I've never been successful with losing weight.
I wanted to cut back on my stuff because I move frequently and want that part of my life to be easier. I've had much more success with this :-)
I think it's a good article, for the reasons she stated in the beginning. Once something becomes a trend, and everybody starts following it without asking why, it needs to be questioned. The rest of the article just describes why - in some cases - decluttering is not always a good idea. Or more accurately, decluttering is not always the answer.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I find the fear question is a good one to ask -- I do hope that I don't conduct my life out of fear, but sometimes I do and it's good to know. For example, at least part of the inspiration for my decluttering was my MIL -- when she fell and needed help it became clear that her house was a disaster. She told us she was to ashamed to ask for help. I spent a month cleaning and decluttering. I do not want that to EVER happen to me.
I disagree that outer change best emerges from inner change -- the two, I think, are symbiotic. For me, change often starts with a small acknowledgment that something is askew in my life. I then seek a process that may set it right, and the process itself, if it is a good match for me, inspires introspection that leads to deeper inner changes. Deep change for me always involves head, heart and hands.
Posted 1 year ago # -
And for another perspective, my read on the article is that it was more about Lianne's experience in dealing with the loss of her mother. That is one of the hardest things to do when organizing, to part with items from a close relative who has died. These things are literally imbued with emotion, the essence of that person who has died. Some items more than others. Sure fear is one of those emotions. Fear of loss. And the pain of reliving the loss of the person with the loss of the item.
I agree, do be conscious and thoughtful of what you part with. Don't harm yourself, if you really love an item, keep it. It sounds like Lianne was able at one point to let go of her mother's red shoes, but later second-guessed herself, blaming the media and pressure to purge or she perhaps has a little of her father's compulsive cleaning gene? That's the danger. Dealing with loss comes in waves. Sometimes you are fine, other times you really need those comforting items around you. So do you organize for the current you, or the future you? Or a little bit of both?
Go easy on yourself emotionally when getting rid of things. In a way getting rid of the red shoes is like going to the next level of dealing with the loss. The pain is in confronting the reality of what those shoes represent - that mom is actually gone. It really is OK she gave away the shoes. One more "step" in dealing with the loss.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I can understand what Lianne is talking about. I have a couple of things I got rid of that I miss. However, I have way too many things that I have kept and shouldn't have. :)
(One of my biggest problems is that I want to sell a lot of things that I have. We are so short on money. However, the area where I live and the economy are making this not happen. I have given away many items, but I don't want to give away everything.)
Posted 1 year ago # -
Ok, I managed to read it, fighting the urge to roll my eyes at every second sentence, and I agree with chacha1 that this is utter BS. It reads like the standard diatribe of obese women "celebrating their curves and womanness", but applied to stuff.
She talks about and restoring balance. I agree that extreme dieting and extreme purging are problematic and "imbalanced", but "letting go" and embracing your excess fat and excess stuff is not restoring balance, it's only tipping the scale to the other extreme. If you're about balance, talk about finding the right ratio of decluttering: keeping what matters to you and purging excess. Encourage sustainable changes in nutrition and physical activity rather than dieting. Don't encourage people to let themselves go and wallow in their bad habits!
Posted 1 year ago # -
Hmmmm... well... the essay presents an interesting perspective -- but it's not one I share. I can see why Lianne makes some of the comparisons or analogies she does, but I don't think they quite work.
One of the problems I see in the essay is all-or-nothing thinking. For example, she says "Think of the energy of throwing out and discarding compared to the energy of taking in and welcoming." There's an either-or thing going on, instead of a "both-and." Either you are madly decluttering and working toward some cold minimalist ideal, or you are... well... actually, I'm not sure what "taking in and welcoming" means here. (Taking in more stuff? Taking in people?)
I prefer more of a "both-and" perspective: My house will be *more welcoming* when it is more organized and *less cluttered.* I am discarding that which is no longer needed or wanted, so my home is more welcoming, both to me and to guests.
I also am not sure who exactly is mounting this "attack on the feminine" she speaks of, or who this external "higher authority" is supposed to be. No one else is driving my decluttering efforts -- I'm working on it because I get frustrated when I can't keep track of things... and the older I get, the less I can keep track of. It's like I have middle-age hormone-changes-induced ADD, and it drives me bonkers.
There's some other language use -- "perfection," "salvation" -- that contributes to the impression of all-or-nothing thinking. But I don't expect perfection in the house; I just want a decent chance of finding what I need, when I need it....
And one more thing: fear is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it is a useful short-term motivator, or a clue that something is Not Quite Right Here and needs to change.
Posted 1 year ago #
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