Let It Go - Peter Walsh Page 0,17
to bring good changes, like a higher income with a new job or more visits with family to enjoy during retirement.
That’s because downsizing-related events trigger hardships that you can’t always control. Maybe your accent is going to sound out of place once you move a thousand miles away. You’re worried that it will identify you as a newcomer—but you’re even more worried that it will fade away.
Or perhaps you can no longer ignore that a lot of your identity came from being married to a powerful corporate executive or from being the parent to successful student athletes. Now that job is gone, or your last child has pulled out of your driveway for her new home.
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Real-World Downsizing Discovery
Susan says: We have moved seven times in the last five years, each time to a smaller place. We live in a very uncluttered one-bedroom apartment now. Moving was tough, but getting rid of stuff was great! Our family heirlooms are very old photos, and we keep them in a place of pride. The only thing I miss is my fabulous 7-foot couch that was as big as a twin bed (what a great place for a nap!). Everything else was just stuff. Maybe I’ve missed a kitchen gadget or two, but I can improvise.
Luckily, my husband and I get along great. Otherwise, I don’t think downsizing would have worked. The main lesson has been this: Home is where your loved ones are.
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Maybe you keep encountering little reminders that you don’t have your parents around anymore—like a stranger now using the phone number they had for 40 years. Or your older brother is becoming even more abrasive now that dad isn’t around to keep him in line.
When you’re already feeling a sense of loss, the thought of shedding your familiar possessions, which help connect you to who you are, can feel even more threatening. Even if you try to be brave about it and say, “It’s just stuff,” you’ve put a lot of yourself into your belongings, and they influence how you feel at a level you don’t always fully detect.
The idea of losing this stuff can keep you from downsizing thoroughly. But when you understand this feeling, you can use it to your advantage. Instead of losing anything from your life, you’ll see that you’re creating a new home environment that improves your mood and continually reminds you of the best experiences you’ve enjoyed.
YOU’RE LIVING IN YOUR HOME IN MORE WAYS THAN YOU REALIZE
Wherever Sam Gosling, PhD, goes, a Sherlock Holmes reference usually follows. The professor at the University of Texas at Austin has spent years cultivating a sometimes-eerie skill set that rivals the fictional detective’s: how to peer into people’s minds by examining clues from their environment.
The way you decorate and fill your home echoes your personality, your desires, and your preferences. These are characteristics that help form your identity. Your home, in turn, has great power to affect your mindset.
“It’s a two-way street here. We do things to our spaces that reflect who we are. Then these things reflect back on us and shape our actions,” Dr. Gosling says.
You have three main types of connection to the stuff in your home, he says. One is that you scatter what he calls behavioral residue around the place. “These are like the kind of clues Sherlock Holmes would look for—it’s essentially evidence of your behaviors,” Dr. Gosling says.
Do you clip your nails on the couch while watching TV, or do you go somewhere more discreet? Which upholstered chairs around the dining room table are occupied by adults, and which by children? You and your family leave answers to these sorts of questions that are as telling as your fingerprints and DNA.
This is fascinating info, which Dr. Gosling discusses in his book Snoop: What Your Stuff Says about You. But there are two other ways that you’re connected to your home that are more important when you’re downsizing.
First, your possessions display your identity, as I mentioned in the previous chapter. This is worth repeating, because it’s a big cause of the unsettled feeling you may have when you think about downsizing.
“We call these identity claims. There are lots of places you see those kinds of things, not just in people’s homes. You see it on bumper stickers or T-shirts or the quote some people put on the bottom of their e-mails,” Dr. Gosling says. “There’s a lot of research into something called the self-verification theory, which says that people