Let It Go - Peter Walsh Page 0,40

down in your abdomen.

Doctors call this referred pain. Our bodies, it would seem, aren’t necessarily laid out like a well-organized home.

If you ignore a discomfort in your arm because you think, “Eh, it doesn’t hurt that bad. Anyway, it’s just my arm,” you could be missing a referred pain that warns of a heart attack.

A similar issue can occur when a downsizing event on the horizon grows closer. You think you’re uncomfortable for a specific reason—like the pressure of working under deadline or the physical challenge of moving—but you overlook the actual source, which may be fear of your mortality or the uneasiness that comes with dealing with any emotional issue with your family members.

Each piece of the stuff that fills our homes has a history and a memory attached to it. We might forget where we bought an object or how much it cost, but its ability to trigger an emotion, remind us of a person, or take us back to an earlier moment remains almost constant.

Often these reminders and memories are happy ones. That’s a big reason why we buy or keep things—to feel good about who we are and where we’ve been. A central goal of the Let It Go way of downsizing is to give the treasures that summon your positive emotions a prominent place in your new home (or bring these feel-good possessions back from your parents’ home).

But to get there, you may first have to travel through a place that’s a little darker. You may have to put your hands on items that remind you of times when you were in pain or distress. You may find yourself revisiting an earlier loss.

Plus, parting with items that once brought you comfort and helped define you can be a little scary. Though you’re obviously an adult, this is akin to how a kid might feel when giving up a security blanket.

Though you might describe such feelings as “fear,” you’ll generally find that they’re like a referred pain that you can trace back to one of three emotions: sadness, anxiety, or guilt. I call these the SAG emotions for short.

DIG DOWN TO THE TRUE CAUSE OF YOUR DOWNSIZING FEAR

The SAG emotions often masquerade as specific fears that people feel about downsizing. I’ll describe these shortly. But first, it’s worth further exploring why downsizing can evoke such strong feelings of sadness, anxiety, or guilt.

Sadness. Downsizing may remind you of elements of your life that are now gone. At these times, you’re moving forward, but important people may not be coming with you because they’ve died, they’ve moved on to their own homes, or your relationship with them has ended.

Odds are good that some of the hopes and dreams you once had are gone, too. Maybe you already achieved them, and the glory of your accomplishment has faded. Maybe you never fulfilled them, or you wound up pursuing different goals instead. Seeing your high-school letter jacket, encountering reminders from a first marriage, or gazing upon your welding equipment (so much for those plans of being a sculptor . . . ) can bring up waves of eye-watering sadness, especially now that you’re at a turning point.

Downsizing-related events also simply remind you that you’re getting older. You may lose track of how long you’ve been in your home while you’re living in it, but you’ll definitely remember when it’s time to pack your things. In our society, growing older is not treated as a cause for celebration, and the downsizing process may leave you in quite an unfestive mood.

“Did my whole life amount to this? How did I wind up here? If I’m no longer in the stage of my life when I was at the peak of my game, with the greatest potential, then where does that leave me now?” you might ask.

There’s no getting around it: Dealing with reality can definitely hurt.

Anxiety. If sadness is related to the place you’re leaving, anxiety is tied to the place you’re going. If you’re downsizing because you’ve run into tough times, you may be anxious about when and how you’ll start moving in a better direction. But even happy events can be tinged with some degree of anxiety, whether you’re getting married or retiring to the relaxing retreat you’ve been dreaming about for 20 years.

You might be asking yourself, “Am I making the right decision? Is this move going to be good for my family? Who can I turn to for support in this new setting?” Just as we tend to