Let It Go - Peter Walsh Page 0,9

a big loop, with material possessions tightly intertwined with underlying emotions.

We buy things because we like the way they look, because they’re a bargain, because someone recommended them, because we absolutely need them, or for no particular reason other than in that moment, we felt like it! We buy stuff because we hope it will create the life we imagine for ourselves (and how can you have a life without stuff, right?).

Much of the stuff you own represents powerful thoughts, feelings, and memories. An expert could look at the contents of your home and get a sense of what’s going on inside your head. We’ll meet such an expert a little later in the book. Conversely, the stuff you own—even if it’s boxed up and tucked out of sight in the garage—influences how you think.

Your stuff can trigger emotions and reactions tied to a person, place, or situation. You might feel joy and happiness linked to gifts you received from someone you love. Your possessions can evoke sad feelings, too, when they remind you of an especially difficult breakup, an illness, or the death of someone you loved. Everything that you own has a place in this cycle of objects and feelings.

Let’s take a look at this cycle (diagram A on the previous page). The sum total of the belongings you own (in other words, the material convoy you’re hauling) is the thinner black line on the outside of the diagram. This is the physical structure of your surroundings that you see every day.

Your thoughts and emotions—not only about your stuff, but about your life in general—are represented by the thicker, light-gray line within. This part is unseen and too often unexplored. These layers of your life, comprised of the things you own and the way you feel, influence each other back and forth.

Now let’s zoom in and inspect the sorts of emotions that can become tied to the things you own, sending you around and around in a cycle (diagram B). Some of these emotions are uplifting. But too often, they’re quite harmful.

The negative emotions (the ones in the clouds in the diagram) have a way of appearing more noticeable in our lives, making the good feelings harder to express. If you take a moment to examine yourself, how often do you have these unpleasant emotions to some degree? Have they created just enough of a worn-down groove that they steer you away from the happiness you’d rather be enjoying?

One goal of the Let It Go way of downsizing is for you to surround yourself with only a manageable number of possessions that you cherish and treasure, which trigger good emotional responses, like joy, relaxation, focus, and motivation.

At the same time, you’ll discard items that fuel the following negative emotions that can carve a rut that keeps you from your best life:

Fear. In its many forms, fear can have a powerful effect on the direction of your life. It can make you second-guess the decisions you’ve already made and freeze in the face of the choices you need to make now. It colors your perception of the world, so that even a turn in the road that could lead somewhere better looks scary. Also, when you scan the contents of your home, many of the objects around you are locked in place because you fear letting them go.

Procrastination. The fears you carry around can make you move slowly or not at all. You may feel unable to make decisions now, so you put them off until later. These include decisions that might lighten the burden of the possessions you’re carrying. You know you’re stuck, and you tell yourself that you’ll deal with it “tomorrow,” but, in truth, you don’t know how to start moving.

Resentment. You’re unhappy with some of the factors that have influenced your journey. You may feel bitter about the place you’re in and the events that have brought you here. When you look at the stuff you own that tells the world “YOU ARE HERE!” you’re reminded that you don’t really like where “HERE” is.

Overwhelmed. These thoughts and emotions can add up to a heavy mental burden. If the pile of items around you is so heavy that it’s weighing you down, or you have a lot of possessions that are tied to your mental distress, you can very understandably feel overwhelmed and paralyzed.

Finally, if you are struggling with these problems, you may be worried about what will happen next. That’s the fear that starts you