Birgit Medele - Clear your Clutter - Manifest your dreams

In our part of the planet custom dictates purchasing, gift wrapping and handing over ‘a little something’ to express love and appreciation. Alas, the delight often ends as soon as the wrapping has come off. “ Oh no, please .” We are trying to camouflage our disappointment and come up with a half-smile and arm movements that we hope might remotely resemble enthusiasm for the grim sweater or unspeakable vase that are off the radar on the planet of style we live on. However, a heartfelt “Thank you” does not make us a fake. We appreciate the effort, time and money invested by the giver because they were hoping to please us. If we manage to receive and retain this treasure in our heart, gratefully accepting the essence – love, symbolised in a gift – we can let the object move on. We can send it back out into the world, trusting that it will find a home where it is truly welcome. Most of us already own more stuff than we can delightfully integrate into our life which makes the infamous gift idea such a challenge. A client shared how her mum had asked her one day to only give her presents that she would want to get back. Ever since, they have been enjoying concerts together or eating out to celebrate birthdays and other occasions. Glorious events are handy gifts; they come without a use-by-date and do not take up storage space. Another bonus is that we are spared the worry of whether the individual already owns that gift-experience. A husband once asked his wife for a special Christmas gift: the promise to put an end to harking back; no more dishing up of past mistakes but the chance to start over with a clean slate. One client recalled, with tears in her eyes, how her husband had brought tea and toast to her bedside when she was unwell. She had been given diamond rings but this caring gesture was the gift that she treasured most. What truly priceless non-item presents could we shower friends and family with?

One of the most popular excuses to cling to something unused goes like this, “I’ve got this precious XYZ and don’t want to waste it. I can only give it away to a good new home.” (We are not talking pets here, we are talking stuff.) The generous giver would not mind a written guarantee certificate either, stating how potential recipients had a proven (preferably dire) need for the gift, qualified as 110% worthy and would be forever grateful.

Are we worthy owners? Is the item in good hands while having to stay with us? The most tragic waste of all is to banish an object into some gloomy storage space where it is condemned to gather dust, unused and heartbroken. Imagine how ecstatic someone else would be with it. How they would adore wearing it; revere reading it; be wild about listening to it. Only our insistence on not ‘wasting’ prevents this passionate love affair between our surplus item and its new owner; while we remain self-righteously immune to the irony of it all. Our trash could be someone else’s treasure! Take the musical instrument that has forever fallen silent (no, the grandchildren – who have yet to be born – won’t want it in 35 years time either, so let’s forget about that way out). The guitar could carry on singing and dancing through a room with someone else. Possibly even live to see a stage!

So do yourself a favour and declutter the most ridiculous of excuses, “I don’t know who to give it to.” Where there is a will there is a way. The day after the clearout a leaflet drops through the door, our favourite charity announces a collection. Asking around or googling will bring up infinite charitable shops, organisations and good causes that are happy to unburden us: fundraising raffles at a local school or playgroup, children’s home or shelter. As members of www.uk.freecycle.org, we can send one email and someone will collect even our bulky or electrical items.

Why not put some books we are no longer desperate to own into a shoe box and stick a sign on which announces at the next party: “Take us home if you like.” Guests are leaving with a smile, “I came with one present and am leaving with two, thank you.” Such spontaneous bringers of joy love lounging in communal areas of apartment blocks to delight the neighbours. Pieces of furniture have been known to venture out into the road to fearlessly embark on a new life of purpose. The unwanted chair is sitting on the drive, proudly showing off the handwritten message that propels it towards new adventures ‘Please take me away!’ And sure enough, a few hours later it has hitched a lift. Even pots and plants are joining in on the move. We refused to admit it to ourselves, but we were getting slightly exasperated with their ‘having-grown-too-big-ness’. So we stopped dusting or repotting them and at some point in our passive-aggressive resentment we even started to ‘forget’ watering them, feeling terribly guilty. We never intended to kill them off; we just could not cope with that rubber plant any longer. Offered to passersby it now makes someone else’s life complete. The only thing missing in their brand new flat was an oversized foliage plant. We are free as a bird and the new owners will inundate our ex with all the water and love it could wish for. We all live happily ever after.

In times when goods are plenty, the habit of ‘waste not’ becomes a burden. While allegedly worrying about ‘squandering’ coffee-table books or designer jackets, we try to float away from responsibility on an unfit raft made of cardboard and leather. Occupying ourselves with clutter-shifting-DIY brings welcome distraction from more serious waste: that of lifetime. How disheartening for the brand new day if all we use it for is to get through it, somehow, just about. Time does not want to be killed. The most heartbreaking waste lies beyond the world of objects, in frittering away another month, making ourselves at home in the weeks as if the next dawn was guaranteed forever. How about no longer pouring down the drain those potential joys we could experience but do not allow ourselves to? Apparently one of the most common regrets is “I wish that I had let myself be happier.”

What we do does not matter all that much; it is about how we go through our day. How do we want to unwrap this one-of-a-kind morning? No more overlooking the misty magic of white fog clinging to treetops. Noticing how the wind is playing catch with leaves. Joining in, humming along to the gorgeously bright sparkling Song of Now.

Anyone who grew up with tidying as a punishment might end up equating mess with freedom. Contrary to art studio clichés however, creativity does not thrive in permanent chaos. After the brilliant idea has been born it has to rely on its down-to-earth cousins, discipline and organisation to stay alive, to manifest successfully and to turn into visible genius.

Our parents might have passed away a long time ago, but we are still sitting in our bedroom (that has turned into a flat by now), triumphantly defiant “I am not tidying up!” We can scatter stuff wherever we like; this is our place after all. We employ mess to get our own back and have gone to the barricades as some sort of time warped opposition against carers who used to invade our room to ‘tidy up’. As in, dared to mess around with our things and therefore with us, violating both our sanctuary and our privacy.

A bit of a mess can also come in handy to demonstrate to those who live with us that they never help out. Without our saintly efforts, chaos would take over in no time. Perhaps we feel left alone with the responsibilities we are burdened with, that nobody seems to take off our shoulders or at least helps us carry. While living together we feel all alone.

Alternatively, disorganisation can be a means to keep people away. Perhaps we shared a home with flatmates or a partner before, but somehow stuff got in the way. Single’s homes often have literally no space left for a potential companion and their belongings. Couples who remary later in life often end up staying in their respective homes as they cannot bring themselves to let go of their surroundings in order to move on and move in together.