Possessed Versus Letting Go

Vicky Silverthorn is a professional organizer. She can clean up any mess in your home or study. Let’s backtrack. Why did we hang onto items that now clutter our space in the first place? Are we possessed by possessions?

According to a study cited in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, researchers find that folks link certain items to their self-worth. When they no longer have said items, they grieve for lost possessions in terms of their tie to them as part of their self-identity. There are extreme “hoarders” (2.6% of the population, according to the American Psychiatric Association) and more common “packrats” who suffer from a difficulty categorizing “an array of items with minimal value into groups.” 

My personal packrat-itis has roots. Both of my parents fit the description. They had an excuse. The nation’s depression was a major event in their early years. As the oldest of 10 children, my mother recalled not having much food to eat; she recalled having “coffee soup” (coffee over a piece of bread) as a meal. She sometimes was asked to take a skillet containing leftover gravy (over bread) down the alley to a family with less to eat than her own family. How could there be leftovers from a dozen people at their table? Such experiences were vivid for my mother many years later. She was a saver of tin foil and plastic bags for reuse, as well as much larger items that became clutter build-up. Dad had saver parents who knew they might “need” an item “someday.”  

Silverthorne advises that “Clutter can affect our mood, productivity, ability to think clearly, and overall mental processing. It can contribute to stress, impact our well-being, and really alter our focus…for a free-flowing house and a free-flowing mind, reducing clutter really helps.”

Words of wisdom may not be enough to make the letting-go process possible. In moving from a larger home to a smaller one, I encountered clutter closets that I could escape from for years with merely closing the doors. The day of reckoning came with moving: I had to face the fact that there were simply too many items to take with me…and many of them did have minimal value…to other people.  

Each “minimal value” item was attached to some memory. It was memories and the relationships attached to those memories that I did not want to let go. With practice, I am learning to give up keeping “everything,” although my learning curve is a bumpy ride. I do not find Silverthorne’s advice to ask, “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” very useful. More appropriate to my situation, I recall the person who gifted me an item, thank them silently, and then send the item into give-away land. Admittedly, this takes time. It is not as easy as it may sound.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

409. How do you handle keeping versus giving-away decisions in your home?

410. What is your method for letting go of items of “minimal value”?