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Feb Travel Light challenge: update

February 14, 2015admin

I’ve been quiet for the past week because I’ve been practising what I preach… I really have toned down my online time and the content I’m consuming.

Admittedly, I’ve also had a flu, which helped.

I could barely move for days so instead I read and watched movies.

Now that I’m better, I’m trying to catch up on my work, which means a lot of procrastinating and aimless surfing the net.

Usually.

The past few days I’ve been focussed on not allowing negative and meaningless stories to filter back into my daily routine.

They waste my time.
They waste my mental energy.
They trigger emotional responses in me that I don’t need to have, such as fear.
They block me from forging new habits and new neural pathways.

The longer I refrain from clicking through on silly kitten clips and frightening news stories, the easier it becomes to move towards the content that feeds my spirit.

I’m not sure what Kim Kardashian is up to this week (and that’s a relief).

I have no idea what ISIL is doing today.

My one struggle is not knowing the latest updates on Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran’s execution date. It’s the one news story I have problems switching off from. But that’s the point of February’s challenge. My heart aches for these men and their families… their mothers. But my life is in no way connected to these men, and yet my emotional energy is being impacted daily. I’ve allowed that.

Here in Australia it will be hard to escape the media after they die. But I’m doing what I can to not obsessively watch it unfold… and instead, when they cross my mind I send light to them and their families.

I’m even swamped energetically, writing about this now… so let’s move into a more positive vibration.

This month’s challenge is to filter the media we consume. To stop ourselves from disappearing down the rabbit hole of negative media.

So what have I been doing?

I’ve set up an ebay shop (remember all that clutter from January? The best pieces are on here)
I’ve been putting together a teaching course.
I have been spending time reading up on Japanese Yoga, the form of yoga I practise and adore.
I’ve been reading more about Vipassana meditation.
I’ve been planning a holiday for my kids, later in the year. There’s nothing I love more than putting together an amazing itinerary for an overseas adventure. Sometimes I think I should be a travel agent.
I’ve read a couple of books and seen some lovely films.

And I’m feeling clear and inspired. How are you going?

Declutter your mind

February 5, 2015admin

We spent a month decluttering our external environment. This month we’re starting the internal declutter.

First challenge is to FILTER YOUR INFORMATION. Diminish the meaningless and often harmful chatter. Mindfulness is about awareness. It’s not just about sitting in meditation for twenty minutes a day. It’s about being aware of every action, every reaction… every thought.

We begin this journey by becoming aware of the chatter—the information we absorb.

Is it positive?
How does it make you feel?
What are the ripple effects of those feelings in your life? For example, does watching the news make you fearful?
What will you gain from switching off to negative or meaningless information online?
What will you lose?
What are your trigger points?—Those moments in the day where you find yourself surfing sites online that don’t nourish your spirit?
Can you consciously use those trigger points to add information to your life that will nourish your mind and spirit?

Think about it.

Don’t think about Kim Kardashian, or ISIL, or the cute kitten video that’s going viral at the moment…

Think about the information you consume and how you can use it to help change your life this year.

Be mindful of information.

FEBRUARY CHALLENGE

February 3, 2015admin

Okay, January is over (but not forgotten… so keep decluttering!)

This month… your Travel Light challenge is… filter your information.

Studies have shown that your typical social media user consumes 285 pieces of content daily, which equates to an eye-opening 54,000 words, and, for the truly active, as many as 1,000 clickable links. Everyone is bombarded by the equivalent of 174 newspapers of data a day.

Each day we take in 5 times more information than we did in 1986.

Most of it’s meaningless. Much of it is negative. And each piece of media and information has an impact on how we think and feel.

It shapes our world.

This month we will take care and be aware of what we’re reading, watching and absorbing. Don’t click on the links that take you into a world of violence. Don’t spend your time on things that are superficial or inane. Use your time online wisely… Search out positive images, videos and stories. Or turn off and read books.

Inspire yourself. Motivate. Learn. Be mindful.

You will be amazed at the difference a month makes when you commit to consuming positive rather than negative media.

Change your habits & your life will change

February 3, 2015admin

January was about decluttering your environment. Clutter drains your energy. It’s baggage you don’t need. Travel light.

I spent the final week of January howling. Why? Because decluttering your external environment impacts your internal world. I don’t mean tossing some old makeup and shoes out. I really went in deep (opened boxes) and memories, that had been stored for years. I let go of years and years of STUFF… It left me feeling raw and strangely free. Who would’ve thought decluttering could do that?

These boxes were full… now they're gone. — These boxes were full… now they’re gone.

How did you go? Didn’t quite declutter as much as you’d like? No problem. The good news is this month you’ll continue decluttering. In fact you’ll continue tossing and cleaning and clearing your clutter ALL YEAR. Habits take time, so while we’ll focus on a new healthy habit each month, we’ll incorporate that new habit into our lives for the whole of 2015.

By the end of 2015 you’ll not only have 12 new habits, but also a very different mindset and life.

Not sure why I overlooked all of this in the past.

Decluttering my emotions

January 28, 2015January 28, 2015admin

January is nearly over, but I’m still tearing the house apart. I keep finding more areas to declutter. In my last blog I talked about going in deep. Really question why you keep certain things.

Hit the discomfort zone and declutter there.

There’s a very good reason for this.

It’s not just your external world that you’re decluttering… it’s internal too.

We feel good when we clean our space.

We feel even better when we declutter.

But when we really address the baggage we have stored away… we address the emotional baggage that goes with it.

The emotional response can be quite overwhelming.

I’ve always had things neatly stored, both in my home and internally. This week I’ve ripped the lid off everything and thrown, tossed, faced and finally… let go.

I have cried. Boy have I cried. I’ve been surprised by the waves of emotions that have swamped me at times, for all sorts of things.

The passing of time.

The mistakes that I’ve made.

People I’ve lost.

The end of my first marriage.

The areas of my life I still haven’t healed, haven’t mastered… or simply haven’t addressed.

As my past came out of boxes, it came out of other places as well. A great aunt told me mind-blowing family secrets. My parents told me things that had never been voiced before. Generations of pain and secrecy have been released.

And healing has begun.

I opened boxes and I found letters and cards from my first husband. I cried for a lost love, eight years after it died. I’ve been able to place a few of these letters away for each of my sons. It’s their history now. And it’s a lovely history. It was a beautiful romance. It just died. I cried not because I held out hope but because enough time has passed now and I can finally see how wonderful that love was. That’s a healing.

I have laughed, and cried, and even felt like I was going to throw up. And as each bag of stuff gets tossed in the bin, there is space, both in this house, and inside me, that I haven’t felt before.

I lay in bed last night and I could feel the space. I also feel raw, but I feel clear, and energized… and there is space.

SPACE.

I’m travelling light.

Sign up to my newsletter for more tips on decluttering your internal and external world. And find out what February has in store for us.

Travel Light with me this year.

One week to go!

January 24, 2015January 24, 2015admin

We’re on the home stretch! Hopefully by now you’ve achieved some major decluttering. I know I have. But I’ve also discovered, there’s no point scratching the surface with this exercise.

Go in deep.

There’s always more to do. There’s always more to let go of.

I’m a good declutterer… but this month I’ve taken it to a new and often uncomfortable level. I’m challenging myself by clearing and tossing things I’ve overlooked in the past. I don’t need these things but I’m scared of letting go!

And it’s during this feeling of discomfort that we have the opportunity to embrace change.

This month I’ve embraced the discomfort and thrown things out anyway. Gone, cleared.

This is where the space for change is created.

I clear my wardrobe about three times a year. I always thought I was good at it… but something has shifted for me this month. A couple of days ago, I tackled my wardrobe again. The results were this:

I’ve cleared three quarters of it. I don’t need it. I don’t want it. I don’t wear it.

I want something different in my life.

Not clothes. Not things. Something richer than that. I want to travel light.

And to do that… one must let go of the baggage.

How are you going this month with letting go?

Childhood baggage: let it go!

January 17, 2015January 17, 2015admin

We’re over halfway there in our major decluttering month.

January is not just about cleaning the house. It’s about shaking up the energy around us—starting the year by getting the universe to take notice. You can desire change… but unless you actively put it into action, nothing will happen.

By decluttering constantly this month, we’re shouting out, “I want change… I am changing.”

We are taking consistent steps towards forming a new and healthy habit—the ability to let go.

I’ve been decluttering for months now, but really gone in hard recently. This month I’ve been away from home so taken my decluttering to a new and often uncomfortable level.

Remnants of my past... — Remnants of my past…

I’ve cleared the things I’ve had stored at my mother’s house for years. There were:

Boxes of childhood toys and books
Some clothes I’d kept
Boxes that I’d had sent back here from overseas
Boxes of baby treasures that I’d left here when I went travelling with my son
Schoolbooks, letters, old love letters and diaries
Years of things I thought were important

Some things were easy to toss. I got my sons to look at my toys and choose one each for any future granddaughter I might have. They didn’t seem that enthused and said all the toys looked creepy.

ME: “No, they’re vintage now.”

SON 1: “They look like they’ll come to life tonight and stab us.”

ME: “They’ve been here for years.”

SON 2: “Yeah locked in a box. But they’re out now. Watch out.”

Later my two clowns were seen leaving on a friend’s car.

So the toys were easy to throw. The majority was a little uncomfortable… I knew I had to let go but still… it was bittersweet.

Letting go of some things was really tough. But let go I did, because unless we let go of our baggage, how will we Travel Light? And it’s when we travel light that we feel, experience and receive all that life has to offer.

She's staying with me for now. — She’s staying with me for now.

Did I let go of everything? No. I couldn’t part with Raggedy Ann, or my half-written romance stories from when I was young. Or the romance story I wrote for school with the note from the teacher: “Interesting ideas but you should lay off the melodrama.”

I also kept this patchwork dress my great-grandmother made me when I was 5. Irreplaceable.

There’s one last thing I need to toss. I’ll share that with you later and get your advice.

How’s your decluttering going?

Goodbye vintage clothes… sob!

January 13, 2015admin

I have a collection of vintage clothes. I used to wear them all the time and figured when I got too old for them, I’d pass them onto my daughter.

Then life gave me four sons.

So I clung to them for a few more years, hoping my best friend had a daughter. She understands a great vintage piece. She lugs around a collection ten times the size of mine. It’s a phenomenal collection of clothes that she figured would one day be passed onto her daughter.

But life also handed her a male child.

So being daughter-free, with no one to pass our vintage creations on to, we recently had to decide

Do we save them for when we’re over seventy and can safely wear them again? (Make a choice now… will be eccentric ole broads with pink hair who ride bikes and wear vintage dresses?)
Do we save them in the hope that one of us will have a granddaughter?

Or do they go?

I love my vintage dresses. I had such a wonderful time wearing them. I looked fabulous in them. It’s only now, in retrospect, that I see how truly great I looked.

But it’s time to let go.

What are you holding onto you stuff for? And is it worth it?

Hit a declutter slump? 5 top tips for getting through it.

January 11, 2015admin

So you’ve thrown a few things out, organised a drawer or two, but now you’re feeling the pressure. Either time, or your baggage is stressing you out and you don’t want to declutter every day. In fact… you think you’ll rebel.

“Bugger you Jane! I like clutter. I don’t need change.”

That’s me talking to myself, but you might be saying something similar. The further along you get this month, the harder it will be. But this is a great exercise. You have the universe on the line now. So let that higher power know, loud and clear:

“I AM CHANGING THINGS HERE. SO ANY TIME YOU FEEL LIKE JOINING IN, I’M READY.”

Here are 5 top tips for getting through the slump:

It’s important to do something each day, but that can be as little as five minutes. It’s not the amount of time you put in, it’s what you toss out.
If you’re really overwhelmed do a week of decluttering things that don’t mean anything to you: the fridge, the pantry, a folder of bills.
Do your daily declutter early. Get in, throw out, get on with your day. You’ll feel the benefits.
Dance while you declutter. I put together a playlist here.
Each time you go to toss something you think you still need or want (but know you don’t) breathe. It’s just a thing. As you let it go, think about what will replace it.

Four boxes of stuff: Working out what’s really important.

January 9, 2015admin

My ex-hubster just sold his house. I still had some things stored in his garage, so spent an afternoon clearing them out. It was an interesting experience.

Stored on a high shelf were four medium sized boxes filled with things that I hadn’t seen for years. They were from my “Japan life.”

When I left Japan, I moved to Austria. I went through the stuff that had built up in my Tokyo apartment (positively minimal by today’s standards) and shipped a box of things to Vienna.

These were the things I thought I couldn’t live without.

I’d settled into an apartment owned by my in-laws by the time the box arrived in Vienna. Six-months later, I moved to London. I packed up my things, added a few more treasures from the Vienna stay, and stored the boxes at the in-laws’ house. I figured I’d get them soon.

Years passed.

I visited Vienna but kept telling myself I’d get those boxes later. My life was so transient. I had nowhere to put them.

Fifteen years after I left Tokyo, I had the boxes shipped to my new house in Sydney.

I didn’t have time to open them. I stored them in the garage.

More time passed. My marriage ended. I moved a few times. The shape of my family changed. And then recently my ex put our old home on the market.

And I found myself in his garage going through the things I couldn’t live without… but clearly had.

Four boxes of STUFF. Four boxes of things and bits and pieces and books and memorabilia. And I realised, none of it meant anything to me any more.

I spent the afternoon searching through those four boxes looking for one thing. The final letter my grandmother ever sent me. I knew it was there. I’d placed it in one box after her death.

I searched and searched. I began to panic as each box was emptied and nothing important could be found. I barely glanced at most of the stuff. The one thing that was important was missing.

Finally I found it. The letter was tucked into the back of an old address book. The paper is so fragile now, the ink faded. I sobbed as I read it. She’d died while I was overseas. The one thing she’d left for me disappeared, taken by other family members. This letter is what I have now.

I could still hear her voice, her laugh as she wrote it, pretending to scold me over my previous letter to her. “I’m sure we brought the wrong baby home from the hospital when we got you. But don’t worry, we love you anyway.”

And signing off… “You are my first thought in the morning, my last thought at night. I love you.”

There are things… and then there are things. That letter is a treasure to me. It is the one thing I’m keeping from four boxes of stuff. It has made me re-evaluate what things are important. What things I hold dear.

There are very few things really.