Shortage

I found it interesting to find out there was a storage shortage in my area.  Since there are two aircraft carriers currently on the Navy base here in my small town the storage shortage is a result.  The picture associated with this post are the small amount of things I am keeping in a storage unit here in my town.  Of course I have my surfboards/wetsuit, snowboard/gear, chains for my car tires in the winter, bucket, reflextix, set of 7 crystal singing bowls (I will sell these or give away after use) and one tub of extra winter clothes.

I have become more and more aware of the things I do not need each and every day as I a continue to rummage through my things in my home.  Clothing for me is the biggest challenge at the moment.  I had no problem getting rid of kitchen items last weekend.  I feel since I have been camping so much in the past year, I know what I can really get by with or without.   When it comes to the clothing I feel a lot of guilt for buying things I thought I would wear more after I got out of the Navy.  I have experienced a winter, so I know the winter items I will for sure wear and there were not many.  I kept a few sweaters, two down jackets and now I am deciding on some jeans to keep or toss.  I have so many summer times from living in Florida before here, I have taken about three days to give myself time to go through these things.  There is a fabulous book "The Life Changing Magic of Tidying"  by Marie Kondo and I feel today I am going to re-listen to this book after the recommendation from a friend.  In the book, the author suggest to go through each item you have in your home (not only clothing) and as you hold and experience the item as if it brings you joy.  That sounds pretty simple and in this case you would think that many things you already keep in the home bring you joy, but what I have found is that isn't the case.  Many things that I am currently keeping until the next round don't necessarily bring me joy.  The thoughts that mainly come up are "well, I spend the money on this and have never worn it so I must keep it to get my use out of it or money's worth out of it."  This is a problem and I feel this is why so many of us hold on to things that don't really serve our life.  We feel a feeling of lack mentally not emotionally when we contemplate letting something go.  It is all in our head!  What I will share is the feeling of lightness that comes after getting rid of things that you don't need or use.  

I wanted to write this entry this morning to get me pumped for the days work or sorting and discarding that is ahead of me.  I wanted to remind myself of the lightness that I felt when discarding all of the kitchen items that hardly ever were used.  Heck, I even used my dishwasher as storage for baking dishes that I never baked in (maybe once or twice in my history) and I can speak from that experience that I felt so good after all of that stuff was gone.   Mentally we may think we are going to feel a loss or lack when we give things away or even throw them away, but from my experience I feel freedom from the shackles that to much stuff has caused me.