How to break the emotional ties that prevent you from decluttering
I was picking my 9-year-old, Paul, up from school on Friday when I saw him coming toward me, looking very dejected.
As he approached, he said, “I was very sad today.”
After asking what was going on to make him feel that way, he showed me how the zipper had broken on his coat and would no longer work.
Trying to ease his mind, I said we would go to the store that afternoon and find another coat. But he was still sad. He had really liked his coat.
For the next 45 minutes, Paul tried to find ways to repair the broken zipper and make the coat useful.
After picking up the other kids, we headed to the thrift store and found a brand-new coat for $8.
When we came home, I put his old coat in the trash. But that was hard for him to see and a few hours later, he was getting ready for bed and became very emotional; he kept thinking about his old coat and feeling bad about throwing it away.
I don’t want to traumatize my kids with decluttering
So I’m not going to force them to declutter. Since he was very upset, I retrieved the coat (thankfully not disgusting yet), put it in a bag, and set it in his room.
I told him he could get rid of it when he was ready.
We went through the weekend. He felt bad every time he saw his coat. We talked about it quite a lot, and at one point, I asked him if he thought the coat had feelings and would be upset with him for throwing it away.
He said no.
And then a breakthrough
Monday came around, and again, we were alone in the car on the way to school.
Paul spoke from the back seat, “Mom, I sort of do feel like my old coat has feelings.”
“Oh good!” I thought, “now we can get somewhere.”
He said in one of my Declutter-a-thon events, I had said that some of our things yell at us: “You should take care of me! You should clean me! You should deal with me!”
And he felt like his coat was saying, “You should keep me and take care of me!”
“So your coat is bossing you around, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“But who gets to tell you what to do??”
“Only my parents and God.”
“Yes! So your coat doesn’t get to be your boss, does it?”
“No.”
“Good. When you get home this afternoon, you can tell your coat who the boss is.”
And he did.
When he got home from school, he marched right into his room and said, “You are not the boss of me!”
Then I asked him if we could throw the coat away now.
Yes, he was ready.
“Do you want me to take it out to the garbage, or do you want to go with me?”
“I will do it.”
We walked out together, me carrying a bag of trash, him carrying a bag with his old coat.
He tossed it in the bin, we closed the lid and went back inside.
In the evening, he said he still had some concerns about the coat and said he was still thinking about it a bit, so we talked more, and I reminded him that it was no longer his responsibility. As soon as he put the coat in the trash can, his responsibility to take care of it was gone and if he needed to, he could remember that God was responsible for everything. Paul didn’t need to be.
It’s been a few days now; the garbage truck has come and gone, there have been no tears, and this morning Paul said,
“I haven’t been thinking about my coat.”
“That’s a relief, isn’t it?”
“Yes!” he replied, very contented.
Sometimes decluttering is facing a lot of feelings that can be hard to articulate.
Why do we feel mixed emotions about getting rid of things that are simply made to serve us?
We can remind ourselves:
“Yes, I feel this way, even if it’s not logical, but my feelings are just feelings. They are not facts. They are not always true. And I am the only one who gets to decide what I care for and what lives with me in my home. People outside my home don’t get a say in it. The items themselves don’t get a say in it. Only me. I am the boss of what I keep and what I take care of. If it is no longer useful to me, I get to dispose of it how I see fit.”
I agree with Paul that things have feelings! Sometimes when I need to release an object/clothing/whatever that I’ve had for a long time and have loved it, I thank it for whatever service it has provided in my life. Old cooking pans helped me feed myself and others. Clothes kept me covered and helped me express myself with their style and color. And coats have kept me warm and accompanied me on adventures. I feel that it’s important to honor the place some special things have held in our lives. Expressing my thanks and gratitude helps me let go more easily, and if I’m donating those things, they can serve the same purpose for others.
Thanks for posting this beautiful story, Rachel! 😊
I’m the same way with items. I always try to recycle anything I can, and tell myself that old cooking pan will be recycled into something useful and beautiful again. With clothing, I’m lucky to have a non wearable textiles donation site nearby and my torn or stained clothing gets turned into insulation or carpet. That makes me feel so much better about decluttering and honestly helped me let go of so much.
I read your blog outloud to a family member tonight. It just touched me so much…the processing of emotions so real and heavy inside Paul and your wise parenting. What a life lesson for him (and us). Thank you for sharing this with us. Although I am in my late 50s I recall vividly not being able to throw away my stuffed animals because I didn’t want to hurt their feelings!
I understand your point of the article, but wouldn’t it have been easier for him and you, not to mention the environment, to just get the zipper repaired?
I have several reasons – I know my limits and what I am willing to do. I hate replacing zippers, so I know it wouldn’t happen and I’ve learned to be honest with my children instead of promising to fix something but never fixing it. Although it would be possible to have a tailor do it, it would have been more than the $8 I spent to get one at the thrift store, and we would have had to wait for a couple of weeks to get it done. He needed a new coat to wear to the next day.
You lost me with the “god” nonsense.
Great article with excellent point about emotions, but in this case I agree with commenter above: Textiles make up a staggering amount of the stuff in our landfills. A $25 zipper replacement to make a coat perfectly usable again (even if just passing it on to someone in need) seems a small price to pay.
It’s great how you handled it. To repair my purse ( I am not a purse person so I only have a small purse for everyday and a big purse for longer trips) to replace the zipper on the small purse cost more than the purse itself cost and I am not that rich or I would not be buying g things on sale( okay yes I will always look for on sale) so yes I donated because someone who can sew could maybe repair it as it was still in good shape but I think you did a great job helping him through his feelings. That will help him throughout life because I was raised up to keep everything and I am 60 years old and just learning through you and others who write about decluttering… I am just learning how to declutterand keeping all the stuff throughout the years took time away that I could have spent with my children. God gave us stuff to use and only God can destroy this old world. We don’t have that kind of power though some ppl like to think they do! Lol
Hi Rachel
I really appreciate that you write blogs as well as doing video’s because I’m deaf so video’s are not so useful for me .
I love your practical no nonsense approach to looking after a home and it’s contents/ clutter/ junk , it makes it so much easier to get rid of all the unnecessary unused and not needed things that clog up my space and almost suffocate me .
I laughed when you suggested getting rid of 2023 things this year because even my house doesn’t have that much stuff ( I thought) but the. I remembered a whole box of paperwork that accumulated when I had to act as the executor of my husbands will . I kid you not , the pile is 18 inches / 46cms high and it all needs to be shredded because it contains sensitive information.
It’s a boring and long drawn out process but will I ever be pleased to see the back of it .
I’ve also clearly out dozens of balls of knitting yarn , even though I knit an awful lot , maybe 2 jumpers a month, but having it take up space in my cupboard drives me mad . I still have enough to get me through the next few months so It’s a win win situation for me .
Thank you for your encouragement and practical approach.
Thank you Wendy! All those little things add up quick! ❤️