We have too much STUFF. I know a lot of people out there like STUFF. Are constantly in search of more STUFF. And love their STUFF. We do this to some extent ourselves as no one is perfect. But STUFF does not make me happy. And having it laying around the house makes me even less happy. Whenever we set stuff out at the curb for the donation truck to pick up, I always feel a sensation not unlike a weight being lifted off my shoulders. It’s freeing, to get rid of stuff. I love that feeling and I love getting rid of stuff. I don’t do it near enough.
It’s not just physical STUFF that needs to be cleared out on a regular basis though. It’s also the intangible STUFF. The weight that you drag around with you, day in and day out. You may not even know you’re dragging it around. And then one day in a fit of frustration, you cast off that weight and are amazed at how instantly better you feel. Suddenly, you don’t have that STUFF crudding up your consciousness. You feel better, lighter, happier.
I got rid of some intangible STUFF last week. And while not all the scraps are gone just yet, I cast off the majority of it and let me tell you, IT IS FABULOUS.
Life is far too short to complicate it with people that you don’t groove with. Or that don’t groove with you. And when you’re a people pleaser like I unfortunately tend to be, you want desperately to force that “groove” to happen. You find yourself bending over backwards to make nice, to do what you think you should do. To MAKE this person like you. And, simply put, that’s not always possible. You can’t make anyone like you. You can’t force the “groove”. Trying to only makes you feel progressively worse and worse until your self-worth is about the size of gnat and your frustration level is through the roof.
All you can do is cut it away. Like cutting out a cancerous growth. Suck the poison right out of your life and toss it aside. Move on. All these things are far easier said than done, believe me, I know. I’ve struggled with this subject for over two years now. TWO YEARS. That is ridiculous, people. But, judging from what I know of myself, that’s not uncommon for me. I have a hard time letting things go sometimes. Sometimes those things are old notebooks I scribbled in back in high school or a set of favorite books that are collecting dust on the bookshelves. And sometimes those things are not things, but people who do nothing but make me feel bad. The stress of trying to find a way to make them NOT make me feel bad is toxic. And before long, I ache from the burden of it. I clench my jaw unconsciously while I sleep. I tense my muscles to the point of not even noticing that I’m tensing them. And then when those muscles finally do relax, the pain is extraordinary. PHYSICAL pain, people. All from stress.
Now, certainly not all of this stress is attributed to toxic people. There is a lot of things that go on in my life on a daily basis. I’m sure anyone reading this is nodding their head and saying to themselves, “You and me both, sister!” Therefore, I’m sure you can understand taking a look at the things causing your stress upon identifying them, wanting to cut away those things that CAN be cut away.
I can’t cut away my family, of course, and naturally taking care of the little ones every day gives me oodles and oodles of stress. Knitting, while I do love it, gives me stress at least right now when my customs list is a mile long and I pretty much have to knit every moment I can just to keep up. But I cannot cut away knitting either because I do love it.
Toxic people can be cut away. The stress of trying to make it work can be cut away. Chalk it up to a failure and try to remind yourself that that failure is not entirely your fault. Don’t look back. Look ahead. And revel in how FREE you feel.
It is marvelous.
I think I’ll go find some old junk to bag up and set by the curb.
