Let It Go - Peter Walsh Page 0,2

trucks, too.

The Let It Go way helps you efficiently make the right decisions about your possessions, even if you’re feeling these hardships. I’ll cover the common downsizing difficulties that people face, and I’ll help you apply the techniques and methods I’ve developed to your specific challenges.

It starts with this central idea: As you look around the rooms filled with the stuff you have to process, the hurt or confusion you feel about getting rid of some of it is not about the stuff. You’re only seeing the surface level. You have to dig deeper. Way down, underneath all this clutter, is where you confront the idea that:

You are not your stuff or your bank account, either, or even your career. If you’ve defined yourself by what you own or what you do for a living (don’t feel bad—a lot of people do this!), downsizing requires you to examine your way of thinking.

You’re entering a new phase that will change your identity. The milestone that has prompted your downsizing is an announcement that you’re no longer a child, a single person, a married person, a career worker, the owner of a big house in a prestigious neighborhood, a person who can call home and talk to mom and dad, or whomever you were before the downsizing event.

Many items you need to shed are firmly glued to you with a sticky layer of memories, sadness, anxiety, and guilt.

Family tension may arise as soon as you start talking about shedding possessions.

Sometimes our attachments to our stuff become overwhelming and paralyzing. In my experience, when you get to this point, your ability to make decisions becomes impaired. Focused action becomes nearly impossible.

When you can’t let your stuff go, your stuff won’t let you move forward.

LIGHTEN YOUR LOAD AND GET OUT OF YOUR RUT

I’ve worked with people who filled a storage unit with the entire contents of grandma’s house after she died. Twenty years later, they were still paying rent on that unit but not once had they looked at the stuff inside. Some people may fill their own homes with a departed relative’s memories. Or they still hang on to their kids’ childhoods after these sons and daughters have started their own families.

Your physical possessions—and the emotional weight they carry—can become so heavy that your wheels sink under the load. Even if you move into a new stage of your life, you can’t appreciate it fully because you’re crushed under your old stuff.

When you downsize well, you will emerge lighter and liberated. You will be surrounded only by items that bring you joy and pleasure. You’re able to make the most of your new opportunities.

Rest assured that you won’t simply wipe your slate clean of all your treasured possessions and walk away empty-handed. That’s not the Let It Go way. If you simply jettison your possessions without confronting the deeper issues attached to the objects, you’ll still have all your old traumas, and all your sadness and anxiety and guilt. You’ll still have unresolved family conflicts and disappointments. All these invisible burdens will come with you. They’ll hamper you from enjoying the next stage of your life (and you’ll just buy new stuff to conceal them).

So what is the Let It Go way? You’ll purposefully confront the items now filling your home. Which ones bring up bad memories? Which ones are creating a wall around you that will keep you from grabbing the new prospects your life is about to offer?

Also, which possessions represent the legacy of your loved ones that you want to preserve? Which possessions can someday carry on your legacy?

Likely, this process will involve some of your loved ones—perhaps your children, whether they’re young or grown; your spouse; your siblings; or your parents. The Let It Go way of downsizing presents an amazing opportunity to resolve problems, strengthen connections, and rediscover meaning in these relationships.

This kind of downsizing does take work. It also takes time. I understand that you may already feel frazzled and overscheduled, with little desire to take on more challenges. But using this approach can actually make downsizing faster and easier. And it’s going to make the next phase of your life so much better.

In recent years, I’ve dealt with several of life’s big milestones. And I have more coming in the near future.

As I write this, my husband and I are contemplating moving to a smaller home in another city, which will require us to let some of our possessions go. I’ve also reached an age (I’ll