Understanding the emotional attachment to our items.
It’s normal to have emotional attachments to our items. You may have beautiful memories attached to your first concert ticket, feel guilty about the expensive dress you never wear and feel sad looking at something that reminds you of a loved one who has died.
But if you’re sentimental over your lecture notebooks because you think you’d need them after university, that’s a different matter altogether. It accumulates into becoming clutter. Letting go of items we have grown up with through the years is difficult. We have clung to these items for comfort, as they remind us of times we don’t wish to forget.
They become part of us.
Removing them from your life feels like saying goodbye to an essential piece of who you are. You probably feel overwhelmed with emotions as you take this sentimental item in your hands knowing it’s served your life one way or another. It becomes a memento of a certain period.
However, these emotions can also feel heavy. Decluttering can help you reassess what’s important in your life—what you should keep and cherish. But in order to reassess what’s worth keeping in hand and worth cherishing in memory, it’s also important to detach yourself from what this has given you in the past and to become present to know whether this item can still give you value.
It’s essential to remember while we are the ones keeping this item thus assigning a designated place for them. We shouldn’t let these items take up space simply because they may be of use in the future (when we have not touched them for a long time). We should be able to discern whether we are using these items or we are letting these items use our space.
Emotions can block us as much as they can guide us. When decluttering your sentimental items, take a step back and assess whether it’s you who’s keeping the item or the other way around. Once you realise this, recognise the value it has given to you then free yourself from the attachment.
In doing so, you’re also releasing the heaviness it has taken up within you and welcoming the lightness that comes when cherishing the memory.
