Simplify your life

Feeling unmotivated, stuck, just not really happy? Try getting rid of some of the junk you’ve been holding onto for years – those objects bought at garage sales and never used, piles of outdated magazines kept “just in case”, shabby suitcases, yellowing birthday cards. Something else might shift in your life as a result.
Quite a bit has been written in recent years about the connection between the state of the head and the state of the home. The buzz word is “decluttering”, with the underlying message being that clearing the physical space in your home can clear up your mental and emotional spaces too.
One reason why this works is simply because you’re taking action rather than passively waiting for something to make a change for you, and there’s power in that. Another reason is not quite as straightforward because it relies on your emotional willingness to let go of objects that don’t serve you any more, as we shall see.
A few weeks ago I finally said goodbye to a skinny pair of burnt-orange jeans I’d once loved. I was free at last. I hadn’t been able to wear those jeans for 12 years, apart from a brief period of sudden stress-related weight loss three years ago. They hung there vivid in my wardrobe, taunting me like a pretty young rival, and year after year I still couldn’t let them go.
Overnight, or so it seemed to me, 12 years ago I became softer and rounder, with thighs and a waist I didn’t recognise. Lines appeared on my face and my hair was turning grey. And all of this coincided with the end of what had been for me a happy, busy and purposeful time – my daughter’s childhood.
I see now that those jeans represented a glorious time between youth and middle age when I still felt young and attractive (okay, slim), self-assured, competent and clear about my purpose in life. In short, it was a time I very much wanted to have back once it was gone. Holding onto those jeans was a sign of not having expressed my grief about the loss of all those things – and that was the key to getting through it.
Once I did my grieving, I was finally able to bring that ‘stuck’ part of myself into the present and live more fully again.
Grief is not something you can get around; it has to be gone through, fully expressed, in order to dissipate. So goodbye, orange jeans (not to mention a certain slinky dress, my daughter’s baby toys, school reports and a large amount of junk in the attic).
Our homes are a lot like our psyches. How bare or cluttered they are, how warm and inviting, says a lot about us and where we’re up to in our lives. What is hidden in the attic or under the bed is closely related to those things in our minds we don’t want other people to know about or we simply can’t face ourselves just yet.
Sometimes we hold onto material we don’t need any more out of an irrational, almost superstitious fear that something terrible will happen if we let it go.
Author Peter Walsh, who has written a number of books on the subject of clutter, says it’s rarely about “the stuff”.
“Clutter is about fear of losing memories, or worry about the future, or a sense that something bad is going to happen,” he says. “It’s a way of dealing with loss, or even a way of masking the pain of some past trauma.”
In assisting people to understand the role of clutter in their lives, he says he always starts by asking whether they’re living the life they want. When they finally get rid of the clutter, the change can be profound.
“As soon as people have space to breathe, their spirits lift,” he says. “They have new energy and hope.”
Due to our personalities or just what we have been accustomed to since childhood, we order our environments in ways that help us to manage our anxiety levels. Some people need predictability, routine and plenty of clear surfaces in order to feel calm, others need just the opposite, and of course other individuals sit somewhere on the scale in between.
Spring-cleaning can be refreshing, freeing the psyche from the emotional burden of what is now just junk. If you’re surrounded by material clutter in your home, a good question to ask yourself is how does it make you feel? If the answer is “not good” or “ guilty” or “ashamed”, for example, you have much to gain by sorting it out. If some things are just too hard to part with, pack them into boxes and store them. In another year or so you might feel differently.
But what about emotional clutter? How do we clear our emotional attics?
Sometimes emotional clutter is created by leaving important things unsaid. This can keep you unnecessarily stuck in the past. If you go about it carefully, you can free yourself by having that difficult conversation, ‘fessing up to what’s been niggling you. If this is too difficult to do on your own yet is causing persistent misery, writing a letter that you don’t post or discussing it with a therapist can help.
Another sign that you might need to do some mental spring-cleaning is if you find yourself going over and over particular conversations or events obsessively, as though the needle is stuck on the record. Meditation or any exercise that focuses your attention on the present can be useful because often this repetitive thinking is about dwelling in the past or worrying about the future in a way that isn’t getting you anywhere.
Understanding the origin of this type of emotion is the key to unlocking it, or at least to being in control of it rather than it being in control of you. Clearing it out of your emotional attic can create space for more positive interactions.
I’m not suggesting this is easy. Very often it takes professional assistance from an objective outsider such as a counsellor or therapist to unlock the old unhelpful patterns that hamper your happiness, and that costs money. On the other hand, a practice that costs nothing and can be extremely beneficial is to take time out on a regular basis just to be with yourself, to slow down, do some relaxation or breathing exercises, meditation, or just to walk and think.
I know, I know. I can hear the choruses of “But I don’t have time” ringing out all over the country. Here’s an idea: try one week without television and see what else you might do with that time. Time really is something you have to give yourself because if you wait for it to turn up, you could be waiting until you’re 100.
Use some scheduled quiet time each week to remind yourself what inspires you, makes you feel most alive, and is what you really want to do with your time. It’s like clearing away those boxes in the attic or tossing out those burnt-orange jeans. It just might allow some space for your innate inner wisdom to show you what’s really important to you. You are undoubtedly worth it.

How to help a friend in grief

Grief is not a cheery subject, but it is something we are all going to have to deal with at some time. And even though it isn't cheery, it is a sacred emotion that deserves our best efforts.
How can we help friends or family members who have lost someone they love? It's not something we generally know much about until it happens.
An important principle to remember is that your aim is to sensitively facilitate the person's expression of grief. As much as you might want to protect her (or him), it's better to do nothing than to say and do things that block or suppress that grief, even though it is uncomfortable.
Grief is not something we can get around. It has to be felt and expressed so we are not stuck with it and unable to move on. Your job as a friend is to offer a safe space where that can happen. Unresolved grief can lead to a range of problems of its own.
 (Subhead) Normal reactions to grief
All of the following are normal reactions: frequent crying; anger; dreams about the deceased; guilt; the need to talk about the person; the need for privacy; relief; yearning; disbelief and numbness; and a range of physical symptoms including sleeplessness or a need for more than usual sleep, stomach aches, headaches, irritableness, depression, yawning or sighing a lot, shakiness, chills.
These symptoms can emerge at any time. Of course, if the physical symptoms persist, it's best to have them checked by a doctor to rule out other causes.
(Subhead) Good grief
Back in the late 1980s, William Worden, an eminent grief and trauma specialist, came up with four 'tasks of mourning' which now form the basis of modern grief counselling. They are:
• To accept the reality of the loss.
• To work through the pain of grief.
• To adjust to an environment in which the deceased is missing.
• To emotionally relocate the deceased and move on with life.
It is regarded as healthy to complete each of these tasks rather than becoming stuck on any one. The process to take up to two to three years and sometimes longer.
Completing the tasks doesn't mean the person is now 'over'
her loss, but that she has accepted it as part of her life.
(subhead) What You Can Do
• Tell your friend you're sorry for her loss. If you can't telephone, write a letter or send a card, preferably a blank one so you can use your own words. This is one occasion when text messages and emails just aren't good enough.
• Acknowledge how tough this time must be for her, so she feels you understand. Say, for example, "This must be so hard for you."
• Say how much you liked [use the person's name], if this is the case, and how you will miss him or her too. Later on you might be able to share some fond memories or photographs of being with that person.
• Ask your friend what would be most helpful to her right now - for instance, taking care of children, doing the shopping, driving her to appointments, bringing a cooked meal. Tell her you really want her to give you a job.
• Let her talk as much as she wants to about her experience of loss and the deceased. Gently draw more of her feelings and thoughts out by asking questions in a respectful manner.
• Just be there, a quiet presence in the background, tidying the kitchen, making cups of tea, taking her for a walk in the park. Be comfortable with her silences.
• Where possible, and only if you can genuinely mean it, reassure her she is doing a good job - for instance, in organising the funeral, dealing with relatives, or taking care of herself.
This approach can be applied to dealing with many of life's losses apart from the obvious one of bereavement. This is because so many of our problems stem from loss of one kind or another - from loss of a job to loss of youth to loss of home or our vision of the future. Shaking them off doesn't serve us well. We need to properly grieve for all of these things in order to come to accept them and move on.