3 Ways to Simplify your Life: Stuff
Clutter!
Pearls For Life; Family Yoga isn’t just about yoga, we are about providing opportunities for your to enjoy your family without distractions. Summer is the perfect opportunity to take the initiative to slow down and simplify. We want to provide some simple tips to quiet the storm around your life and focus on what matters.
So much of our society is based on consumerism. Many of us try to fight this, many of us give up the battle because we discover it is rooted more deeply in us than we would like to admit.
Stuff!
We collect. We even collect other people’s castoffs (I’m so guilty of this). One day we stop and take a look at everything we have and hopefully realize, enough is enough. All of our things suffocate us. We think they add to our lives, make things easier, make the kids happy, fill our time with more meaning, but they don’t.
Start the Summer Off Right
One of the first things you can do as a family to get the summer started off right, is to declutter.
Of course, you have to make this somewhat fun for the kids. So give them an incentive: they can keep the money from a garage sale if they sell their stuff, give the money to a cause of their choice, spend the money on a family outing (drive-in movie night).
Before you spend the day clearing out the clutter, talk with the kids about why you’re decluttering. Kids like to understand why decisions are being made. Use this opportunity to help reshape their thinking.
Have three piles for the kids: keep, sell/give away, trash. Have a day when you go through the whole house and clear out the clutter. Plan a garage sale or simply put things in bags for people who may benefit from your castaways: friends, family, day cares, homeless shelters, non-profits, schools.
Not sure what to do with kids’ projects? Check out Pinterest for creative ways to display their work or even apps that help you take pictures of the kids’ work and keep them on a file. Take a picture of the kids with their favorite projects and have them scrapbook it in a family album.
Transform clutter into lessons on simple living, family memories and donations to others. It becomes an excellent lesson for your kids to learn about “enough”; how much do you actually need in your life and when do our things distract us from each other and what really matters?
Make this summer about family. Create memoires, live out life lessons. Step out into simple living. Breath. Enjoy.
