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Posts Tagged ‘staying stuck’

Monday’s Meditation: On Mistakes & Punishment

By Annie | June 8, 2015 | 3

Welcome

Annie Traurig was born with the ability to see order through clutter. As a child, she spent playdates organizing friends’ closets and packing their duffle bags for summer camp.

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If I had an item for every time a client professed their adoration for a belonging they never use because they’re “saving it,” or “too scared about damaging it to actually use it,” I could stock a whole store. Its shelves would be filled with the nicest versions of every sort of thing: bougie skincare, covetable fragrances, blouses and dresses (white), designer handbags, linens from the South of France, antique coupe glasses from grandparents, and on and on.

The list of things people simultaneously own and withhold from themselves is long and varied, but the common mindset is clear: “Save the good stuff for later.”

Save it for what? For whom? Or for when, exactly?

What is the point of having treasured items if we are not to enjoy them?

The notion that you should save the good stuff becomes silly when you consider that its intent is to protect you from being without in the future…by going without in the present.

Even sillier is the belief that you, in your apparently banal everyday life, are unworthy of the most excellent treatment you’re able to procure.

There is no coming Golden Day. There will be no point at which a sign appears announcing “Today is the day you’re worthy of the best, so wear the special shirt and shoes you’ve been saving!”

The time to enjoy your life is now. These, everyday, real-life days are the most glorious ones you’ll get.

I’m not recommending you serve your toddler her yogurt on your prized fine china, or wear your handstitched, white silk blouse to go paint ceramics. Common sense reigns. But deferring to the fear of damaging your belongings by way of general use reaches a point when it isn’t prudent, but self-denial.

Precious as they may be, things are just things. Their purpose is to be used as tools for your ease and delight. Your job is not to do everything within your power to preserve them, but to be present to the grandeur and luxury of your getting to be alive, delighting in the beauty around you.

We are the only ones we need to do our very best to care for as if we were meant to last for eternity.

[calendar designed exclusively by @arielm_garcia ]

#enjoyment #enjoyeverymoment❤️

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Welcome back to this client’s dream lady-pad move-in project…

#professionalorganizing #closetorganization #closetorganizer

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POV: turning chaos into culinary calm…

#professionalorganizing #kitchenorganization #kitchenorganizer

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Closet organizing projects are a perpetual favorite, for clients and for our team. Few other spaces have such a deep impact on a person’s daily life and self-image.

Styled and unpacked by @tiffanywendelstylist, these closets were a delight to add our signature Simply effect to.

#closetorganization #closetorganizer #professionalorganizing

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“All of that came from my basement!?” She pointed to the mountainous pile we accumulated in her entry during the course of our editing session.

We’re used to the scale of donations that so often leaves people’s homes, but she was flabbergasted.

“Why didn’t I do this sooner??” She exclaimed. “I feel SO much LIGHTER!”

It’s a common phrase we hear from clients, and it doesn’t get old.

The lightness that comes from editing is multi-layered.

First is the relief of unburdening oneself of so many would-be responsibilities. Releasing the excess and the extraneous instantly causes an expansion of your bandwidth. Relieved of so many distractions, you feel the lightness of clarity–of knowing precisely what you own, why you own it, and where it belongs in your space. Having a sense of manageability, rather than overwhelm, is powerfully uplifting.

There is also a higher level of lightness that comes as a result of our editing work.

To edit one’s belongings is to center yourself in the present. It is to ground yourself in the truth of who you are now. It compels you to release past versions of yourself, and of the baggage of stale identities or life phases you’ve been carrying around. Letting go of the items that once facilitated activities you no longer do—of clothing you no longer wear, even of food you no longer consume—creates a sense of evolution.
The lightness that our client felt that day, that all of our clients hopefully feel as a result of our work together, is the lightness of honesty with oneself, peace in the present, and calm in one’s surroundings.

Liberation may be more feasible than you’d think. It might just be one edited basement away.

[calendar designed by @arielm_garcia ]

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No other thoughts…🙊🙊🤣

#organizingtips #closetorganization

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Feels like the right time to post this one for the hundredth time…

#memorialdaysale #memorialdayweekend #saleshopping

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Come along on a recent Live Simply move-in project…

#organizingexperts #organizers #professionalorganizing

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Expiration dates are indisputable proof of how long an item has been in your possession. That is valuable information when it comes to editing.

An expired product—whether or not you believe in its safety/ efficacy—has a high likelihood of being unnecessary in your life.

Maybe you’ve let it get out of date because you had too many other options in line ahead of it. Or because you started to prefer an alternative. Or because you stopped eating canned goods altogether. Or because you bought it because you had that weird skin thing that one time and not again since.

Whatever the reason, when you’re looking for ways to lighten your load, expired goods are a low-hanging (potentially rotten and/or flavorless fruit).

#professionalorganizing #declutteryourhome #declutteryourlife #expirationdates #editinghelp

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One’s spiritual center and a Birmingham, Michigan, Coney Island Restaurant would appear to have nothing in common.

The first is an intangible–one’s source of higher knowing, tuned into through calm and focused stillness. The other, a restaurant at which you might grab a hot dog, greek salad, and chicken finger pita.

For me, the two are inextricably linked.

There was a year or two in my childhood when my mom and I had dates at Leo’s Coney Island so often that we had a regular booth, waitress, and order. It was a tumultuous time for my family; my sister was struggling, and my mom’s MS was rearing its brutally ugly head. Sensing my increased need for respite, my mom made our lunch dates a priority. Some days she insisted it was more important than school.

The two of us would sit in that little red leather booth for what felt like hours. We talked and laughed and ate.

I can’t recall any one conversation in particular, but I remember what it felt like. I remember our delight in having a secret escape, a place no one else knew we went, but where we were known. I remember the feeling of her presence and focused attention, and the way she saw me so fully for who I was. No pretense, no distraction, no performing. Pure connection. Joy. Love.

When I feel my busy brain go into warp speed, cataloguing the list of things I need to do and the things I’m not doing, I close my eyes, and think of the two of us in that booth. I focus on the feeling that the memory represents. All of the busy-ness and bullshit fades away, and I feel myself centering again.

Whatever kind of life you’ve lived, there must surely have been a moment along the way when you remember feeling good, safe, and at peace.

Maybe it was the time you spent at the beach as a child. Or, maybe it’s holding your own child. Maybe it’s a vacation you took, or a time you sat and marveled at a particularly beautiful scene.

When you feel yourself going off kilter, close your eyes, take three deep breaths, and tune into it. The place. The people there. The way it looked. How you felt.

Let that memory be your portal to your spiritual core and to the truth of who you are.

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Thanks to a special person in my life for the reminder that some (very well meaning, no doubt) people are still under the impression that goodie bags are a Thing, when they absolutely, most certainly ought not to be.

Save your money. Save the planet! Spare other parents. Pour all the resources you would have directed into bags meant for after the event into the event itself.

#professionalorganizing #clutterfree #clutterfreeliving #declutteringtips #goodiebags

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Come along on a recent kitchen move in day…

#professionalorganizing #kitchenorganization #kitchenorganizer

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There’s a poignant scene in the Barbie movie when Margot Robbie’s character, Barbie, sits on a bench next to an older woman. Barbie is dejected, crying, her shiny blonde bubble having been burst by existential wonderings, which neither her Dream House, her Ken, or her coif can nullify.

The older woman beside Barbie exudes the confidence of vulnerability, experience, and age. The beauty of her humanity is so striking to Barbie that she tells the woman so. Her bench partner replies, “I know.”

It’s worth noting that Greta Gerwig, the film’s creator, declined the urging to delete the scene, saying that without it, she wasn’t sure what the film’s message was.

But of course the recommendation would have been to remove the scene; our society celebrates shininess while overlooking shine. After all, shine is not a marketable commodity.

Shininess, on the other hand, is sold to us in spades: Buy the right status symbols of trendy clothes and covetable bags; drive the right car, belong to the right clubs; wear the best makeup and skincare, achieve the perfect look and you’ll communicate to the world that you are important and in the know and surely you’ll be happy, we’re told.

Instead, what we find is that the endless pursuit of a shiny exterior only convinces us that we are unremarkable without increasing amounts of it.

Shine is different. When you love and accept yourself on a deep level–not for what you look like but for who you are–you kindle an internal light that does not hinge on external factors. When you are tapped into the truth of your worth, show up authentically, and communicate directly, you allow the essence that is you to shine with a radiance that disarms, and that inspires others to beam as well.

Shininess is perpetually dimming and dulling.

Shine grows stronger and brighter as you work to connect with yourself.

One is a futile pursuit that leaves you with less than you started with; the other is a relationship that provides increasing empowerment and fulfilment.

Barbie ultimately chooses to pursue the latter. Which will you?

[calendar designed exclusively by @arielm_garcia ]

#mytimetoshine

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Take a peak inside a recently completed closet move-in / organization project…

#professionalorganizing #closetorganization #closetgoals

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Peeks into a recent move in project.

1. Fought with EVERY single peg to adjust these shelves, and it was worth it
2. Shelf dividers = instantly make things neater
3. folding art care of @y2kira
4. passionate about creating cutting drawers.
5. She said she wanted to live in here, so we’ll call that a win.
6. Sometimes it’s the right time to embrace the rainbow.
7. Whole family medicine cabinet/ cosmetic backstock, check.

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There’s a print hanging in my house of rows and rows of colored dots, each one captioned with a tongue-in-cheek moniker. Were I to count, I’m betting each color is represented in equal numbers.

But sometimes, I’ll look at that print and a red dot will catch my eye. I’ll read the name, something like picnic tablecloth, or Maine lobster, or Tide detergent, and relish the wit of it. When my gaze zooms out, all I’ll see are red-hued dots. I’ll think I’ve never noticed how many red dots that print contains, and wonder if the red dots vastly outnumber any other color.

Another day, my eyes will settle on a lovely blue–dried Hydrangeas your husband doesn’t see the beauty in. Next thing, the whole print will be flush with blues. They’ll appear to pop up towards the surface of the glass, while the other colors sink back down into the paper.

What we look for we find. What we focus on, we attract.

It never fails.

When you consider the variety and vastness of the world and the lengths our minds will go to in order to prove our beliefs are true, you can trust that what you want to see will materialize. And not only will it present itself–it will begin to expand. It will stretch and multiply and replicate, so that soon you’ll see it everywhere. It’ll pop up in line at the grocery store, in traffic on the highway, and in your living room.

If you’re focusing on feeling let down by others, all you’ll attract is more feeling let down.

If you’re focusing on lack, you will create more lack in your life.

If you focus on reasons to feel good, on how things always work out for you, your life will seem to overflow with blessings.

If you don’t believe me, take a large piece of paper, draw seven rows of ten dots, all of different colors. Pin it up and glance at it from time to time, and you’ll see: what you focus on expands, while the rest, though no less present, your mind cancels out.

Look for green; see green.

Look for light; see light.

Feel fortunate; attract good fortune.

Feel hope; attract affirmations.

Feel abundant; attract abundance.

Calendar designed exclusively for us by @arielm_garcia
#lawofattraction
#attractwhatyouwant

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Out here lobbing for The Art Of Folding…

#professionalorganizing #folding #organizinginspiration

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The secret to an organized closet…

is the combination of 3 things:

ruthless editing, intentional organizing, and consistent maintenance.

-Editing. Keep only what you actually wear and feel your best in. Not what you aspire to wear. Not what you once used to wear. Not what doesn’t fit you. Not the things you thought you’d wear at the time you bought them, which hasn’t panned out, causing you to feel guilty. And definitely not the items that feel hard to figure out how to style. You don’t need your clothes to be your job, unless, you know, clothes are your job.

-Organize intentionally.

Give thought to both the nature of your space and your tendencies. Put the items you wear most in the most accessible spots. Get uniform hangers for the love. Fold carefully. Arrange by category. Color code.

-Maintain.

Put things away where they belong consistently. It’s worth it. The end.

#professionalorganizing #closetorganization #closetgoals

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I’m a perfectionist, which means I’m perpetually aiming at doing things beyond even the best of my abilities. In striving, I’ve made my fair share of mistakes.

I realized a while ago how pointless (and damaging) it is to dwell in the lower energy plane of those mistakes longer than necessary. Scolding myself for not having seen back then what I surely ought to have doesn’t change the present circumstances.

The fastest and most assured way to move beyond whatever has transpired is to be committed to using the present moment as an opportunity to learn and improve.

“How will I use this as an opportunity to rise?”

It’s a refrain I’ve adopted and ask automatically now. The question is wonderful because it implies that using the present for greater good is obvious and natural. It isn’t a matter of if we can, but how we will.

Sometimes what’s transpired is far darker than a little, avoidable mistake. Despair, unjust cruelty, and devastating loss are parts of the human experience. So are moments of feeling overlooked, undermined, provoked, disadvantaged, angry at others and at ourselves, and adrift in grief.

Even (and often especially) then, we have the ability to rise by recognizing the valuable lessons each moment contains and integrating the learnings.

After we have processed the pain, released the wound, and relinquished our desire to rewrite the past, our challenges can serve as the kindling that stokes the blaze of our eventual ascensions.

There is so much power in knowing that your darkest place need not be your end point, but a reference point: the way you’ll recognize, one day soon, how far you’ve come.

[calendar design by @ariel_marko ]

#risetogether #riseup

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You are of most service to those around you and the world at large when you’ve first taken good care of yourself.

When you have sufficiently provided for your own needs—your need to breathe, be still, exercise, nourish yourself well, and exist in a calm and orderly environment—you are exponentially better equipped to problem solve for others, think creatively, collaborate, and contribute.

Make the time. It matters…first to you, but ultimately to all of us.

#selfcarefirst #declutteryourmind #timemanagement

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