Elisa Lindstrom
I was a messy child. I had a path cleared in my room to get from the door to my bed. Eventually that changed and I started decluttering. Even though I decluttered, there was a ton of stuff I still held on to. This continued for years. I read all I could on minimalism and took decluttering courses but something was missing. I held onto a lot of stuff out of obligation, guilt and fear.
It changed when my partner and I moved in together. As we decluttered, all of my training from when I was a social worker/therapist started coming into our conversations. The more questions I asked, the clearer it was for me on whether or not I really wanted to keep something. All of the items in my home started becoming a choice and not anything more than that.
Now that I found this new way of seeing objects and going deeper into why we hold onto things, I wanted to offer that to other people who struggle with decluttering.