Posted on Monday, August 31 2009 by
Paola ::
Comments (1)
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Photo by ClaMs
I was reading the Sunday paper, it’s our ritual on a lazy Sunday morning, and I came across an article that really highlighted some areas that many of my clients have issues with and to be completely honest with you we too to some degree. People who horde stuff everywhere in their home and in some chronic cases they have surrounded themselves with stuff that they only see the passage to the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. Amazing to even phantom such a state! Well we are not alone, according to a report by the Australian Institute entitled Stuff Happens: Unused Things Cluttering Up our Homes, 88 per cent of Australian homes have at least one room full of trash-slash-treasure. And also interesting is that four out of ten Australians find themselves feeling anxious, guilty or depressed about the amount of disorder in their homes sometimes going to extraordinary lengths to deal with it. Like moving house, adding rooms, even purchasing more stuff like storage containers to accommodate the things that were brought and never used.
It is not just things that make this a modern phenomena, it also includes having the email inbox full, mobile phone message bank full, magazines/books piled up to be read ‘one day’ the 200th pair of must-have shoes in their box. Naturally all of these do have a sentimental value and we associate so much with our past. We risk that we shall forget the memory of it, if we discard it someway. Or that we shall need it one day and if we remove it then we risk having to purchase it again. And so we keep it, pay storage for it if we have to, because we have ‘things’. How many of you have a fondue set that lies dormant in the garage? We do and we have yet to use it, it came with my partner when we got together, and we had 2 house full of things, so gradually over the years we have sold our ‘duplicates’ however some stuff still hangs around. Why is that?
Also electronically I have a large inbox to manage and it does make me feel like being snowed under sometimes. So my challenge to myself is to keep this realistic and once a week to clean up my inbox and put into corresponding folders.
The article also mentions that hording is frequently associated with obsessive compulsive disorder. This explains why some people have the need to keep collecting things even though they really do not need it; ‘just in case’ scenario is the usual response they give.
A good point that came across this article is that there is no problem with holding onto stuff, the problem is when this stuff takes over and you are forever looking at getting more, storing more and not discarding any in the process, to make room for the new.
If you do find yourself with such a problem, help is not far away, a life coach can help you get back on track and help you through transition and ensuring you feel safe and secure every step of the way.