Stress is so pervasive that 8 in 10 Americans are plagued by it. Another 41% of us say we don’t have the time to do the things we want to do.
I can’t say that I am one of the 2 people in 10 who doesn’t get stressed, but I can say that I have figured out one way to flip the script on stress. I used to think that stress happened to me, at me, around me, and that I couldn’t help but feel stressed. Now I can (mostly) control my response to the mayhem that is everyday life.
Because you know that crazy is going to happen. Your refrigerator will go on the fritz, your water heater will burst & flood, your toddler will come home from daycare with some ungodly rash that you’ve never seen before (or your “adult” child will be a little less adult than you hoped) and your mother will do that thing that she does that just gets on your last nerve. But I did figure out a way to give myself space and time to step back from the stressful triggers and respond in a way that didn’t add to the mayhem.
I won’t presume to tell you what to do, but I will confess what my life was like, and what I did to regain a measure of control and serenity. Let me start with a back story.
I am a mother of two, married to an international pilot (his schedule is a series of comings and goings and it changes every month) and an entrepreneur with a successful online business. Needless to say, life was hectic. Both girls were deeply involved in the arts, sports (but of course different sports, different teams) and after-school activities. And we had a sprawling home that we thought we needed to house all our things (more on that later). I was up to my ears in commitments.
One day I was trying to control my stress by ‘organizing’ things in my house. Boxes of discards were piled the hall. A friend, over for lunch, noticed the crazy scene and told me about The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. I bought the book that day and read it cover to cover. The sense of simplicity and calm it promised captured my attention, but the possibility of seriously reducing the amount of stuff I owned is what propelled me into action. The following Sunday I tackled my clothing. It took 12 hours start to finish, and I was converted. Over the course of 2 years using the KonMari Method I sold, gave away, or donated decades of accumulated clutter.**
I can’t really fully explain how it’s changed me. I’d sound like a TV evangelist, a QV salesperson, a cult member. But it really is transformative. Aside from the more holistic/well-health aspects of the KonMari method, let me say this about the practical side. I used to look at my mountains of clothing, piles of papers, kitchen cluttered with projects and art supplies, and mudslide of electronics and feel helpless and ashamed, yes ashamed, of having so much to deal with. I thought ‘why can’t I control it all? I’m smart and capable– how could it get this bad’? Friends and neighbors who stopped by may have thought my home was organized, but I had a secret ‘clutter bunker’: the sunroom...a ‘sun’ room that rarely saw the light of day it was so full of junk. The answer to ‘where should I put this?’ was always the same (but that’s another post)
More than anything applying the KonMari Method to declutter and organize gave me space, time and energy. When the physical clutter left, so did much of my mental clutter, and that gave me a chance to step back when something stressful happened. Gave me the space, time, and energy to decide how I wanted to react. Where before if the refrigerator died or my teenager pushed my buttons, I might have gone into an anxiety spiral, an angry flare-up, or the black hole of self-doubt, instead the stressful event became just another one of those little big things that happen. With space and time came a bit more control over stress.
So let's recognize pervasive stress and let’s get started dealing with it head-on, regaining some sense of control in this crazy world. Give me a shout- helping you regain your calm is what I love to do.
–Kerry
** In August of 2016 I attended the first KonMari Consultant Training Course in NYC and became the first certified consultant in Massachusetts, #12 in the world. Result? I’ve helped people discard so much clutter and in turn find more space, time and balance in their lives.