How to Cultivate Minimalism for Fulfillment ⋆ Earth and Water

I’ve been studying minimalism for a while. It’s basically the “Less is more” concept. The less “things” you have, the more you can enjoy the things in life that are really important.

In our consumerism based society, we’re constantly being marketed to in a way that makes us think our next purchase will make our life better or help us to find happiness. Our happiness does improve with each purchase but it’s a temporary fix. A bandaid on a gaping wound. A high that wears off to leave us still craving more.

Minimalism helps us to fill that hole within us once and for all. If we can eliminate that need to buy things to make ourselves feel better, we can finally find some lasting ways to REALLY make ourselves feel better, once and for all.

The Stages of Minimalism

I’ve been downsizing for a few years. When you accumulate a life time’s amount of things, it can take a while to sort through it all. A big misconception of minimalism is that you can clean out your closet or your kitchen once and be done. With a “Ta-da!” after a couple of hours you’re ready to start taking those beautiful minimalistic pictures you see on instagram.

The reality is that it’s an ongoing process. You go through spurts of clearing in different areas of life and each one is a mindset transformation you have to go through. The different stages tend to look like:

Excitement over minimalism. Inspiration to clear.
Letting go of the things you aren’t attached to.
Letting go of things you thought you wanted to keep.
Getting rid of the “Just in case” or “one day” items.
Releasing nostalgia.
Allowing sentimentals to go.
Clearing out of joy

When you first start, you find that letting go and getting rid of things isn’t as easy done as the concept sounds and you may even need to enlist some help in the begining (I did). If you keep it up, though, you’ll notice more and more benefits and eventually become addicted to letting go and crave more space.

The Benefits of Minimalism

I’m always looking for more to let go of in my home, mind and business. The more you get rid of, the freer you’ll feel. The simpler life will be and the easier happiness, peace and fulfillment will be found.

The more space we create in our life and mind. the less anxiety, stress and overwhelm will creep up into our daily happenings. We can begin to fill this newly found space with things that are truly good for us.

Experiences
Quality time with our loved ones
Self care
Learning

If you can quit the quick fix of shopping, you can instead gain some really life fulfilling things. We can’t fill space in our lives that isn’t there, though. So the more space you can create by getting rid of unessential things, activities and what not, the more space you’ll have for all of the important things.

Getting Started With Minimalism

Our outside reflects our inside and visa versa. The more space we create in our lives, the more pressure we take off of ourselves and the more space the universe has to fill with that which benefits us.

To figure out what to let go of, look around and ask yourself:

What do I really NEED?
What is just collecting dust?
What has no real purpose?
What have I not touched in a year?

I never recommend keeping things “just in case” or “because in the future XYZ”. If it doesn’t have an immediate purpose, ditch it.

There are so many different areas of our lives to apply minimalism to. It’s a concept that stretches not only to the knick knacks sitting on shelves, but also to:

The files on our electronic devices
Our closets
The “memories” we hoard in the form of solid things
The papers we keep files of when we could go paperless (like bills & documents that could be transferred to electronic devices)
Our kitchens
Packing for things (backpacks and purses)
The projects we take on
The events we agree to participate in
What we eat
What media and entertainment we consume
Parenting
EVERYTHING.

Pick one thing at a time to go through and see what you can donate, give away or toss. Don’t try to do everything all at once. Focus on stopping the in flow of things. That’s often the hardest part.

Other Areas to Clear Space

Opt for paperless billing and banking
Unsubscribe to all the emails you never open or read (And Sign up for mine here)
Turn off social media notifications.
Unfollow those with negative vibes.
These easy steps you can be done today will free up tons of space for you.

Minimalism is a vast subject. I’m always finding a new area to apply it to.

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