Can Decluttering Heal You?

Hello, tender friends!

Clean lines. Potted plants. A single tulip in a vase.

I like the aesthetics of most minimalist homes, but could there be more to it than visual pleasure?

Last week I checked out Marie Kondo’s book, “Kurachi at Home” from the library down the road. This quote arrested my attention:

“One curious effect of tidying many clients have reported is that once they have purged their home, they purge their gut. There’s no scientific basis upon which to draw a connection, and this could be due to some other factor like exposure to dust, but it is a phenomenon many clients mentioned. Our minds and bodies are connected, so while you’re tidying, imagine that you’re also cleansing your digestive system. You may find that your circulation improves and your complexion brightens.”

I’ve followed some of Kondo’s advice for a while. When read I about folding your clothes so that you can see every item when you open a drawer about two years ago, I was instantly smitten.

I dashed to my drawer full of work out t-shirts, took them out, and then folded in the sleeves and rolled them up and placed them back in my drawer. I pushed the drawer in and pulled it back out, delighting in how I could now see every item. Some of those poor clothes never got fair wear until then.

Kondo said that being folded in this way would keep the clothes “happier.” I can’t say whether or not my clothes looked happier, but I certainly felt happier afterwards.

I then attacked my sock drawer, energized by dumping the whole thing out and pairing socks that had been languishing without their mate for so long. I know I don’t like being without my mate (as in husband) and I started to feel like it was unfair to my socks to make them suffer this way.

I went through the categories of possessions as she recommends and found that most of what I owned didn’t “spark joy.” I stuffed bag after bag with donations for Salvation Army because she recommends keeping only those things which spark joy.

Keeping only what lifted my spirit made me focus more on those things and feel more of that emotion. Like hearing clean musical notes now that the static was gone. My own life started to feel like a symphony.

Maybe it was the dust, but I believe that emotional response had to be one of the things that boosted my healing.

Emotions are vital to our health, and that fact is backed by science. Emotions are one of the healing factors featured in the book “Radical Remission.” The researcher who wrote it collected data on hundreds of people who experienced healing against the odds and found that getting intentional about experiencing positive emotions was one of the factors that the people who healed had in common. It makes sense since emotions create chemicals and those chemicals/hormones affect immunity.

It also makes sense because God told us to avoid covetousness (Luke 12:15-21). He said the way to achieve eternal life and treasure in heaven was to leave earthly possessions (Matthew 19:21). Turns out it’s possibly also a better way to achieve a healthier life here on earth.

Okay, that’s all for today, tender friends! Thank you for stopping by!

(Oh, and here’s an unrelated picture of me with my darling Cub from yesterday at brunch. Maybe there’s something wrong with my camera phone, or maybe all that light he emits shows up on camera! Not the best picture, but I kind of like how it looks like he’s got a comet going through his head).

Thank you for sharing!

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