A Response to the MarCon Method: Decluttering from the Inside Out
Laura Staley, Ph.D.
Love Your Space, Love Your Life! I Facilitating healthier connections to home, others, and self through decluttering, Feng Shui, and emotional intelligence I Speaker I Author I Compassionate Guide I
“Our crazy culture warns forbiddingly that you will lose what you don’t clutch.â€
-Tosha Silver
I appreciate the core of Marie Condo’s message in The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering. I am aligned with: Live with belongings that “spark joy,†let go of the rest. I appreciate her lifting the lid on such an important challenge in our culture. For those who desire outside proscribed, one size fits all processes, the MarCon method can be one that works beautifully. Her method breathes at the surface, where I and many others offer a deeper dive. For those interested in the plunge into a layered look at clutter, you probably will want to continue reading.
Listening to others clutter challenges and navigating my own for almost 20 years, I have discovered that it’s important to honor emotions, to hold a space of presence, and to feel much compassion. Your relationship to your belongings often connects directly to memories, stories, and associations. Belongings can even evoke thoughts that set off a cascade of what’s going on in your complicated heart, nuanced and busy/messy life. For some of you it takes much courage to pick up a belonging and walk it out of your home. How do I know this? You tell me all the time.
The resistance to clearing clutter remains entrenched and quite fierce for many. Deeper inner work (with thoughts/feelings) often needs to take place to create and maintain a sustainable shift in your relationship to your space and quality of life. I’ve felt the indignation, jealousy, fear, shame, embarrassment, anger, frustration, and grief emerge when you begin discussing your clutter or someone else’s clutter. I know you have stories about your things, the stuff you’ve accumulated. I know you may hold beliefs (a mindset) about belongings such as “More is Better.†Or “I am not enough,†some version of “not enough,†or “I might need it someday.†For many you believe your value got embedded in your possessions. Accumulating became the game decades ago. The emotional challenge of clutter at its core could be summed up in one word: fear.
Walking away from what doesn’t spark joy may not be so clear cut or easy. It often involves directly confronting our deepest fears, occasionally our fury, and often our grief. We’ve been trained to clutch tightly to what we think we might lose without realizing we are surrounded by an abundant world of experiences and opportunities.
The one big “whoosh†approach of the MarCon method can work in certain situations. To intentionally let go of one’s belongings in one big “whoosh†takes great clarity, profound detachment, and a seemingly dispassionate heart. Yet, almost all the people I’ve listened to and guided over the years have profound and deep emotional bonds with their things. They cannot even imagine parting ways in one fell swoop, as this might create an emotional tsunami from which they could not easily recover.
It is great to know that the MarCon method has brought this issue to the light of day. People are in action. I celebrate that her book is a New York Times Bestseller and that the MarCon method is a Netflix series. I’m happy to know that belongings are shifting to charities in great quantity. That’s quite an exquisite result.
I also am strongly committed to understanding the root causes of all types of clutter (space, mind, body, heart, spirit) and supporting a sustainable transformation for people and our world. I look at life as a series of connections, like interwoven DNA. Things, thoughts, feelings, circumstances, actions, commitments, values, spaces, places, and people create a kind of neuro-network of our realities. Empowering our relationships with ourselves-our hearts and minds, one another, and things takes a great deal of self-awareness, self-discovery, and courage. To live with greater freedom, gratitude, grace, peace, and wholeness often takes time and many actions.
The deeper questions and commitments remain on the table to be addressed by those of us who share this passion and intention. Will the deeper beliefs of people shift to sustainability, flow, and genuine generosity? Will there be an emotional shift away from fear to one of joy and fulfillment? Will the root causes of why people accumulate clutter in the first place be addressed and healed? These continue to be some of the important questions I ask of myself and others.
I’m passionate about helping people thrive in their lives, create spaces they love even when life is messy, heartbreaking, or just plain overwhelming. I am willing to stand with you in this place as a compassionate guide, trusting you to know your process, to anticipate with you the experience of empowerment and freedom you seek. Understanding and shifting your inner world of thoughts and feelings can be a key ingredient to a transformation from the inside out. It’s a process that can take several months, years, decades or a lifetime. Untangling, dismantling, and letting go take courage and sometimes several compassionate guides for sustainable results in your experience of living a free and fulfilled life.
I’m grateful for the spark the MarCon method has offered in opening up Pandora’s Box of Clutter. For those of you who are willing and ready, I’m here to support you in the plunge, the deeper discoveries, and the peace and grace you seek.
I welcome your perspective, insights, and comments.
Author of Let Go Courageously and Live with Love and Cherish Your World Gift Book of 100 Tips to Enhance Your Home and Your Life.
https://www.amazon.com/Let-Courageously-Live-Love-Transform/dp/0997458402
You are welcome to connect with me on LinkedIn and/or Facebook and visit my websites at cherishyourworld.com and loveyourspaceloveyourlife.com.
"Love your space, love your life!"
Consultant | Strategist | Fractional BDM | Connector | Entrepreneur. I help transform B2B phone calls and business research into relationships, channels of service, new opportunities, and tools of innovation.
6 å¹´It's funny how one day we look at something and "love it" and a week or even a year later, we look at it with disdain. Things that I "loved" 20 years ago, are now out of my life. However, I hang on to the "heirlooms", the things that give me inner strength and enjoyment. I am getting better at discerning what "stuff" is important or what elements of my life are more important than "stuff". Thank-you Laura for awakening our perceptions of "clutter" and how it is intertwined with our self.??
LinkedIn Business Trainer & Career Coach, LinkedInLocal Host, Connection Specialist, Relationship Builder, LinkedIn Sales Strategist, "My Passion Is Connecting Others To Do Great Things" Follow me and Let's Connect
6 å¹´Laura, what a powerful post. I am not familiar with the MarCon Method, however, I am very familiar with Feng Shui. In the past three years I've gotten rid of many things that I did have an attachment to but, letting go is so freeing. I've seen so may who have lost loved ones and will not part with anything that the person had given them or owned. Like you, I've had people tell me that they feel a loss when they let go of things. I believe that the relationships, the love, the getting to spend time with someone either virtually or in person is a greater feeling than owning "things" Thank you for this wonderful post on the Marcon Method, I will definitely read up on this.?
Keynote Speaker | Cialdini Method Certified Trainer, Coach, & Consultant | Applying the Science of Influence to Help You Boost Business Results ??
6 年Jesus said pretty much the same when he told the Pharisees “First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.†When we declutter the inside everything else takes care and of itself naturally.
Family Therapist, Specialist Gender, Culture, Life Enhancing Skills for Women, Families, Relationships, Mindfulness, Author. #SelfCare #Relationships #Communication #Mental Health, #EQuality, #GGAF #United Way award
6 年Thank you for the mention, your beautifully written, important share. If there is one big take way for me it is ‘Understanding and shifting your inner world of thoughts and feelings can be a key ingredient to a transformation from the inside out.’ ????????