Applying Marie Kondo to your life.
While I’ve been traveling, I’ve been finding lots of opportunities to watch a Netflix episode here and there and occasionally it’s terrible television shows, but recently I’ve been turned onto Marie Kondo. My aunt had purchased the book for me for my birthday last year so I’d given the book a flip through already, but I never gave it the attention that it deserves. I watched my first episode a couple days ago and it made me rethink quite a few things including how to apply it to my life.
For those of you that haven’t heard or seen the latest craze, here’s a quick blurb on Marie Kondo and KonMari method:
Marie Kondo is a tidying expert, best-selling author, star of Netflix's hit show, "Tidying Up With Marie Kondo," and founder of KonMari Media, Inc.
Enchanted with organizing since her childhood, Marie began her tidying consultant business as a 19-year-old university student in Tokyo. Today, Marie is a renowned tidying expert helping people around the world to transform their cluttered homes into spaces of serenity and inspiration.
Most tidying methods advocate a room-by-room or little-by-little approach, which doom you to pick away at your piles of stuff forever.
The KonMari Method™ encourages tidying by category – not by location – beginning with clothes, then moving on to books, papers, komono (miscellaneous items), and, finally, sentimental items. Keep only those things that speak to the heart, and discard items that no longer spark joy. Thank them for their service – then let them go.
People around the world have been drawn to this philosophy not only due to its effectiveness, but also because it places great importance on being mindful, introspective and forward-looking.
A lot of the immediate applications have to do with living in a home, or at the bare minimum having access to your stuff. However, since I’m traveling, I don’t have any of these options available to me (although I probably should do that in my backpack…). I have had the opportunity however to really think through the principles of her suggestions and really figure out how to apply them to my everyday life. We include a lot of things in our day to day, things, rituals, people, food, work. And I don’t think I’ve ever taken a proper look at which ones spark joy versus which ones feel like a burden or responsibility that I don’t need in my life.
I took a look at the superficial things in my life right now, The everyday things that I have with me and tried to determine what categories they fell into. Did they spark joy when I had them? Do I feel a sense of burden or resentment? Or were they important things that I had to carry with me? I’m realizing that I have things with me that I bring thinking I really need them, but they feel more like a chore to carry them around and use them. If I even use them at all.
I took a look at the rituals that I do every day, like wake up, get ready, eat food. Which ones spark joy and which ones bring me happiness? The act of washing my face brings me joy, so does a quick coat of mascara. Eating good food makes me happy, and it may not always look good to my wallet, and almond latte when I find it makes me incredibly happy.
I also took a look at the people in my life. Which ones sparked immediate joy? Which ones made me happy and made me think of happy memories? Which ones made me feel sadness or reluctance or resentment? Its a tough thing to do, and go through your life and see who brings joy into your life and see which ones take it away. This isn’t me saying that you have to get rid of these people much like Marie Kondo says goodbye and thank you to those items you are letting go of. But you always can. And you don’t have to do it to someones face either, you can let go of the relationship internally and to yourself. It can be the person entirely, or it can be parts of the person, or the way you list them in your life. It’s completely up to you.
How you chose to read these methods, or the way you choose to apply them to your life is entirely up to you. Definitely take these as just my take on them and I know other people will see it differently, but I wanted to share what inspired me!
Lots of Love,
-E