The Garage Returns, and Happiness in 2014

I haven't written here in a while...

I have some tiny bits of info. Shred day got rained out so I now have two boxes of papers sitting in my trunk...I think the next free shred day is in March. I'm stubborn and frugal enough to hold out because shredding service seem to run about $40 for small jobs here. Maybe the desperation to be rid of boxes will get me to cough up one day, but geesh!

Tonight I grabbed a few small boxes from the garage and was amused and dismayed (as usual) to find:

• A box of my great-grandmother's letters, postcards, and Christmas cards, the Christmas cards mostly from 1967--when stamps were four or five cents.  I wish there was a market for canceled stamps, but I haven't really found much info saying it's worth finding buyers. I will say the retro Christmas cards are kinda cool--and many are the size and shape of a business envelope. Sadly, I doubt the thrift store will take used cards. I'm sure some art student would like them, but...it's a lot of trouble to find said art student.
• A box of quail and duck shells from 1985.
• Hand grip exercisers. (Ouch! Never could use those.)
• Walnut grabber pick thingies--what are they called?
• A dusty turtle and frog figurine.
• A relative's paperwork from 2002.
• A cool retro metallic but beat up measuring tape.

Pretty typical! The garage is much easier to tackle in cooler weather, so I should consider a weekly visit and sorting in there this winter. 

Traveling in an airport last year, I bought Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project, where each month she tries out common self-help habits to see if they really make here life happier. It became a bestseller, and I confess I only read a few chapters so far, but she does tackle the "organize your home" habit. She mentions that not many studies have been done relating decluttering to happiness, but the common knowledge out there is that cleaning up will lead to less stress. Hmm. If anything, I'd say having a to-do list hanging over your head--as in, get rid of a bunch of stuff--does cause stress, and as I slowly but surely unload things, I do feel some triumph and like I'm moving on with life. The more time goes on, the more I want just my own stuff--not the stuff of relatives--hanging around my home. And aesthetically, I am tired of seeing the stuff. I am still surprised (but not) by the little random items I find--and as amusing as it can be, here's hoping I can part with many of these things in 2014.

Holiday Care for Stress and Loss

Sorry for that unhappy title, but the focus is on good self-care and stress reduction. Most people have heard of holiday stress. And while I have not suffered a loss of anyone close to me for a few years, the holidays are when I and many people feel grief bubbling up as our memories of yearly traditions surface. And it's so random sometimes! I was at the grocery store around Thanksgiving and with all the seasonal foods in view, I suddenly remembered holiday grocery trips to Albertson's with my dad. It was sad but sweet. It wasn't the type of grief to bowl me over, but when we lose important people, the grief will cycle back from time to time.

I do know some folks who've recently lost people, and I sent them a good blog post about holiday self-care for the bereaved titled Six tips for getting through the holidays with grief by author Sameet Kumar, PhD. Even if you just find the holidays (and your family) stressful, the tips Kumar gives are quite solid and helpful. (I could so benefit from working out more in this season!) Kumar explains, "Most of the people I've worked with over the years find that no matter when their loss occurred, the spiral path of grief tends to circle back to very difficult emotions around the holidays. . . The holidays are stressful under even ideal circumstances. In the context of grief, they can feel absolutely terrifying. There's not much you can do to skip them, so you might as well find a way to get through them as healthy as you can. Grief sometimes feels like a battlefield; the holidays are grief's bootcamp. The goal of getting through this time of year is to not only endure but to grow into a sense of resilience." Well said. His tips would help anyone struggling this season, not just with bereavement but with any stressor or void. Holiday resilience sounds like a good goal--and I still plan to have some fun.

For anyone looking to read more of Kumar's work, he wrote a good book called Grieving Mindfully--it is probably the most helpful book I read on mourning. The "mindful" approach is to be accepting and non-judgemental of whatever feelings come up, assuming that they will not last forever. The idea is that most feelings, negative or positive, simply exist and are temporary--and resisting them can actually cause them to hang around longer. And they'll come out later anyways--we're human and can't avoid them entirely. Combine mindfulness with compassion and self-care, and that's a recipe for resiliency. Strength and recovery don't come from an absence of grief but the ability to feel and experience and still bounce back, over and over. It's become more normal for me, I'm happy to say, and learning how to grieve has helped me in other areas of my life. I guess it's one of the redeeming qualities or blessings of loss.

Inspiration from...Rejection?!

I noticed that a past post on the topic of forgiveness got a lot of hits, so I'll venture into the personal growth arena again and share another interesting video.

If I need to tie it to decluttering and moving on, I'll say that if you struggle with decisions and worry about making the right choices, then you probably wrestle with fear and perfectionism, which perhaps carry over to other parts of your life.

SO, here is a fun 20 min. talk by a man named Jia Jang. Realizing he was selling out staying in his secure but unfulfilling job, he wanted to toughen up his skin as he pursued his real dream to be an entrepreneur. He tried out "rejection therapy" and gave himself 100 days to get rejected in all kinds of ways. He asked a cop if he could drive the police car...and the cop said yes. He asked a man if he could fly his private plane...and the man said yes. You get the picture.

And to paraphrase Jang, if you avoid rejection from others, you'll end up rejecting yourself for not being true to what you really want. Ouch. And scary. He also said that people are really nice and he didn't know that before.

Check out his 2013 talk on vimeo:

http://vimeo.com/70167462

Or just see how he fared at Krispy Kreme in Austin (using a hidden camera) when asking for custom-designed donuts:

November Shred Day--Donations Accepted

I confess I forgot about a free shred day last weekend. But thankfully I was recently sent an email about a free shred day in November. Bring up to 5 boxes (wow!) and paper only. See info below: 

Free Household Document Shredding

The Austin Chapter of ARMA International (Association of Records Managers and Administrators), and Balcones Shred are sponsoring a FALL free “Shred Day.”  

Mark you calendar for Saturday, November 9th, 8:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Balcones Shred (9301 Johnny Morris Road).  

Households can bring up to five boxes of paper records per household for shredding.  Box size should not be larger than 24” X 24”X 36”.    All of the shredded material and cardboard boxes are recycled.  Please make sure your records are paper only (no hard plastics, no plastic bags, electronic media or three-ring binders) and are not wet or moldy. Monetary donations will be accepted with a portion of the proceeds going to Blue Santa.

Slowing down with Mindfulness

Decluttering is not the lightest topic--and clutter can cause stress. If you're looking to add some relaxing moments to your day, you might look into some free online mindfulness meditations. Mindfulness is a pretty hot topic right now--even physicians talk about the health benefits of meditation, showing how brains of those who meditate have better brain connectivity, as in better sensory awareness and attention span. (See a Harvard health article for a 2011 study.) Before you think you have to join a new religion and focus on nothingness, you can try out some free general relaxation meditations from the UCLA itunes podcast that focus on body awareness and breath. My experience has been that such meditation is actually about focused awareness, not about nothingness, emptiness or adopting a new theological perspective. If anything, mindfulness helps me slow down, get quiet, and become more aware of how my body and mind are connected. I was more physically active and aware when I was younger, so it makes sense that getting back in tune with my body reminds me of my youth and happy memories of both playing and slowing down.

I don't meditate as often as I should, and it's funny how slowing down is now on the list of to-do's, like exercise. But I can say that just like after exercise, I usually feel better after taking the time to relax, especially knowing I've done something healthy (despite no sweat or burning tons of energy). What a treat to say, "Gee, I now have to lie down and be quiet for 20-40 minutes." It's like getting away with something some days...though other days it's really hard to focus and not feel like more pressing tasks should be done NOW. It's great that in the name of health, relaxation meditation can be a high priority, as pressing as other daily tasks. Now if I could just keep it up along with a new workout plan, I wonder  what that would feel like. (Amazing?!)

For a larger and more recently updated UCLA audio meditation selection, go to the Mindful Meditation at the Hammer Museum page to hear a new meditation each week.