Who Cares About My Minimalism Journey? Facing Your Relationship Clutter
There’s compelling evidence that suggests human brains are hardwired for connection and we are not designed to live our lives on our own. But relationships can be complicated, and carrying things from our families, past generational patterns, childhood friendships, and romantic partners into our future can be burdensome and overwhelming.
Relationship Clutter
I think we’ve all experienced the effects of emotional baggage from previous relationships being brought into a current relationship, which can be a challenge to navigate. There are other ways to think about relationship clutter, and I’d encourage you to think about the various types of relationships in your life. We have romantic relationships, friendships, family relationships, online communities or friends, relationships with YouTubers or influencers, relationships with the gym, relationships with money, relationships with time, and relationships with food. I’m sure we could go on and on, but you get the point.
Relationships form from interactions that occur over time, and I imagine not every relationship in your life is adding meaning and value. Some could be draining your time and resources while not adding to your life in a way that’s benefiting you. I’m not saying that every problematic relationship in your life needs to be cut out or decluttered, but I do find that evaluating which relationships are worth investing in and which can be given less space can be an important process.
Toxic Relationships
How do you go about managing relationships in your life you feel are toxic? Do you give them a lot of your mental space or your time as you’re talking about the issues with your friends? Harmful or unhealthy relationships are paradoxically some of the hardest to let go of because they are serving a purpose in your life somewhere.
Sometimes fear holds us back from maintaining or creating healthy boundaries in relationships. Brene Brown defines boundaries as “what’s okay and what’s not okay”. I find this to be a helpful place to start as you are evaluating more difficult relationships. What are your own boundaries, and what will you do if the other person doesn’t respect them? By gaining clarity on your own boundaries and figuring out what’s truly okay and not okay, you can begin drawing out the most meaningful interactions from those relationships which have the potential to grow and flourish, and you have a criterion for letting other relationships go.
I’m Overwhelmed, Where Do I Start?
As you’ve been reading, I’m sure you’ve noticed that the areas of clutter tend to overlap, and if you were to map out your life in these areas they’d be interconnected and building on one another. If you have a difficult relationship with your family, you may start developing resentments and feeling sad, which leads to thoughts that you need to prove them wrong about your life not being together, which leads to consuming items you don’t need and taking the perfect filtered picture to post online to show everyone that your life is great. You then get positive reinforcement when people like and comment on your pictures, which will increase the likelihood of future purchases.
This can turn into a vicious cycle quickly, so quickly that most people aren’t able to see the connections until they slow down and start evaluating their life and the reasons why they are consuming and keeping so much stuff around.
The good news about a cycle is you can really start anywhere which will make changes in all areas. Just start somewhere, anywhere...it doesn’t matter. Doing something to make more intentional choices will impact your life in a way you can’t even imagine yet, and maybe it feels a little scary or vulnerable. I totally get that. But do it anyway.