All That Glitter(s)
“ If you don’t know what you want,” the doorman said, “you’ll end up with a lot you don’t.”
~ Fight Club
This past August, Looking For Space celebrated a birthaversary. Six years since its inception, and six years helping others simplify their lives. And, in celebrating this milestone, I created some space of my own to reflect on how it began, honor where I am, and glance ahead to where the path may lead.
At the beginning, the mission was simply to help people get organized. It didn’t take long for me to realize that many homes - just like many social media profiles and exterior appearances - look shiny on the outside but are silently struggling on the inside.
The house down the block with the meticulously manicured lawn has stacks of mail they’ve never opened. The gated hacienda on the hill has an attic overflowing with grandma’s quilting supplies, canning jars, and sheet music - who passed away in 1987 - but no one in the house knits, cans fruit, or reads music. The duplex on the corner with the swanky car in the driveway has a garage so full the door won’t open and it’s going to cost someone a lot of money, frustration, and grief to someday have it all hauled away. The house next door with the impeccable flower garden hasn’t used their kitchen table since their adult daughter - and her broken porcelain doll collection - moved back home in 2020.
In addition to serving my clients, the past six years have been spent listening, learning, reading, certifying, expanding, and leveling up my knowledge about the impact our environments have on our health, finances, relationships, and well-being. Because I came to learn things I hadn’t known at the onset, additional services were added to my offerings. I had evolved; therefore, my mission had evolved.
Following my unique path has meant and continues to mean perpetually letting go. In order to effectuate an authentic personal journey, I’ve had to untangle from the pressures of societal expectations - self-imposed? - and social norms. Years of conditioning convinced me that if everyone was going a certain direction, shouldn’t I be going that way too? But I deeply felt that there was a need for my unique approach, and if I continued to follow in other people’s footsteps, I would only be duplicating what had already been done.
The past six years have shown me that the average home is organizationally challenged. Whether it be reflected through excess items, debt, inefficient time management, improper meal planning, unsupportive systems, sentimentality, or unequitable invisible labor, the impact of existing in a space that isn’t getting us closer to happiness is taking its toll not only on us as individuals, but is being reflected throughout society as a whole. As the superficial dazzle of consumer culture grows, the deep, meaningful practices that give life purpose have begun to fade away.
We live in a culture that constantly entices us with shiny things. Retailers attempt to seduce us with flashy experiences, polished marketing, and aggressive advertising, demanding more and more of our attention and money to acquire stuff they’ve convinced us will make us happy. And since we’ve been conditioned to follow the herd and we want to be like all the happy people on our screens, we buy into the narrative, we buy the stuff, we hold onto the stuff, and then we wake up one day surrounded by all this stuff that no longer aligns with who we’ve evolved into because we’ve been too busy being distracted chasing all the shiny things.
When our home, the sacred place where we can step away from the expectations to perform or pretend or comply, the place that ultimately provides the backdrop to our entire existence, is overfilled with a bunch of stuff someone convinced us was mandatory, we are often left with no room to be curious about ourselves or to reflect or examine who we are now and where exactly we’d like to be going. It’s not only that we’ve clogged up our spaces, we haven’t been instructed on the process of inevitable change and the continual release that must occur in order to avoid inertia.
Imagine you’re in a current of energy leading you towards the apex of your life, but you’re grabbing on to every rock you bump into and grasping for every branch or twig along the way to position you where you think you should be rather than letting go and trusting that the flow will escort you to exactly where you are meant to be. The more you identify with the hard static objects around you, the more you try to resist change and cling to what was or what you thought it should be, the more energy you waste keeping yourself stuck in. the. exact. same. spot.
However, you are nature. I repeat, you are nature. And nothing healthy in nature is stagnant. Nature always acquiesces to its next season. Nature is fluid and remains in a constant rhythm of contracting and expanding. It follows its innate internal genius to outwardly express its unique beauty and wisdom. It’s not persuaded to collect or consume anything other than what it needs to survive, thrive, and evolve.
As we approach a season of what should be tradition and ceremony, I encourage you to not be distracted by the superficial shiny things that may cost you more than money. I invite you to create some space for yourself to reflect on how things are going, honor where you are, and glance ahead to where your path may lead. I invite you be curious about your own personal journey, and I implore you to consider that if you have something unique and authentic to contribute, please share it with the rest of us.
Our world needs your gold.