Hi, I’m Shang Lee, and I’m a compulsive hoarder. My motto is “when in doubt, keep”. So I find a box? Hmm, it might be useful someday. Keep. If I find a nice shirt I haven’t worn for ages? Keep. Hmm, that jeans may fit me some day… Keep. I’m definitely going to use that bag when I go on a cruise to Abu Dhabi. Keep.
Actually, it’s not so bad now. I dump some of them before they become “stuff” in the house that I may bump into some day. There are still others, plenty of others. Physical stuff is obvious. Virtual stuff is less so. With no lack of space in the virtual world, “when in doubt, keep” becomes much much easier. So easy that I fell ill…
I’m not sure how much of that (falling ill) is true, but keeping things whether in the physical environment or in the virtual environment seems to have a toll on the mind space. Somehow, there’s an equivalent piece of data stored in the brain when you store something elsewhere. More clutter outside, more clutter inside.
So, let me introduce Project Dumping. The body knows how to take a dump. The mind… not so sure. If you believe the body is an ecosystem with its built in sewage system, I believe the mind is the same. So, it’s time to do some sewage maintainence on the mind.
Before we control what’s going in, (the mind diet), let’s control what’s already there first. You can’t actually see what’s in your mind unless you put it down somewhere, so your emails, your photos, your music, your files, your games, your clothes, your bags, your gadgets, your magazines etc… they are all a proxy of your mind. Clear them, clear your mind.
Dumping is the easiest or the hardest, depends on how deep your addiction to hoarding is. For me, since I’ve quit my job (that’s the first dump I suppose…), I’ve dumped my office wear to an unused bag, keeping one or two just in case I need to go for that odd interview. I’m not sure why that was the first thing I did. Maybe I’m trying to get rid of feeling like a dog.
The most cluttered piece of environment seems to be my email. So i’ve started dumping there as well. I’ve set a modest target of dumping 10 items per day. It was standing at 300 or so. I’m down to 100+ now. I find that the most effective thing I’ve done with emails is to unsubscribe.
I’m not sure how the subscriptions built up, but over the years, newsletters, supermarkets, bookstores, beauty products, viagra, people looking for sex (?!) seems to find their way to my inbox. Everyone wants to tell me that I need their things (or services). I’ve had enough. So, I began unsubscribing frantically. Each time I receive such email, I looked for the unsubscribe button. It’s normally quite small in relation to the other text. But the process has been relatively painless. The most difficult one is to drop them an email. The easier one is just one click away.
My inbox is going down to zero… hopefully, my mind will be clearer as well.
I’ll be dumping more stuff after this. If you like, please join in as we take a dump together. I think we should declare a dumping day. It’s fun, and helps de-stress the already stressful day whether you’re at work or at home. It helps clear the mind as well. If you have the courage and energy, suggest it to your boss. 
If you think this is worth sharing, do share it with your friends. Thank you for reading.
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8 Comments
I used to be a hoarder. An outcome of my standing practice is that I no longer felt the need, and I got rid of things I was carrying around for decades. It felt very liberating.
whoa Rick! Standing practice put you off hoarding? Care to enlighten?
Just as the body holds on to tension, our minds hold on to tension. This results in our little quirks in neuroses. The mental tension is a manifestation of fear and the desire to control.
In zhan zhuang, our mind settles and we physically learn to relax and let the body go. We can let go of our little quirks as well.
I’ve asked a couple of people who know a lot more about this to come over and comment.
This is Rick from wujifaliangong.com
The other Rick was correct about proper practice of standing practice as being helpful.
Although I might suggest a re-frame you are good at noticing it “might” be useful… I would say “might” is the sticky point… Simply notice if it is useful. How is it useful… I bet you do this already… So work with this mental energy… Don’t fight it… Yield to to… Develop the “how is it useful” which you already do.
The reason you save is you notice how it “might” be useful… Later the reward is when you discover it is useful… As you posted you noticed it was useful also… Notice that… It was useful to empty the email box… Nice… Same mental energy process… Noticing it is useful… To create space… Think about hoarding space for new possibilities!
Ok, now let try an experiment… Inhale…
Now… Why do you exhale… Was inhaling useful… And so is the space you create when you exhale… Notice this… Play here fir a bit… Notice how useful… Which you are already good at… Play here for a bit… Simply with the breath… Inhale and notice how useful it is to let go and exhale.
Standing practice is good for noticing this kind of thing too… Playing and noticing the breath is much faster…. And you already admit to noticing and taking action to what you see as useful… Try the inhale…. And exhale… And use your skills… Notice… How useful it is to create this space…
I would suggest playing with you standing practice like this will be useful… Relaxing is so useful… Letting go is useful too… And you know your good at spotting what is useful… And I know you take action now on what is useful…
Notice… Simply… Notice… And hoard some of the space you now find useful… Taking action is easy for you as you notice how useful it us… Like the big picture… Got it… Get it by taking action as you notice now… Inhale and then choose to exhale as you got this usefulness now… Inhale and exhale often… And like the other Rick said… Make a little space often to practice stance and breath and relax…. You notice it is useful… To play like this now…. Breath and take action like breathing… Notice the usefulness in the oppertunities you are taking and allow yourself the space to take action in doing… Is there avreason to fight it when you already take action when you notice how this might be Really useful… It’s simply likevtaking a stance and relaxing and breathing and noticing how usefulbthis space is becoming.
Typing on my iPhone… I noticed that the typo’s are useful to notice to like breathing… They filled the spaces between the words when fillingbthem with space…. Notice how breathing exhale is like a space… Or howvin your blog post you created space… Like I said you are good at noticing when it is useful and you take action… Just likevyour doing now. Mentally and physically getting rid of the stuff that gets in theway when you notice… It makes sense and you take action… I’ll betyou even mentallymakespace to read whatvIvwrote as you are good at knowing what is useful… And noticing and making space is the same as you have already been doing here….
What he said!
My goodness… Ricks.. it took me a while to read this. I couldn’t read this the first time round. First, it’s long. Second, I can’t seem to follow the train of thought. It’s only in the middle of this night that I begin to understand what you’re saying! maybe the space I left in between my first read and now is useful…
see, i’m getting it! Thanks for the insightful post. Will let this ferment in the mind for a while.
It’s been a while since I’ve been by… I don’t know if you’ve been by my website… there is good information on standing practice there.
Feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think. Hope you are… discovering more space now… as well!
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