This post is intended to be a guest post to my friend Mariah of http://www.cometcamper.com.
Stuff was controlling me, rather than me being in control of it. This is part of my story with stuff. I don’t understand myself sometimes and why I need things. I have struggled with the urge to collect stuff from an early age. There is no root person, and activity I feel has caused it to escalate out of control. Make no mistake, it did get out of control. A flood of emotion surely comes when I sit here, contemplate the hows, and whys, specifically my journey with collecting. Was it all greed? Was it the urge and desire for the chase to find and seek the items? Or was it pure mindlessness to acquire? Were they all “great deals”? I feel it’s a little of all of them and more. I do know one thing, and that is it never ends until something happens.
For me the brick wall was I couldn’t hide and move it around at all. To much stuff is just to much stuff, and I mentally was ready to admit to myself I am going in the wrong direction. This is not working. This is not good. I lost myself in my home. I lost peace. I lost what is and was important.
So a big turning point for me was admitting enough is enough. I started, by being at the right place at the right time. Without being connected to the “tiny house blog”, I would have never ran across Mariah and her “Tiny Transition And Downsizing Class/E-Course” she was offering. Something clicked for me, and I signed up on January 28th, 2014.
As I reflect during the past and currently, I feel I have accepted my faults and poor choices towards buying stuff I really truthfully never needed. Since completing the class I have a new sense of buying habits. I am more mindful. I am more at peace with stuff, and most importantly with myself. I realize I can not change the past. I can accept it, be grateful for who I am and what I do have. What I have learned and applied.
Its been one year and two months since starting my intentional journey going tiny, and becoming more mindful. I feel like a new person. I have a changed mindset. Over one year later, I am living with less (a lot less) and happier!
What was the biggest change agent? Mariah’s coaching, instructions, and format with the course prompted me to ask questions. Questions that I ask of myself even now. Are you collecting for the wrong reasons? Do you use and enjoy all your stuff? Why do you collect, box, and put into a dark closet? Do you really love it? Why? Why? This has been and is life changing.
Each month I have been using this change of mind to question many items in my house. Each month I have reevaluated a lot of stuff. Do I need it? Do I love it? Do I use it? There has been an internal struggle at times. But the mindfulness addiction to purge has been replaced with the mindlessness of acquiring stuff. To date I have purged lots of stuff, actually I have kept count and have sold, donated, or recycled over 5741 items. Oh my how awesome it is to be in this space, in my mind, and house. The house is becoming home again. I wish everyone that struggles with stuff, that they come to this place of less does mean more. That it is complete joy in letting go.
Gratitude, and Action has profoundly replaced Regret, and Indecision. Yes there was emotional and physical work to do, and it was worth every bit of it.
Are you tired of the piles too? Wishing and hoping for positive change with your stuff? I highly recommend Mariahs Tiny Transition-Downsizing E-Course. You never know, it could be just what you have been looking for. It was for me. Many thanks Mariah!
If you are interested you can check out my journal blog at http://www.lessstuffmorejoy.com
What is your story with stuff?
Always Forward, Troy
Less Stuff More Joy 
I respect your analytical approach to stuff that was diminishing your joy in life but I’d also challenge the notion about balance with all aspects of our lives. While there’s LITTLE doubt we’re all guilty about hanging on to some stuff that gives us little or no real purpose or joy, I’d also like to remind people that there are items such as family heirlooms we’ll never be able to replace. By taking your well grounded approach, you’re figuring out what you needs are v/s items that’s not near as important as you thought. That’s brilliant!
For those who’re downsizing, I’d at least like to query others in general if there might be a few items we can’t fit in that SUPER tiny home? We’re in the early stages of adding a 1,000 square foot tea house to our little farm. If we went any smaller, I’m not sure we’d have the room for storing things we’d hate to part with (art, antique books & linens). The tiny home lifestyle should be focused on how the person lives, not in just how we’re supposed to live.
Hello — I just found your page through Tiny Houses, and thought your readers might appreciate the story of my “awakening”. I just spent the last 6 months getting “stuff” out of my parents’ (our family’s) home after my father passed away. The “stuff” had to be moved so that the house could be sold and proceeds distributed to me and my siblings. The “stuff” is now in a storage facility which costs almost $1000 a month. Most of it will be donated away in the next few weeks; some is being shipped to siblings. And some precious few things are coming into my own home and into my life: like an antique marble-topped dresser that my great-great-great grandmother gave to her daughter, when she left Ohio in a covered wagon, heading for the Kansas Territories in the middle 1880’s. The point is, since I now have possession of such a treasure, I realize that there is no room in my life for unnecessary “stuff”. I don’t think I will easily (or ever) give up the last letter that my grandfather wrote to my mother before he was lost to the family forever… or the “MarconiGram” that my mother sent from Kansas to the jungles of Colombia to let my father know that he had twin daughters. But I have learned that lovely stacks of old Christmas cards and a shelf full on cookbooks I’ve never read are not necessary ingredients for my happiness. Take care, and thank you for listening — Donna