I’ve been dipping into a few YouTube videos by tidying expert and World’s Tidiest Person, Marie Kondo.

In one video, Kondo takes on the gnarly task of helping a lady declutter her closet by sweetly encouraging her to throw away anything which doesn’t “spark joy”.

As I watched them tackle a mountain of dresses, cardigans and t-shirts, a thought crossed my mind:

It’s easy to think of tidying as a physical game.

But actually, tidying is a mental game. 

It’s not about which shelf we put our nick-nacks on. It’s about the tug on the heartstrings when we decide whether to chuck that tiny Eiffel Tower or the festival wristband we’ve been saving since 2015.

Said another way, it’s not the objects themselves which leads to tricky decluttering dilemmas.

It’s our relationships with those objects which does. 

That might sound obvious.

But if you take a moment to step outside the physical, you’ll start to glimpse how this invisible subject/object relationship is the chord pulling the strings in every part of life.

I don’t just mean how we relate to objects like jumpers and t-shirts.

I don’t even mean our relationships with our family or friends.

I mean much more invisible objects and relationships.

How do you relate to stress? How do you relate to money, to boredom, to uncertainty, to anxiety, to decisions, to work, to problems and to the unknown?

And how do you relate your thoughts? 

I always thought I needed to change the object to change how I felt. But now I see I can do this by taking my attention off the object and onto the chord.

What a relief.

Changing an object is nigh on impossible. But changing your relationship with an object is very possible indeed.

Take my job as an example.

2 years after quitting my job in a fit of desperation, exhaustion and despair, my savings ran out. So I re-packed my dandy briefcase, dusted off a few of my old ties and trotted back to the same job that I’d quit.

Today I can click into my team’s electronic files and find spreadsheets I worked on 5 years ago, ready and waiting for me to update today. So I couldn’t get any closer to my old job if I tried.

Yet my job feels completely different nowadays. 

It actually feels quite good fun!

Clearly that’s not because the job has changed. It’s the same job after all.

But my relationship with my job has changed.

Even the parts of my job which are stressful, boring or problematic feel much lighter than before. And that’s because my relationship with stress, boredom and problems has changed too.

All of which begs the question:

How do you change your relationship with something?

One way is by clearing out (i.e. kondolidating) the mental clutter which stops us seeing things as they really are.

If you'd like focussed, dedicated help with this, take a look at my coaching.

If there are parts of life you’d like a more easy-going, relaxed relationship with, even just a couple of coaching sessions could help you find the clarity and calm you’re looking for.

To start your own kondolidation:

https://waitinglist.followingfulfilment.com