In the last 4 months I’ve had an almost non-stop immersion in the practice of letting go of stuff. Some days so much stuff has been emptied that I was literally buzzing and off balance from the energy shift created.

My mom was a hoarder. Never quite got to the level of whole house piled with pathways through, mostly because of her social sensitivity, me insisting periodically on some clearing and the fact it was a big house, so she could pile a couple rooms and the basement and leave some spaces presentable-ish. Most of that, of course, didn’t belong to me, so when Mom died, going through it was a part of my job.

I was also moving to a furnished condo, so even my things needed to be culled, as well as extracted from the midst of Mom’s piles. Among the challenges Mom left, were years and years and years of bags of bills/statements, etc., many of which involved still existent accounts and I had filing cabinets with tons of out-of-date files so there was also a LOT of shredding and a lot of bags of paper recycling.

Then I got to Florida and needed to clear a ton of stuff still in condo from my Dad and his late, second wife. The amount that a combo of junk haulers, me and a guy I hired moved out in 4 days literally left me reeling with the energy shift.

I kind of got used to the oppressive amount of stuff in Mom’s house though I was sometimes aware of the weight of it. Clearing giant amounts at a time, however, really brought home how much energy all that stuff sucked from us. And every time an extraordinary amount exited in a day, whether auction place taking a ton or friends helping me do some clearing, it was startling how palpable the change in the air became.

I’ve known for years that everything has and is energy, but I hadn’t quite taken in the power of energy contained in “stuff”. The process leaves me so much more thoughtful about what’s in my space and how I want to move forward from here.