Jody Rose Helfand

What would happen if you took all the stuff you own and piled it into one room and then gave yourself thirty minutes to pick what you wanted to keep? What would you choose? I'm going to put all the stuff I own in one room right now, and then continue writing this blog.  

Okay, it's about forty five minutes later and I just did it.  I looked at it and a funny thing happened.  I started feeling extremely ill, like I was seriously going to throw up.  Then I felt dizzy.  I still feel this way a little, but I went into neutral mode, meaning this: Heart focus.  Heart breathing.  I did this outside and now I feel better.  I'm doing it right now as I write this, too.  You can breathe through your heart during moments of stress or during calm moments, too; you don't have to be stressed to do it.  Neutral mode regulates your heartbeat, creating coherence, and balances cortisol and DHEA; to read more about this, go here to this amazing website: http://www.heartmath.org

I'm getting ready now to go back in that room and start the process of choosing what I want in thirty minutes or less.  The following 4 ideas are what I'm focusing on thinking, because what I do and how I react emotionally, relates to the story I tell myself in my mind.  

1.  I don't actually own anything.

2.  If I really want something, I can get it again assuming it's available.

3. I cannot allow emotions to rule this process of choosing what to keep.

4.  And, as a dear friend just reminded me: If another person looked at all of my shit on the floor, he/she would have absolutely no attachment to it.

I was just about to go in there and do it and my brain said this: You're hungry.  Don't you want to eat some cereal with soymilk?  I would love to eat some cereal with soymilk, except for the fact that I'm NOT FUCKING HUNGRY right now!  My brain is trying to get me to do some unhealthy emotional eating.  Hey, I almost considered it, too, because it's really tempting, but I've been in this familiar place, many years ago before I changed my gender-- choosing the instant satisfaction that food provides to distract me from the task at hand or from the emotions/feelings I'd rather ignore.  Here's the truth.  I still really want to eat right now even though I'm not hungry, but I'm not going to do it. Instead, I'm going in there to choose what I'm going to fucking keep.  

I'll be back in thirty minutes.

Well that was fucked up.  I mean, seriously, thinking about a pair of pants for more than a minute?

I just got rid of a ton, and I mean a TON of stuff.  I'm going to donate it all.  This is what happened while doing this:

1. At first, the dizziness didn't go away and I still felt like I was going to throw up.  My interpretation of this was the ego or the mind in a panic, afraid of losing control.  My heart was very happy and relieved and concentrating on heart-based breathing and staying in neutral mode helped me eventually to alleviate these feelings of fear and panic.

2. After ten minutes, I got into a serious groove where I was like who needs this CRAP!  I started bagging stuff faster and it felt really good to detach from lots of things my mind thought it needed. The funny thing is that 80% of the stuff we own we don't use; 20% we do.  Look at the stuff you own and seriously think about what you use each day.  Making a list of what you use on a daily basis really puts the idea of what you actually use into perspective.

3. What's left on my floor are some books and some miscellaneous computer stuff that I've been keeping for way too long.  It's too late-- that stuff is going to be donated, too.  

4. After about ten minutes, I realized that If I had to think about keeping something, then that meant NOT to keep it.   Thinking about something means I'm unclear, and If I  have to think about something I supposedly own, then I don't fucking need it! 

This was a fun way to spend an evening.  And guess what?  Now I'm hungry.