FOR THE LOVE OF OBJECTS

When my friend was little she grew up very poor. Every gift given to her was cherished. Every object had a special memory. This could be a pair of socks, or an old alarm clock. It didn’t matter what it was, it was the memory associated with it. As she got older, getting rid of anything became very difficult. She truly believed she was hurting the person that gave it to her, and thus hurting the objects “feelings” and destroying her own memories.



Sometimes I have clients who will have a similar reaction with an inanimate object like a book, where they think it may “hurt the object’s feelings” if they give it away. They associate the object with an event, or person. For example, perhaps the book was given to them by their mother that passed away, or they bought the book when they first moved to Seattle. In other words, the object holds sentiment to them, as well as a sense of guilt for letting it go. They associate this feeling they are getting with the object, thinking it will hurt the object’s feelings. I also feel guilty when it comes to gifts or cards given by family, I worry that they will be personally offended if they knew I didn’t keep a particular gift. Fortunately for me, I don’t let that stop me from getting rid of things I don’t want. A lot of my clients have a harder time doing just that. I love figuring out creative ways to help them conquer these feelings. Take my client Zelda (this is not her real name). She has several collections of goodies and has a hard time getting rid of them. Working with her, we discovered that she has kinetic sympathy to items. This means that every time she handles an object, she bonds with it and it becomes very difficult to let it go. To solve this, every time we do a sorting and purging session, I handle all of the objects. We found that when she’s not touching the objects, it’s easier for her to look at them objectively.



To prevent future problems, I helped Zelda make a rule for herself: when she goes shopping for things that aren’t necessities, she has to bring a shopping buddy. The buddy handles the objects instead of Zelda, so that she can look at the object without becoming attached to it through touch. This has helped her keep her clutter to a manageable size, instead of having it grow out of control again. Having an emotional reaction to letting something go is quite rational and reasonable. However, you may need to grow beyond it if clutter is overtaking your life.