How Minimalism Helped Me Stop Drinking...
Back in 2014 I did a google search looking for ways to declutter our house. With 2 additions to the family and a boatload of baby contraptions I started feeling overwhelmed by all our stuff. The living room was overrun with swings, bouncy thingys, and baskets full of toys that no one played with. I felt like I was suffocating.
I have always been a tidy person. If things are nice and neat then my brain feels less stressed and anxious. So I decided to search for ways to get my home back under control.
I came across an amazing website called The Minimalists (which looking back feels a little like fate). This site wasn’t talking about which storage bins were best used for organizing your baby’s crap. Instead, they were talking about getting rid of the things all together. Really? I could do that? Thank God!
I spent the next year downsizing our entire life. We got rid of EVERYTHING. We sold things, gave things away, and trashed things. Before we knew it we no longer had use for our big house and we moved into something much smaller and WAY easier to manage.
I also started applying this concept in other areas. I got off facebook and social media, I unsubscribed from tons of junk emails, and we just started living a much simpler life. People thought we were weird and questioned our judgment but it just felt like the right thing to do.
Little did I know that by making those seemingly small changes in our mindset we would begin to create the life we have always wanted. Because of our smaller house we have a smaller mortgage. We think long and hard about every purchase which means we buy less. We are very intentional with our time which means we have more of it.
Each one of the decisions to minimize have added up over time to maximize our lives. Now we get to work less and we have more time to focus on things that we love to do. Everything I do is easier. Getting dressed is easier because I only have a few things to choose from (which I have narrowed down to things I love and that fit perfectly). Cleaning and maintaining our home is easier bc it takes literally 20 minutes to clean our entire house. Everything from checking my email to choosing a glass to drink from is easier because there is just...less.
When I wanted to stop drinking I returned to these concepts. I tried to minimize overthinking and keep things simple by saying “right now I am not drinking.” I avoided thinking about what life would look like in 10 years and focused on the 10 seconds that were presented right before me. I focused on being intentional and turned inward instead of allowing myself to be consumed by the constant messages telling me to drink. I began to look at drinking as another form of mass consumerism which I had already trained my brain to resist. I reminded myself that doing things differently can have great reward.
Overall, minimalism has had such an amazing impact on my life. It’s so much more than organizing my drawers. It’s about mindset. My life is so much easier when I simplify. When I am faced with problems it’s usually because of too much stuff (both figuratively and literally). Ironically I’ve learned that the constant distraction of overly filled closets, overly filled minds, and overly full bellies doesn’t add anything to my well being. It’s actually quite the opposite.
***If you have questions about how to minimize please reach out. Or, if you have questions about drinking, not drinking, or overall wellness I would love to talk with you!****