A great way to bring new energy into your life is to throw out stuff you don’t use any more or to find someone who will just love it. Keeping too much stuff around adds stress to your life, and reduces the energy you have to try new things and think in new ways. I find that I stay in a rut when I just let clutter build up around me.
We are contemplating a move to Denver as the higher elevation—9,000 feet—is getting to us as we age. It’s also not so pleasant for our guests who fly in from sea level, flatlanders as we call them. We have a lovely view: an unobstructed view of the Kenosha Range of mountains with Pike’s Peak off in the distance (the cover photo of this blog).
I was a cake decorator many years ago. I made wedding cakes and lots of fun shaped cakes like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny, bears of all sorts, Ziggy, Cathy, and all kinds of seasonal cake molds for Christmas and Halloween. I also have a full set of wedding cake pans for round, heart and hexagons. Check out the wedding cake I made for my parents 40th wedding anniversary, which doesn’t seem so far off for us these days. I had several large boxes of these cake pans.
I didn’t want to drop off all these cake decorating items at Goodwill, so I started to tell friends about my desire to find a home for them. One friend knows a couple of entrepreneurial cake decorators in Denver. Another friend’s sister is a Wilton cake decorating instructor, who will probably appreciate these cake molds. The guitar one was made in 1977 and the Disney figures were made in 1983. Wilton doesn’t make these molds any more. I am glad to be finding homes for them.
In addition to cake molds, I found these flowers I had made some 30 years ago. Wow, sugar really keeps its shape once it becomes almost petrified. I was starting to throw out these flowers, and decided to capture the memory before I let them go. I have good memories of making these flowers, and these many cakes, but it’s time to let them go.
Cleaning out my office is freeing too. I am throwing out old customer files from my market intelligence business as I am paring that business down to supporting sales and marketing with win/loss analysis and teaching people how to collect information from others through conversation. Sales people appreciate this training since it helps them close deals or run from clients who won’t be buying from them, ever.
It’s nice to have that open energy to be buying books and storing knowledge to support my health coaching clients. I have been in marketing and research for almost 30 years, so I can’t help but organize what I find by topical area so I can pull it out to share with my customers.
It’s interesting how new energy just pours in once you declutter. I have just started this process, and am already feeling new life. I look forward to and feel gratitude for every day.
Coach Stressbuster 