Adventures and Birthday Celebrations!

October 1, 2008 | 3 Comments

It is The Calm Space’s first birthday!

Come on in, the door is open, the cake is fresh and the bubbles are on ice.

We’re celebrating and you get the presents!  We have a Monster Prize Draw this month to celebrate twelve glorious months of publishing… and there are many wonderful prizes to win!  You can see the full list here.

This month, we’re talking about Adventures - which we thought very appropriate on our first birthday since publishing this online magazine has been a huge adventure for each and every one of us!

We’re also celebrating with the launch of another new space - this one dear to my own heart. The Wisdom Space will showcase someone inspirational each month, with an interview, tips or similar. This month I talk to adventurer-extraordinaire Deanna Sorensen, who pushed her body and her mind to the limit, all in order to prove to herself that she could! Whilst I don’t think I’ll be walking to Nullabor to follow in her footsteps, I am certainly inspired to step outside my comfort zone and expand my horizons even more.

Photo Credit: Cupcake by Theresa Thompson on Flickr

We’ve so much jammed into this issue that it may require you to come back regularly to dip into another Space or two… please feel free to leave a comment for any of our contributors - they truly would love to hear from you! That’s the best part about being an online magazine and not a paper one - we’re here all month long and will respond to any questions, ideas or comments from you. We really value your input.

I’m off to share the cake and pop the cork on the bubbles - enjoy your month!

Namaste

Káren

PS If you’re in a commited relationship, you cannot miss Relationship Space this month!


Posted by karen | Filed Under October 08, The Space 

Life is an Adventure

October 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Really. Life IS an adventure.

For some people, an adventure is walking out the front door of their home.

For others, it is reaching the top of Mt Everest. For most of us, though, the idea of an adventure is somewhere between those two extremes.

If you think having an adventure is a fun, exciting thing to do - it is. If, on the other hand, you hear the word adventure and you start to cringe and you stomach does a little urgh sort of flip, you’re possibly someone who needs to reframe or rename the word into something that raises your excitement levels rather than your dread levels.

If you wish life to be an adventure, you have but to think it is an adventure.  Put on your ‘exploring’ adventurer glasses and off we go.

If you see your life as dull, boring, monotonous and

routine - that is how it is. In a word ‘blah’.

It isn’t necessary to leave all that routine behind and run away to the south of France or deepest, darkest Africa to inject a bit of the explorers spirit into your life.

All you need to do is put on those explorers glasses and see the world - and your life - as a wonderful adventure.

Let’s explore that a little more, shall we?

Many of us have the tendency to get bogged down in our day to day routine and see our life as drudgery. If you have a moment to daydream you may stare out the window and fantasise of running away and leaving this all behind.

Yet, for most of us, it’s just a daydream. You know you never could, and never would leave everything, or more to the point, everyone, behind.

So you just put up with the toil or trouble.

Or do you?

What if there was an easy way of injecting that sense of excitement, of wonder, of newness promised by your daydreams?

What if there was a way to inject adventure into your now, without leaving your life behind?

Yes - it will require energy. It will require courage. It will require imagination.

And it will be worth it.

How?

Remember those ‘exploriers glasses’ I mentioned earlier? Let’s take a closer look at them.

These are your very own, hand-picked, made-for-you glasses. They suit you to a T. Perfect shape, perfect colour. Most of all, perfect vision.

Pop them on and take a look at the world through these magical lenses.

For yes, they have been imbued with magic power, keyed to your frequency alone.

Take a look.

First thing you’ll notice is a brightness to everything you see. The colours are richer, brighter, more intense. The world looks fresh and inviting.

You can see further, deeper, wider than ever before.

The next thing you’ll noticed is how you feel. It’s a unique combination of relaxed and wide awake. Happy and calm. You feel on top of the world, like you could do anything you set your mind to.

Your intuition has been switched to full volume. Never before has the right path been so clear to you. Decisions come easily, the choices obvious.

Your life is suddenly filled with infinite possibilities. Whatever your heart desires is yours for the asking. Concentrate on what it is you do want and it cannot help but happen. Health, wealth, loving relationships, worthwhile work, a happy family. It’s all yours for the asking when you put on your adventurers glasses. Nothing can stand in your way!

The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams

~Oprah Winfrey

Now it’s your turn. With your explorers glasses on, what magic do you notice?

Posted by karen | Filed Under October 08, Serenity Space 

Monthly Prize Draw - October 2008

October 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment

NEWSFLASH - NEWSFLASH - NEWSFLASH

It’s our first birthday and we’re celebrating with a monster prize draw!

See below for details of all the wonderful prizes!

We all love a chance to win something special!

Here at The Calm Space, we’re dedicated to bringing a sense of calm and tranquillity to your life and one of the ways we hope to do that is by offering you the chance to go into our regular monthly prize draw.

Register once to automatically go into the draw each month to win fantastic prizes chosen to enhance the calm space in your life. All prizes are donated by our wonderful contributors and sponsors.

The earlier you register, the greater chance you have to win!

Our prizes will grow as The Calm Space readership grows – and we’d love to have you along for the journey.

THIS MONTH - A MONSTER LIST OF PRIZES

To celebrate our First Birthday, we’ve put together a monster prize draw. Prizes include:

  • A bottle of Bollinger champagne kindly donated by Leah Maclean from Working Solo
  • A free one-year subscription to Saasu.com easy online accounting.  AUD$236 of value. The prize can be transferable by the winner to family or friends if you already have your accounts all organised. Donated by Marc Lehmann from Saasu.com
  • A one-hour organising phone consultation valued at $70 donated by Angela Ensouf from Creating Order from Chaos
  • Two copies of Save Our Sanity: The Christmas Calm Manual by Chris Owen and Karen Wallace, valued at $35 each; proudly donated by Chris and Karen www.SaveOurXmasSanity.com
  • A gift voucher to the value of $30 to spend at E-bar, your online organic skincare shop. Donated by Joanne Costello from E-bar
  • Three Chase the Sun CDs, proudly donated by Chase the Sun band, our featured artists on this month’s Sound Space
  • A gift membership to Slim Ink Passion Plan 1 worth $60, kindly donated by Marj Lim of Slim Ink - your premium library on the internet
  • Two copies of Money and the Law of Attraction book by Esther & Jerry Hicks valued at $27 each, kindly donated by Karen and Grant Wallace from The Calm Space

The prize draw will be on October 27th 2008 and the winners will be notified by email.

The winners will be announced in the November issue of The Calm Space.

To enter to win one of these fabulous prizes (and be automatically entered in prize drawings each month from now on) please provide your details below. [If you entered previously, there is no need to enter again - you're already on our list!]

You will be sent an email asking you to confirm your entry. Please look out for the email and make sure you click the link to finish confirming your details. We’d hate you to miss out!

Email:
Name:
Country:
Where Did You Hear About Us:

As a thank you, we will send you a quick email each month to let you know when each new issue of The Calm Space has been published.

We will never sell, rent, trade or share your email with anyone!

ANNOUNCING OUR WINNERS FOR SEPTEMBER!

We are thrilled to announce the winners of the Counting The Days CDs from The Favourites:

Joanna from New Zealand

Thi from Brisbane

Apollonia from Canberra

Congratulations. We’re sure you’ll enjoy this beautiful music!

PS If you weren’t one of our winners this month, you can still download one of their songs on The Sound Space right now.

Posted by karen | Filed Under Monthly Prize Draw, October 08 

Financing your adventures

October 1, 2008 | 3 Comments

Photo credit: Early Morning in Napoli by Enzo D on Flickr

On first pass it would seem that adventure and financial management are strange bed fellows. You might also be thinking (given the universal attitude) that most things financial are an instant cure for insomnia. However, I would suggest that if you take the time to get the “financial house” in order you will have the means and possibly the time to fund and enjoy your adventures, whatever they might be!

Good financial management is really about creating options and choices in your life. In the case of this months theme that could mean - do I travel economy class or business class? Do I extend the trip another week and spend time on a secluded beach with that special person? Or take the children to somewhere that would achieve the response of “wow this is sweet”?

Whatever it is that presses your buttons, now is as good a time as any to develop that spending plan for that next adventure. Yes, I did say spending plan not saving plan. I know it is a play on words, but hey, whatever works for you - use it.

Every plan needs to be considered, developed, actioned, monitored and changed if needed. Where do I start, you ask. Well perhaps you could go back a couple of months where I outlined a suggested course of action and give that a go. Alternatively see your usual financial adviser, or leave a comment below or send an email and I would be happy to help. The old saying “action cures fear” is very appropriate when it comes to matters financial, just give it a go!

Posted by grant | Filed Under Money Space, October 08 

Your Breathing Space for October

October 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment

“Nature has been for me, for as long as I remember, a source of solace, inspiration, adventure, and delight; a home, a teacher, a companion.”

~ Lorraine Anderson

image by Amy Palko and graphics by Leah Maclean

Download this image as desktop calendar wallpaper for your PC
(right click on the preferred size below)
Resolution - 1680×1050 / 1430×960 / 1024×768

Posted by karen | Filed Under Breathing Space, October 08 

Venture with words

October 1, 2008 | 2 Comments

Spring makes you want to venture out!

Be it excitingly with boarding pass in hand or only to a shady spot near the water with picnic basket in hand, the park down the street with the dog leash in hand (yes and the dog), lounging in your own backyard with a glass of white in your hand (the latter for me thanks!)…

An important accompaniment is a good book and I’m always happy to assist you there, happy venturing :)

Deadly Intent - Lynda La Plante

Alexander Fitzpatrick is one of the most wanted men in the Western world. A Howard Marks character, but far more dangerous, his wealth, accrued through drug-trafficking runs into millions. For the past ten years there has been no sighting of him. Has he gone to ground using an alias, or is he dead?

When an ex-police officer from the murder squad is found shot in a dank squat, Anna Travis is pulled onto the case. As the body count rises and the investigation becomes ever more complex, suspicion falls on Fitzpatrick. Is he still alive and in the UK? Could he be the killer, with terrifying access to the most lethal drug in existence?

100 Ways to Happiness - Timothy Sharp

‘I’m too busy to be happy . . .’

Do you ever think like this? Many of us do these days, says psychologist and happiness expert Dr Timothy Sharp.  In our quest for better jobs, bigger houses, more exotic holidays and higher-performing children, we have become too busy to factor in the one component that will make all of the above worthwhile: happiness.

The good news is that achieving happiness is not a herculean task.  It doesn’t require expensive therapy or years of self-examination.  Often it is about fine-tuning our thoughts and putting in place some simple daily practices.

Dr Sharp draws on the latest research into the science of happiness and presents it here in 100 bite-sized chunks of inspiration and instruction.  Read it from cover to cover, or dip in and out for a regular dose of happiness training.  Learn how to increase your happiness levels by:

  • improving your physical health
  • counting your blessings
  • nurturing positive relationships
  • becoming a giver
  • better managing your time

Accessible, informative and funny, 100 Ways to Happiness encourages us to regard happiness as something that is achievable, manageable and hugely enhancing to the lives we live now.

The Point of Rescue - Sophie Hannah
Sally is watching the news with her husband when she hears a name she ought not to recognise: Mark Bretherick. Last year, a work trip Sally had planned was cancelled at the last minute. Desperate for a break from her busy life juggling work and a young family, Sally didn’t tell her husband that the trip had fallen through.

Instead, she booked a week off work and treated herself to a secret holiday. All she wanted was a bit of peace - some time to herself - but it didn’t work out that way. Because Sally met a man - Mark Bretherick.

All the details are the same: where he lives, his job, his wife Geraldine and daughter Lucy. Except that the man on the news is a man Sally has never seen before. And Geraldine and Lucy Bretherick are both dead…

Head over Heel - Chris Harrison
“It was the craziest decision I have ever made, yet I would make it a million times again. She gave me no choice - she intoxicated me. Her liquorice eyes. Her mediterranean skin. Even the sound of her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood. Daniela - one L, smile as you say it to pronounce it correctly - was on her second trip to Australia in six months, far too infrequently for both our liking. So I responded with ease in that Sydney hotel, when she stood naked by the window, after distractedly interrupting what I had been hoping would last forever, and without turning from view, she said softly and without intonation: ‘Come to live with me in Italy.’ I would do many things for that captivating woman; reason was not one of them.”

Starting off in Daniela’s small home town on the coast of Puglia, Chris embarks on a journey into the heart of Italy, where he meets a host of vividly memorable characters and learns about a very different type of life, one which he is now immersed in for better or for worse.

There’s a policeman who rearranges crimes to suit the necessary forms and a doctor who prescribes patients his homemade lemon liqueur. Chris’ biggest challenge is Daniela’s mother, determined to supervise his choice of underwear and build a second storey on her stucco home where the couple might live happily ever after.

Tethered - Amy MacKinnon

Daisies for innocence; Irises for hope; Asphodel for eternal sorrow. Clara Marsh is an undertaker. She spends her solitary life among the dead, preparing their last baths, beautifying their bodies, and bidding them farewell with a bouquet from her own garden.

But Clara’s carefully structured life shifts when she discovers a neglected little girl, Trecie, playing in the funeral parlour, desperate for a friend. It changes even more when Detective Mike Sullivan starts questioning her again about a body she prepared three years ago, an unidentified girl found murdered in a nearby strip of woods. Unclaimed by family, the community christened her Precious Doe.

When Clara and Mike learn Trecie may be involved with the same people who killed Precious Doe, Clara must choose between her solitary but steadfast existence and the perils of binding one’s life to another. Clara’s search for the girl pulls her into a spiralling series of events that threaten to endanger the few people Clara has grown to love - and finally brings her own tragic and long-buried past to the surface.

Darkly atmospheric and tautly written, Tethered is a haunting and ultimately heart-breaking novel that explores the themes of love, loss, faith and redemption.

All titles available at your premium library on the internet

Posted by marjorie | Filed Under October 08, Reading Space 

The Adventure You Have When You Stay at Home

October 1, 2008 | 2 Comments

When you write a column about relationships, and the editor sets the theme as “adventuring”, it could seem like a perilous stretch from the theme to the wobbly little Pink Apple I normally stand on.

But this month, it fits perfectly.  Because you see, I’ve recently read two books about relationship adventures.  In reading these two books, I’ve “met” two women of courage and commitment who are unquestionably a source of inspiration to me.  Inside me, I know that reading these books has thrown out a challenge to me, and I’m still trying to discover how I am meant to take up that challenge and find my own adventure.

So, have I got you intrigued?

What inspirational adventures am I talking about?

No they didn’t climb Everest, or walk the Great Wall.  They didn’t base jump, or dabble in any other extreme sport.  These two women’s adventures were into the world of intimacy.

“Pooh!  Hardly an adventure!” I hear you say. “Is that all?”

Now, before you put on a sophisticated-woman-of-the-world sneer, let’s get clear about what I mean about intimacy and an adventure.

Normally when I say intimacy, I’m writing about the deep connection of shared stories and vulnerabilities that you might have with someone with whom you see yourself as “close”.  On the other hand, in the media “intimacy” is a socially-accepted euphemism for sex.  These adventurous women were definitely about BOTH interpretations.

If your expectation of adventure is battling your own demons, coping with the ebbs and flows of energy and enthusiasm, rising to a new challenge, having fun while also scaring yourself silly with the risks you’re taking, then I reckon this fits the title of adventure.

Each of these gutsy ladies decided to make a commitment to their husbands to ensure they made love every day.  One offer was for 100 days the other was for a whole YEAR!

Now I don’t know about you but I reckon that’s a highly risky offer.   (What if you don’t feel like delivering?)   It’s risky like that ‘diving into the deep end of the pool when your best swim stroke is a limited dog-paddle’ kind of way!

So what happened?

Interestingly, both women had the wind taken out of their sails when they shared their offer with their lucky spouse.  Why?  Because both hubbies told them to go away and think about it again!

Before you go making assumptions, these women were very ordinary you-and-me type women.  Late 30s, married with primary school-aged kids, juggling part-time jobs to help with the mortgage, and with a full and challenging domestic life, and little time for even catching up with friends.  Sound like anyone you know?

Promiscuity hadn’t shaped their lives, they weren’t seeking the kinky, and they hadn’t been advised to do this by a sexual therapist.  Both women had been satisfied with their sexual relationship with their husbands, but weren’t too disappointed if it didn’t happen too often.  Tiredness was an endless part of their existence.  Sound like anyone you know?

But they both knew that intimacy (the connecting kind) was silently and slowly seeping away from their marriages.

What did he say?

Their husbands both knew that an offer like they were getting would be the ENVY of every married man they knew!  But they had become wary of the hurtful rejection that women (even loving wives) so often unthinkingly offer to men when sex isn’t high on the woman’s agenda. They were happy to take up the offer, but only if it was a truthful, informed, and considered decision driven by a desire for positive change rather than to appease guilt.

Our experiences tell us that the two genders approach sex in different ways and with different arousal mechanisms. The general theme of males is that they tend to be more readily aroused by visual and direct stimuli. Women tend to more aroused by connection, cuddling, and relaxing into lovemaking. I like the description that men need to make love to feel loved, and women need to feel loved to make love.

Of course, libido itself varies enormously in individuals. In fact using the term “normal” about sex sets any writer up to be shot down in flames by contradictory evidence.

Most couples start out their relationships madly in lust, move into love and then they have kids and their worlds change.  But why is it that we forget how much joy and light comes from communicating sexually?  We couldn’t get enough of it when we started out.

What happened?

Yes I know! I’ve heard so many of them (and said my fair share of them as well!)

  • I was always tired
  • Tasks got in the way
  • I had to get up early
  • The kids always come into our bed at night
  • We stopped going to bed at the same time
  • We aged
  • I get cold in bed and only my flannelette PJs will keep me warm
  • She/He needed to de-stress by watching TV
  • He/She started drinking more
  • The side effects of prescribed drugs attacked your libido
  • You got into a routine of weekends and holidays

And that’s in the relationships where he hasn’t become addicted to porn or she hasn’t taken a lover!

So undertaking these adventures presented the authors with their own little case studies - and that’s clearly why they’ve written about it.

But how …?

Both couples took slightly different paths on their adventure.

The 100 day couple were a bit more organised and researched and explored far more before beginning. They sought medical advice (primarily use lots of lubricant!), explored different positions, different settings, different stimuli, and promised themselves little trips away so that boredom didn’t kick in. Without resorting to unsavoury writing, the reader gets to hear about their findings.

The Year Couple were perhaps less organised, but were in it for a much longer haul! Culturally they were probably more conservative, with a Christian influence, but the author-wife was remarkably honest about her feelings and experiences in her writing if more coy and less descriptive of their activities.

The commonalities told their own tale. For me completing both books and seeing the patterns repeated is what I found inspiring.

They both noticed:

  • how much more they began to talk to each other and accept each other
  • how much more sacred and special their sexual relationship and thus their whole relationship became
  • that they needed to help each other with other commitments (family time, domestic chores, social activities) to fit their sexual relationship into their busy lives
  • that frequency doesn’t breed complacency when it’s by choice
  • how much easier it was to talk about sex, their satisfactions, their needs, their difficulties
  • that TV and books and the Internet had to be pushed down the priority list to fit everything into their daily lives
  • that the world didn’t end with less TV, books, and web-browsing
  • that quickies were useful and totally acceptable for both partners at times
  • that mutual satisfaction doesn’t only come from mutual “crescendos” (I’m trying to avoid the spam)
  • that in fact the pressure to “work” at satisfying their partner faded with reliable frequency
  • that knowing that they would be making love lifted both their spirits and their daily general well-being
  • that sometimes making love can start off feeling like a chore (for BOTH)
  • that after completing their assigned projects, their frequency remained much higher than before they started

I don’t know about you but that list sounds pretty appealing to me. In fact, it sounds bloody fantastic!  So you can see why I’m reflecting on what I might do to shift the thinking in my own relationship.

Time For Some Think Music

So can I ask you some questions?  (These ones are for you alone - unless you WANT to share your answers!)

  • Compare the sexual relationship you started with and the one you have now.  How do you feel about the differences?
  • Have you noticed a difference in your attitudes to your sexual relationship?
  • How often do you talk about your sexual relationship?
  • Would you like to feel more connected to each other?
  • Would your partner agree that sex might be a way to make some positive shifts in your relationship?
  • So what one small step might you take to shift your attitudes, habits, conversations for the sake of your relationship and more fun in bed?

Let’s Get the Debate Rolling

I reckon this is a topic that might spark some debate here on The Calm Space.  So why not hit the comments button and tell us what you think of these couples adventures?

Or perhaps you have some observations about what gets in the way of a satisfying sexual relationship.

Or maybe you have strong opinions about the place of sex in a relationship - let’s hear them?

Maybe you’d like to give us a hint on what kinds of baby steps you might like to take to change how things are in your household?

The Books?

In case you’re interested, the two books were:

Just Do It: How One Couple Turned Off the TV and Turned On Their Sex Lives for 101 Days (No Excuses!) by Douglas Brown

365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy by Charla Muller

Posted by chris | Filed Under October 08, Relationship Space 

Spiritual Adventures

October 1, 2008 | 1 Comment

What! You think God doesn’t have adventures, that He/She is serious all the time?! Creating this wonderful world of ours would have been a huge adventure: laughing inwardly while thinking about how to make men and women so completely different from each other that most communication will be ridiculous, imagining all the weird and wonderful creatures and putting this huge jigsaw puzzle together!

The search for our own spirituality cannot be a chore or duty, otherwise it is pointless. How then, to turn it into an adventure! What does this word connote?

Excitement – learning to ‘know’ God instead of ‘know about’ God

Exploration – try on different spiritual hats, not just what you were taught as a child

Get out of comfort zone – it isn’t always comfortable to look at our beliefs to see if they really hold true, to leave that steady but boring job, to let go those things that no longer serve us well

Joy of discovery – when we find that little pearl of wisdom, that beautiful song lyric, that meme (google it – cool word) someone passed along – yeehaa!

Get on out there. Have fun on your spiritual path. Bring joy to the table every day. Try on new ideas, new strategies, new friends, new experiences. Go crazy!

Life is short – eat dessert first!

Love, peace and wisdom

PS Happy Birthday Calm Space!

Posted by annie | Filed Under October 08, Spiritual Space 

Are You Ready For a Blogging Adventure?

October 1, 2008 | 9 Comments

Do you want to let your words soar?

Then maybe it’s time to cut the ropes and fly off into the wild, colourful adventure of blogging…

Photo Credit: Temecula Festival by ms4jah on Flickr

Although writing a blog might sound like something reserved for those of a technical nature, or citizen journalists, or youngsters who are glued to their pcs, you’d be amazed how many ordinary people are now sharing a little piece of their world with other members of the world wide web.

Many of the writers at the Calm Space are also enthusiastic and gifted bloggers: in fact that’s how many of us got to know each other in the first place.  Making connections across countries, across continents, in fact across the other side of the world is just one of the ways that writing a blog can transport you off into new adventures.

Here are some of the other ways that blogging might just carry you off into the horizon…

  • You’ll stretch and develop your writing, experimenting with new styles and content
  • Your words will be read by people in other parts of the world, connecting you together through the power of your words
  • You’ll form friendships which in turn can lead to new working relationships, business partnerships, or ideas for projects and initiatives
  • You’ll get used to hearing the sound of your own writing voice, and soon you’ll be strengthening and developing that voice till you’re singing out loud
  • Reading the work of other people will give you an insight into the way people live in other parts of the world, reminding you of how different our lives can be… and how many common ties bind us together
  • You might learn how to share pictures, videos: offering a peek into your world and maybe bringing a burst of sunshine and colour into someone else’s
  • You’ll find that other people are interested in you and who you are, where you live, what your work is like, what kind of things you can see from your kitchen window.  Your dull old ordinary world can start to seem special and exciting, when viewed through the lens of other people
  • You might travel to meet some of the people you’ve spoken to through your writing online. I’ve travelled to Chicago and Italy this year to meet up with other bloggers.  Although Australia seems a long way from Scotland to meet up with other Calm Space authors… who knows what might happen one day?
  • You can use what you produce and what you’ve learned to achieve other lifelong ambitions, like writing a book or creating a store to sell your craft work
  • You’ll find yourself exploring new avenues, new ideas each and every day, following ideas - your own and other people’s - and flying off to see where they take you, just like these gorgeous balloons…

If you’re already a blogger, what kind of adventures has it led you into?

If you’re thinking about getting started - what would help to give you the final push, to cut the ropes and set your writing free?

Posted by joanna | Filed Under October 08, Writing Space 

Going on a decluttering adventure

October 1, 2008 | 4 Comments

It starts with a feeling, a longing to do something different. The feeling grows to a strong desire. Before you know it, you start to believe it can come true. You do a little research, and what started as a feeling has become a fully fledged plan. It may not be easy. You will need to be brave. There may be times when you want to give up. You will be tackling the unknown. You will make new discoveries. Your strength will grow. In the end, you will believe you can do it. And when it’s done, it feels great.

All the best adventures have these things in common.

“Be careful going in search of adventure – it’s ridiculously easy to find” – William Least Heat-Moon

Let’s go on an adventure together, a decluttering adventure. Who needs GPS? We’ll make our own roadmap. You choose the destination – towards a place of peace and tranquillity, greater productivity or family harmony – and the path to get you there – via the cluttered cupboard, drawer, garage, or schedule – and I’ll be your guide. (Roadmap example – towards a good night’s sleep via the overcrowded bedroom.)

I must warn you there will be forks in the road. These will be choices to make. Some will be easy, obvious. Others will be harder, but it’s important to face up to those choices. Taking the time to make them now will save us time in the long run. And while I can help you by asking the right questions, it’s only you who can answer. (Fork in the road example – how much space are you willing to allocate to handbags? Remember, the more handbags you keep, the less room there is for other stuff.)

There will be pretty side tracks leading nowhere. These are the distractions that take you away from your goal. Taking them seems like a good idea at the time, but when you come back to the main road the journey still lies ahead. (Side track example – “Oh look, those are the photos I promised to send Mum, I’ll go do that now”.)

You may need special equipment but trust me, it’s not worth loading up with these at the start of our adventure. What we need to begin is a willing spirit, some time set aside and the rest we’ll discover as we go. (Equipment example – boxes of all shapes and sizes can often be part of the clutter problem. It’s better to buy these after the decluttering process when you know what, where and how you’ll store what’s precious enough to stay.)

Plan to rest. Any good adventure takes time. Tackling the scary unknown can be tiring. For some, it can be physically and mentally draining. Over committing is the surest way to dampen spirits and discourage future adventures like this one. (Rest example – set a timer for each session. Take some time out, but do plan a time for getting back to it.)

You’ll want to record your journey. It’s important to acknowledge where you’ve come from as well as the destination. (Record-keeping example – take before and after photos, or rate your anxiety level 1-10 at the beginning, middle and end of the process.)

Here’s the great news… when you finish, it will feel great! Pop the champagne, light the fireworks! Coming to the end is time to celebrate and reward your accomplishments. (Reward example – a candlelit bubble bath or a golden half hour of reading or a new pillow to lay your head on.)

Let your journey inspire others. Please share your decluttering adventure.

Posted by angela | Filed Under October 08, Organising Space 

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