Tag: The benefits of minimalism

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Why I Consider Myself An Extreme Minimalist

It’s the second year of writing on this blog, and over that time, I’ve grown while my pile of belongings have shrunk.

I’ve written a lot about minimalism and the process of decluttering, but since then, my mindset has changed, what I want has changed, and what I thought I needed to be happy has been challenged time and again. 

I am now what I consider to be an extreme minimalist. 

Minimalism is all about only keeping the things that you love, that you find useful and that bring value into your life. Once the physical aspect has reached a certain point, it extends into other areas of your life such as relationships, career, and personal values. 

Extreme minimalism is minimalism taken even further and isn’t something there is such a lot of out there on the internet. Many extreme minimalists have gone furniture-free to encourage more movement in their daily lives as well as introduce even more space to move around freely. They keep only what is essential for them and live as free as possible. 

What is essential will differ depending on the individual, and that will always be the case no matter what kind of minimalist you are. 

Some extreme minimalists I follow are Youheum on Heal Your Living, and Anja’s Artworld. While my lifestyle is different because I have a family and different hobbies, the extreme minimalist lifestyle very much appeals to me.

As I decluttered more and started asking myself big questions, I realised that I too, wanted more, by having even less. 

Of course, because I have a family, there’s only so far I can go. I can’t go furniture free, for example, as I would have done, because my family loves having a sofa, table and chairs. And that’s fine by me. Extreme minimalism isn’t for everyone, and I’m focusing on what I can do personally to minimise my own stuff so I can maximise my life. 

So far, I’ve got rid of about 80% of my stuff.

It’s strange to think I used to be an organised hoarder. The stuff I held onto caused drawers to break and arguments between me and fiance (now my husband). I didn’t know what I wanted out of life other than to collect and play as many videogames as possible and write fanfiction which I never published. 

I was simply surviving day to day, and was struggling with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia. 

Growing up, I had been taught that life is a constant struggle, that money is only for rich and/or crooked people, and that my dreams were unrealistic. For the longest time, I viewed successful people with suspicion and saw almost every opportunity as a con. 

It has taken many years of working on my past, working on my mindset, changing the stories I told myself on a regular basis and becoming minimalist, to unlearn all of that. 

My minimalist journey started a couple of years ago sometime after being confronted with my huge attic hoard by my mum.

Later, we moved into a house we would be sharing with my parents and for a time we had to live in the bedroom while a side extension was built onto the house so we would have our own living room and enough bedrooms for all of us.

Once complete, the living room was going to be very narrow and long, so I knew I had to be selective about my stuff. I wanted a fresh start, anyway. New furniture, new ornaments, new everything. 

Over time, I got rid of bags upon bags of clutter. I must have been walking to the charity shops every other other day because everyone in my family started commenting on it and making jokes out of it. “You’ll have nothing left”, “Their shop will be just full of your stuff”. 

Ironically, I did feel as if I had a shop full of stuff, yet none of it had brought me lasting joy. 

The more I got rid of the more free I felt, and the more my decluttering muscles built. But I also started to feel guilt for the amount of stuff I had mindlessly accumulated. Some of the stuff wasn’t even all that old and was something I had convinced myself I needed but then realised I didn’t or got bored of quickly. 

Some of it was gifts I had kept out of guilt and obligation. 

More recently, we’ve had our second child who is now almost 5 months old, and the gaming room we’ve had will soon need to become her bedroom. As a result, we’ve been slowly getting rid of our large collection of games and merchandise (definitely some of the hardest stuff for me to part with).  

Most of it, I realised, was just to show my identity as a gamer and as an interesting person. I used to want to be like my favourite Youtube game collectors and imagined one day showing it all off on camera. 

I wanted my friends to come over and be wowed as they looked over my awe-inspiring collection. 

Now I don’t want any of that.

Not only have I parted with a lot of my stuff, I’ve shed a lot of my ego and realised the things which are really important to me; writing, taking photos in nature, going on long walks. 

I’m not saying I no longer enjoy playing videogames; that’s something I’ve enjoyed since I was 4, and can’t imagine a life without. What I’m saying is, I want more out of life, and extreme minimalism seems to be the way for me to make room for that. 

I was tired of a layer of dust accumulating over everything. Fed up of dusting huge units of furniture. Exhausted with the decision fatigue when I didn’t know what game to pick. Bored of worrying about what might happen to my collection in any number of situations. 

I consider myself an extreme minimalist because I am almost entirely free of decor and things that might otherwise overload my senses visually, and I’m considering sitting on the floor more and on fold-away furniture to encourage a more active lifestyle. So far, my long walks have been doing wonders for my stamina. 

I’m already experiencing many of the benefits of extreme minimalism: 

  • Less things to clean and maintain, more time to relax, be with my family, or learn something new. 
  • Less visual clutter overloading my senses. 
  • The more money saved by not buying random tchotkes, the more I have to support me in what matters. 
  • Celebrations being focused on family and fun instead of stuff and storage (this is a work in progress as it involves others being on board). 
  • More space to think and for my kids to play freely. 
  • Space for my husband to set up his PC station for gaming and work, and still have plenty of entertainment area left.
  • Less worry about safety and getting angry at superfluous things getting broken by my kids. 
  • Room for growth and potential. 
  • Space for the big questions in life and for self discovery. 
  • Space for silence and a cup of tea just thinking about…nothing. 

I’m quite excited to continue my journey and wonder where I’ll be six months and even a year from now. Likely, I will be returning to posts like these as a fun way to check how far I’ve come. 

Photo by Christopher Sardegna on Unsplash
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The Many Benefits of Minimalism

I’m getting married at the weekend, dear readers, so this post is a little earlier than normal. I’ll also keep it short and simple.

This week, I am here to tell you some of the many ways that minimalism can benefit you.

Before I discovered minimalism, it wasn’t just my home that was cluttered, but my entire life. My mind, my emotions, my relationships. I only worked part time, yet somehow I was still always ‘busy’. I barely had time with my family and would come in through the door, immediately start the dinner, tidy up, wash clothes, and passively scroll through Facebook.

Then I’d start again the next day. And the next.

The next thing I knew, my son was four. Where had the time gone?

In our always-connected world, we speed through our days faster than we can take a breath. We rush past the beautiful summer flora, heads buried in our screens, brain miles ahead of our bodies as we plan to tick off the next box. We get in from work, dump our keys on the table and barely look at our partners or kids. There’s just so much to do and so little time!

There’s dinners to cook, a house to clean, clothes to wash and emails to answer, food shopping to do, homework with the kids, that birthday to remember, that favour to return…

Stop.

Breathe.

Feel.

As technology has raced ahead, so have our lives, and most of us seem to have forgotten how to do the above three things. By racing to keep up we are forgetting to live.

But there is a simple and elegant solution.

By embracing minimalism you can learn to stop and smell the flowers. You can regain lost time and reconnect with not just your family, but yourself.

As my donate pile grew and my space expanded,I started to see and experience so many benefits that I can’t even imagine going back to how life was before.

Below, is a list of the ways that minimalism has enriched my life and will endlessly benefit yours.

  • Regained floor space, shelf space and mind space. My space feels light, airy and full of potential.
  • An always tidy house. No more panicking about guests and wasting time tidying. This also helped me to pace myself and cope with chronic illness.
  • Less time spent cleaning because it is quicker and easier. Less cleaning means more time doing fun or meaningful activities. I now have far more writing time and time to just sit and chat when I get home from work.
  • Cheaper shopping days because I no longer feel the urge to buy shiny new things.
  • Being far more aware of the environment. Before minimalism, I had too much stuff to notice what else was around me and what was happening behind the scenes.
  • Being much more aware of the people around me. Once you’ve cleared the excess stuff, suddenly, people take the spotlight instead of the trinkets lining your bookcase.
  • Improved relationships . Having more time for others and being more mindful has lead to closer relationships in my life. There’s more time to talk and the important people in my life take priority.
  • Feeling more creative and inspired . Once I cut out digital distractions and regained so much space in my home, I could think much clearer. No longer did I take walks with my face glued to my screen, or sit on a bench updating my status. As a result, my notebooks are brimming with observations, ideas and insights. Some of the sights, interactions or snippets of conversation were fleeting. I would have missed them had I had my head down or been speeding along like a wind up toy.
  • A clear purpose in life . Clearing the clutter and adopting a minimalist mindset lead to me completely reevaluating my life and what was most important. Most importantly, there is now the space to achieve whatever I want.  
  • Space to grow. Minimalism has made me grow as a person and realise that I won’t ever stop growing. I can see clearly what needs improving, what I need to contribute to, and what I need to let go of.

As you can see, the benefits of minimalism are powerful and extensive, and I know that the list will only grow longer, because minimalism helps your values to grow in the same way the sun helps a flower to bloom.

Stop. Breathe. Feel. Live.