THE SIMPLE LIFE: INTENTION

I am hardly a yogi by any standard, and actually until recently I was never super inclined to participate in the thought process behind yoga especially the idea of setting ones intentions. For me yoga was something physical, I wanted to be flexible and I wanted to lose weight but when I did not see the results I wanted I gave up. I still want to be flexible, I still want to lose weight but I have realized that if I want to achieve that with yoga, I need to participate in all aspects of the practice, it is only as that whole that it will be effective. I feel as though I am going through this, almost, spiritual awakening at this time in my life, where I am realizing and understanding why I am here in this moment, what got me to this point and what I have to do to get my life back on track and one of the biggest aspects of realigning my life is setting my intention. Now setting my intention can be my goal in life, my aspirations but it can also be what I hope to achieve in a single day, for me setting my intention is not just one intention but it is being intentional in every single thing I do. I realize this is super long introduction and that I still haven't gotten to the point of this spiel but alas the wait is over and here is the tie in... When I made the decision to work towards simplifying my life, it was easy to throw out my clothes, to empty my makeup drawer, to leave behind my worldly possessions but if I wanted to maintain it, to keep my life (and closet) clear and simple I was going to have to really figure out why I was doing this, and what it is that I am hoping to achieve.

My intention with simplifying my life is to relieve myself of burdens, financial burdens that come with purchasing disposable commodities, emotional burdens that come with the guilt of purchasing things that harm people, places and animals and the physical burden on carrying around so much stuff all the time. I am person who has too much going on in my head on a daily basis (something I'm sure many other people can understand) so if I cannot temper the chaos inside of me, then I can work on clearing the things outside of me so that at least some aspect of my existence is peaceful.

With my intention set I am just that much closer to achieving my goal of a simpler life. I do still battle with my materialistic desires on a day to day basis, some days my intention wins, some days my desires but overall  I feel as though I am headed on the right path. And plus with clear intentions it removes an grey area when it comes to decisions and therefore makes it much harder for me to justify that superfluous purchase.

THE SIMPLE LIFE: PURGING

The thing about moving (almost) halfway across the world is that I have to decide what does and does not come with me. For the past five months I have been making mental checklists and filtering through my belongings and deciding what I am keeping, storing or selling...in my mind. Now with five weeks before my departure date I realized mental lists are not going to make the task of purging my belongings any easier. 

I have been reading several blogs on minimalism, simple living, and mindful living, initially to adopt some of their principles to make relinquishing my worldly possessions easier but a lot of the ideas expressed by these individuals have really resonated within me. 

My first task was to get rid of the unnecessary, the non-useful and  the just plain ugly. Using this guide, I weeded through my entire wardrobe and at least half of what I owned is now piled in three large garbage bags beside my bed, awaiting pick up for donation. Clothing was the easy part, becoming a mother has necessitated a wardrobe change anyways, my books however were a different story. My once overflowing bookshelf is now more empty than filled, and even though it broke my heart to do so I filled two large cloth shopping bags of books for donation and curated the remaining titles until I had selected the forty-ish books that I had decided I could not bear to part with.     

These are just my first steps in the direction of more simple living, and they have been liberating. I am excited to implement the "less is more" philosophy into all facets of my life but it is definitely going to be a difficult process, but I think this move is the big push that I needed to get started.