It dawns on me during this HUGE house move that more than just my home setting is being altered.  And what is my home setting? Since I left Toronto in 2003, my journey has been a spiritual one, letting go of many of my material belongings, allowing me space to explore my inner world and leading me to try a life of non attachment with few material possessions.

I have loved these past 6 years.  During the first 3, I didn’t seem to miss much of my “stuff” as I was VERY focussed on my internal “stuff”. Journeying into myself, I didn’t need material goods, I needed time and space.  I had given myself lots of both of those things and resting in savasana, assimilating my new feelings and understandings was far easier with NO books nearby.

Now, I am on the verge of buying a home and for the first time in 10 years, and I am buying material goods again.  I bought a bed!  I have acquired books again and I am reading more.

AND, this stuff is heavy, not easily moved the way I have moved in the last 6 years.  I am beginning to see a new cycle emerge, one where I have room in my life again for stuff and yet is this what I really want??!!

Apparently, my love and life partner has been asking the same thing and sent me this lovely article to ponder.

Enjoy… in peace…

Post written by Leo Babauta.

We’re in love with stuff — with shopping, with acquiring, with owning, with collecting.

Let’s lust after life instead.

Our obsession with stuff has become unhealthy. When we have a void in our lives, we buy things. When we have problems, we buy things. And these things are becoming more and more expensive, bigger, shinier … more wasteful.

This obsession with stuff leads to owning a lot, having a lot of clutter … and yet this stuff doesn’t fill our lives with meaning.

It leads to deep debt, from buying so much, and needing bigger houses and storage spaces to contain everything. Financially, we’re worse off than ever, because of this obsession with stuff.

We buy things when we’re depressed, we buy things for others to show how much we love them … and in this way, stuff has separated us from actually dealing with our emotions, blocked us from truly connecting with others.

Let’s replace that lust for stuff with a lust for life.

Some ideas:

• Rediscover a passion for life. Get outside and feel nature, appreciate the beauty of the world around you. Get active, do some gardening or yardwork, play a sport, go for a walk, take a hike, go for a swim, ride a bike. Feel the life coursing through you. Breathe it in.
• Give experiences as gifts, not stuff. Instead of shopping for someone come birthdays or Christmas, think of an experience you can give them instead. A date with you, doing something fun, hanging out, cooking, playing, talking, exploring. A fun time at a park or beach. Something other than everyday. An experience is much more meaningful than an object.
• Connect with others. In real life. If you haven’t hung out with a friend recently, give him a call and go hang out. Get your kid away from the TV or video game player and take her outside to do something. Go on a date with your partner. Visit your mom or grandparents. And be present while you’re with them — really listen, really be there.
• Deal with your emotions. If you have a need to buy things, to shop when you are having emotional issues, be more aware of this. Then deal with the underlying emotions, rather than using shopping as a way to forget about them. If you’re depressed, or anxious, or lonely, deal with those. Find solutions, figure out what’s causing them. Good news: experiencing life, getting active, and connecting with others all help you deal with those emotional issues.
• Disconnect your attachment to stuff. Sometimes I find myself reluctant to give something up, even if I don’t really use it. And that’s when I ask myself, “Why?” What is holding me back from getting rid of this possession? Sometimes, the item has an emotional connection, but then I realize that it’s just an object, it’s not the emotion or the actual source of the emotion. Then I’ll take a picture of the item, upload it to my computer, and get rid of the object. I feel liberated, because I’ve broken an attachment to a physical object (but saved the memory). If you are attached to an object, figure out why — it’s not healthy in the long run.
• Realize that life, not stuff, is what matters. Objects are just objects — if you lose them, if they get stolen or destroyed … it’s not a big deal. They’re just objects — not your life. Your life is the series of moments that is steaming through your consciousness right now, and how you use those moments and what you fill them with is what truly matters, not what you fill your home with. At the end of this short journey, you’ll look back and remember your experiences, the people you loved and who loved you back, the things you did and didn’t do. Not the stuff you had.

Read more about simplifying in my book, The Power of Less.