Renouncing of facets or emotions which do not serve me.
These days I am trying to declutter my life, making small decisions starting from my clothes to essential things. They are minor adjustments that I can do away with, I have never been a spendthrift or envisioned grander things in life materialistically.
From an early age, I was satisfied with my environment. I didn’t have the urge to inherent access clothes or even toys. I experimented a lot when I was younger. I became a vegetarian at the age of 16, went for a morning run before the dusk, and took a shower with cold water. I feel like I became aware of a lot of things from an early age.
Including spirituality and getting to know the world better, in turn, getting to know myself better, I also really became fascinated by the idea of minimalism.
“Minimalism is a tool that can assist you in finding freedom. Freedom from fear. Freedom from worry. Freedom from overwhelm. Freedom from guilt. Freedom from depression. Freedom from the trappings of the consumer culture we’ve built our lives around. Real freedom.”
Minimalism, to me, doesn’t only mean to throw out my belongings physically but also to clear out mentally. To declutter my mind, I had to declutter my environment first and occasionally my habits. Make space so I can inhabit new ideas and get rid of unwanted belief systems.
Some habits which added more stress and anxiety, I had to get rid of. Starting from small daily habits like being on the phone unnecessarily. I used to get up in the morning and look at my phone. I did that while sleeping, sometimes falling asleep with it. I try not to use my phone an hour before I go to sleep and an hour after I wake up.
At first, I felt like something was missing, and I hadn’t quite gotten used to that feeling, I felt restless. I was trying to detox myself, and like any other detox method, I felt the withdrawal symptoms. I had to create my morning and night ritual. Sleeping with some prayers and offering gratitude to the universe and waking up in the morning doing my meditation and prayers.
Those minute changes in habits and choices we make, I do feel it can make a ripple effect. I am well aware of the choices we make and the consequences we have on our environment. In this growing industrial and economic age, people do tend to value material wealth more than anything else. I see documentaries about the adverse effects of fast fashion industries around the world. Inhumane acts committed, but we turn the other way because the result creates the illusion of our ideal lifestyle. To buy clothes from forever 21 or some clothing stores which sell cheap clothes but without durability. People in another country have to suffer for that, to make clothes in a vast amount we need cheap labor. Cheap labors are in places that are already affected by poverty. I have clothes which I have been wearing for almost five years and trying my best not to accumulate unnecessary garments. That is also going to be my new year resolution, not buy any clothes and wear what I have.
If it helps someone across the country if I abandon my habit of spending my money on cheap clothing brands, am I making a difference? I don’t know, but I do want to be able to participate in a movement that I think brings more value to this world. Being part of the movement can be a silent one too. It’s a silent gesture of help.
The hunger for power and desire for some validation from whatever forms, we create unnecessary chaos in the world. So I try to abandon many things that don’t bring value in my life.
I do feel all the suffering comes because we are all looking for a deeper connection with the world and want to belong somewhere. It can happen to us from being away from technology in a way as much as possible. So, I try to abandon the need to look at my phone always and leave it home sometimes and give myself some off-screen time. The absurd thing is I am using technology to do my writing. I do try to wake up in the morning without using my phone and go to sleep without it.
I do feel disconnected from the world sometimes, and to reconnect in the more profound sense, I have to challenge what I have endorsed in. I do feel when we are unfulfilled; there are a lot of signals. Some signals come in the form of illness and can manifest in many things making us suffer.
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Thank you
Peggy
