Remember To Breathe

If you are a new reader, welcome! This is my blog where I write about my Soul Existence and my pursuit of self-sufficiency and personal freedom.

I rent a room and I also have access to a few smaller areas where I can store food, as well as 5 sqm outside to grow my own food. I am looking for land and I am saving up for it, and with all the manifesting I’m doing, I should be attracting the right place for my eco-home soon.

Letting go

I have a storage unit where I keep most of my things, and every month when I pay the fee, I get so tempted to just sell or donate everything inside. I need the storage unit right now, but my “dream” is to live in a space that is cleverly designed so that I may keep all of my possessions with me. Fortunately, when I feel like becoming an extreme minimalist, I remind myself that there are things in my storage unit and in the place that I live that I still need and will be needing for the time being. Also, since I am trying to break the habit of using money, I have no intention of buying any of those items again. Thus, I need to use them until they cannot be used anymore. And when that day comes, I won’t acquire replacements.

I do donate things sometimes, but only if I feel that keeping the items will actually cause problems for me such as cause me stress or mental anguish. In those situations, the items in question are much better off being loved by a new owner.

For example, I had some things on my parent’s attic from my early twenties. I didn’t really know what was up there and I hadn’t seen the things that were stored there for over half a decade. There were some things that I was happy to find because they were things I still use. Finding them meant that I wouldn’t need to spend money on those kind of items for the foreseeable future. But there were also things that made me feel really overwhelmed. I didn’t know they were up there, so over the years I had purchased replacements as the need arose, and as a result I now have duplicates.

I decided to pack everything up neatly and take it to the storage unit. I will take some time to think things through and then I will decide whether I want to keep the duplicates or not. If I want to keep something, I will need to let go of something else. And if I want to let something go, I would ideally like to receive money for that item. If it is a seasonal item, that means that I will need to keep it until just before that season begins. Because that’s when things sell well.

Winter clothes sell well at the start of fall. Summer clothes sell well in early spring. Christmas things sell well after Samhain. No matter what you are selling, you need to consider the market and the timing of the sale.

I’m Not The Same

I am not the same person today as I was yesterday. So it is not that surprising that I feel very different from who I was in my early twenties. I have changed many times since then, after all. When I went through the things I found, I felt grateful, but I also had this overwhelming feeling that these things belonged to a version of me that I had let go of a long time ago. I’d outgrown them. I wasn’t that person anymore and many of the items no longer resonated with me.

Still, I believe in making do with what you have, so I will leave them be for now. I am a big believer in the order of things, and I have found that many, if not most things happen for a reason. We’re just not privy to what that reason is. I found these things last week, and I think the reason for that will soon reveal itself. Either I will be needing them soon, or someone in my community will. Time will tell.

Simplifying

Yesterday my order from Ikea arrived. It felt so good knowing that I got what I needed (and wanted) for my pantry, and I didn’t need to pay for it. Well, technically I did pay for it, but I paid for it with gift certificates that I earned from filling out surveys. That’s one of my side hustles. So to me it felt like getting it for free.

The wooden cart was great. I treated all of the wood with olive oil before assembling it. Today we took it out to the cold storage and placed all of my canned goods inside.

After I had filled the cart, I decided it was time to go over my pantry once more. I listed each category of food items and how much space each category requires at present. That showed me which staples I need to find more space efficient storage solutions for.

I want my possessions (including food) to consist of things that I use and care about, things that make my life better, and I also want them to take up as little space as possible. I don’t like feeling weighed down by things.

The Rest of My Order From Ikea

Apart from the wooden crate, I also bought three 50×50 cm pillows. I am not entirely sure what kind of covers I want to make with them, but I had a feeling I’ll be needing them soon, so I added them to the order. I also got a compost bucket in the colour sage. I will keep it inside and add peels, coffee grounds and things like that to it until it is full. And then I will carry it outside to my bokashi bucket. That way I will remind myself to place my food waste there and make use of it all. I won’t need to take it out to the bucket each time, so it saves me time and energy.

I got a slim cart intended for bathrooms. It’s very space efficient and it can be assembled or taken apart in about two minutes. I decided to store all of my dish brushes, replacement heads, and other eco-friendly cleaning supplies on it. It looked so good and being able to roll it out and grab what I need whenever I clean my space will make things so much easier for me. I am considering getting another one to store my flour, seeds and dry fruits/berries on. Essentially the ingredients I need to bake bread. Originally I had planned to keep my sourdoughs on it, but it turned out it wasn’t made to hold that kind of weight, so I had to make a new plan.

Slightly Overwhelmed

I am starting to feel a little overwhelmed by how many things I have to keep indoor right now. All of my seedlings are inside, as well as my hydroponic plants, and it feels a bit much. They’re small though, and I know that it’s only a matter of time before I’ll be able to plant them all outside. It has been 19-30 degrees outside in the sun for several days now. Which is a bit disturbing since it’s only May. But I try to make the most of it by thinking of how much food it will enable me to grow.

Tomorrow, everything I have gathered for the storage unit will be brought there and next week the box of donations that I’ve filled will be donated. So by this time next week, I think I will be feeling quite relieved. At least I hope so.

My stress levels have been a bit too high lately. There’s always so much to do and that’s partly because I have a tendency of taking on too much. But a lot has happened this week. I launched my new shop, I began transferring the blog to a domain and I have explored a few new income sources.

I like being an entrepreneur, but I miss creating. Lately I’ve had to dedicate most of my time to fixing technical bugs and exploring marketing, and I am more attached to the creative side. But just like everyone else, I need to make a living. I can’t do that without selling, so marketing and making sure the sites are working well, are both important tasks that come with being an entrepreneur. When the stress is creeping up on you, the best thing you can do is take a break, breathe and simplify things. We, as humans, have a habit of making simple things complicated, and that’s something we all need to work on.

Make sure you too remember to breathe.

Until next time!

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