Posts In: minimalism

by Laura McCorry

I’m still rather new to minimalism. I love the concept – a clutter-free home that invites both unexpected guests and private relaxation. But the practice of de-owning often feels overwhelming and exhausting.

In July, I was invited to participate in a 30-day declutter group hosted online. It was great to have the support of other people in the group and to have a pre-set monthly schedule of different areas of the house to tackle each day. It usually didn’t take me more than ten or fifteen minutes, and every day I found items I could place in a large cardboard box marked for donation.

Then the cardboard box sat in a corner of my bedroom for three months. Does this sound familiar? Sometimes the follow-through is the hardest part. But just last week – last week! – I made a trip to a household hazardous waste site (don’t throw your batteries in the trash, people!), electronics recycling, and a local charity that accepts household and clothing donations. It only took about an hour.

When it doesn’t take very much time, why is it still so hard to let go?

So often in life, I find myself clinging and grasping. I keep letters from loved ones, gifts that remind me of people, books that remind me of people. I try to hold on to the idea and experience of my toddler as an infant, and I feel a kind of desperation every time I realize another day has finished, never to return.

One of the eight limbs of Yoga is Aparigraha, which translates as non-greed, non-attachment, non-grasping. Fear teaches us to cling tight, even to things which can’t be held. When we let go, maybe prying open one finger at a time, we find Trust, Plenitude, Equanimity. (These words that don’t have an everyday coinage because they’re so frequently out of circulation.)

To what (or to whom) do you find yourself clinging most often? Is there physical or emotional baggage holding you back from feeling a sense of peace with the present moment?

Yoga’s emphasis on the present moment actually helps me to be a better minimalist. When I shift my focus to what actually matters, right this very moment, it’s easier to see how so many objects in my life belong to the past or to an as-yet-unrealized future. As Autumn’s full glory approaches, I intend to simplify my home and my routines, letting go of excess to better appreciate the things, people, and routines that serve me best right now.

Thoreau himself embraced yogic values with his injunction to “simplify, simplify.” Let go of grasping and see what fills your hands and your heart.

Laura McCorry
Contributing Writer

Yoga and Laura had an on-again-off-again relationship from 2004 until 2009 when they decided to move in together and there’s been no looking back since. Passionate about both yoga and writing, Laura loves to introduce others to the joys and benefits of yoga and healthy living.

Contact: laura(AT)yogaonesandiego(DOT)com

Celebrate Earth Day by embracing Saucha (cleanliness and purity) in your thoughts, your home and the whole world.

by Laura McCorry

Spring is a time fo new beginnings and for cleaning out the old cobwebbed spaces to bring in fresh air and light. Sometimes these spaces are in the depths of closets and sometimes they can be found in the depths of our thoughts and habits.

Saucha is one of the five moral observances, or Niyamas, of yoga and it refers to cleanliness and purity of body, thoughts and deeds. At first glance, saucha seems rather straight-forward. It’s easy to remember to bathe and to cut your finger nails. Your body won’t feel comfortable or function properly if you stop doing these items of daily maintenance.

But widen the perspective just a bit and you can see how saucha applies to your home as well. If you were to allow trash, papers and other items to accumulate in your home, it would soon be uninhabitable. A clean living space is good for both your health and your mental clarity.

One of the many benefits of yoga is that over time, your awareness will expand in every direction. If you stick with the practice, you’ll find what is good for the body, is also good for the mind and soul. The lessons learned on your mat will follow you into every corner of your experience.

So my hope is that one day, as a species, we will all recognize that the earth, too, needs to be cleaned and maintained.

We learned disposable habits of living from the adults who came before us. It’s easy to fall into the habits of convenience and sticking with the status quo. But there was a time not so long ago before plastics. When things worth having cost a bit more, or took a bit longer, or we knew how to do without them.

You don’t have to revolutionize your life overnight, but I invite you to take a first step. Here are some of the changes I’ve made in my personal life and some that are on my list of what to do next:

• Consider the “end of life” of each object and avoid the use of all plastics wherever possible
• Choose reusable grocery bags and produce bags
• Shop grocery products sold in cardboard boxes or glass jars
• Refuse single use to-go cutlery
• Use cloth placemats and napkins at home
• Extensive use of kitchen towels to avoid using paper towels
• Bring my own tumbler to the coffee shop
• Replace my toothbrush with a bamboo alternative
• Use a glass water bottle for travel
• Cook my own food and eat the leftovers
• Buy less – bring fewer new items into my home
• Invest in a small space/balcony composter

What’s on your list? Share with us in the comments. Here is a great resource with tons of ideas to go even further: plastic free guide

Laura McCorry
Contributing Writer

Yoga and Laura had an on-again-off-again relationship from 2004 until 2009 when they decided to move in together and there’s been no looking back since. Passionate about both yoga and writing, Laura loves to introduce others to the joys and benefits of yoga and healthy living.

Contact: laura@yogaonesandiego.com

by Laura McCorry

Have you always admired that person with the clutter-free, minimalist home but assumed it was a mythical ideal you’d never achieve? Minimalism doesn’t have to be a complete lifestyle change that has you throwing out all your stuff!

Increasing your awareness of how you interact with objects in everyday life can be hugely beneficial to your yoga practice, too. Minimalism is essentially the practice of Aparigraha – the yogic principle of non-hoarding, or non-possesiveness, and one of the five Yamas which describe a code of moral behavior.

Here are five easy steps you can take to make a minimalist impact on your day to day:

1. Identify everyday chores and do them everyday. Make the bed. Do the dishes. These will be different for everyone, but choose no more than five chores that you consider essential to enjoying your time at home. Take the time to accomplish these tasks first and then allow yourself to enjoy their completion. Learning to appreciate the everyday maintenance work you do is an important step towards feeling content with what you already have.

2. Take note of your shopping and buying habits. When do you accumulate more items in your home? Write down or think about everything new to cross your threshold in the last two weeks and decide if these items were things that you needed or things that you wanted. Becoming aware of the accumulation process will help you reduce the number of new things you bring into your home in the first place, which goes a long way towards eliminating the need to sort and downsize.

3. Start a give-away box and actually give it away. One of the major tenets of minimalism is actually down-sizing and living with less (surprise!). Pick a room or a closet or even just a shelf and get rid of any object you haven’t used in the last year. You can even start this task by mentally sorting ahead of time and then moving quickly through the manual sorting into keep and giveaway. Anything you couldn’t remember being in that location should automatically be considered for giveaway.

Another technique is to take everything out of the space, clean it thoroughly and then only put back what you want to keep. At the end of the day, take the box to your local thrift store. Take the time to enjoy your newly refreshed space.

4. Identify and eliminate redundancies. It’s natural to desire change and to update items in your home with the newest or trendiest version. If this is important to you, it doesn’t mean you can’t be a minimalist! The trick is to let go of the older version or the excess of what you already have.

Pick a category of items and decide how many of those items you need for your household to function well. Some categories to consider: cleaning supplies, linens, clothing, mugs or dish ware, and entertainment items like books, CDs and DVDs. When you change your focus from trying to carefully re-organize a closet to fit all the things to identifying the function of each thing, it becomes easy to see duplicates (or even triplicates) that can be let go.

5. Use sorting as an opportunity to give a gift to a friend. Sometimes just giving away items can feel overwhelming, especially if they were a gift or have sentimental value. For example, I recently decided to significantly downsize my jewelry and only keep what I regularly wear. There were many pieces with meaning from an earlier time in my life which I didn’t wear anymore and a surprising number of pieces I’d never liked in the first place. Some went straight to giveaway but others I chose to send to close friends who might enjoy them, writing a short note to say hello at the same time. It was a great way to pass on the jewelry I didn’t want to give away as well as reaffirm old friendships.

If you’re just getting started on your minimalist journey, start small and feel proud when you attempt even one of these suggestions. It takes time and dedication to see all the ways our mainstream “more is better” culture influences daily life. If you get stuck along the way, repeat this minimalist mantra: have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.

Laura McCorry
Contributing Writer

Yoga and Laura had an on-again-off-again relationship from 2004 until 2009 when they decided to move in together and there’s been no looking back since. Passionate about both yoga and writing, Laura loves to introduce others to the joys and benefits of yoga and healthy living.

Contact: laura@yogaonesandiego.com

by Laura McCorry

“As for the complex ways of living, I love them not, however much I practice them. In as many places as possible, I will get my feet down to the earth.” – Henry David Thoreau

Minimalist living has been a guiding light of mine for many years but I don’t consider myself a minimalist. More like an aspiring minimalist – my goal is to shed excess consumerism and live in closer harmony with life’s basic necessities.

I recently came across the story of a man living in the wilds of Canada in my facebook newsfeed. It’s fascinating to think about a person completely renouncing civilization and thriving, not just surviving, in the wild. Like a true regression to primitive man and perhaps the ultimate conclusion if we were to follow the paleo diet adherents down the rabbit hole.

Is it good to get away? Definitely. Go on a retreat, take a walk barefoot in the park, practice yoga outside. For most of us, going off the grid permanently isn’t an option or even a goal. The more time I spend in communion with my yoga practice, the more I desire simplicity.

There was the first great plunge into a regular, established practice. I saw how much more I had to learn and often pushed myself to try the hardest variation offered by the instructor. Many poses that had eluded me suddenly became possible in my body and there was the rush of what some call “collecting poses.” It was exciting and great for parties and certainly has its own place for celebration.

Then there was a subtle shift. I still pursued those complicated poses – like mountaintops I aspired to climb their peaks but I also wanted to linger on the slopes. The grounding postures, the simplest poses you first learn in yoga – these became new and difficult in their own right. It was enough to hold warrior two and breathe, appreciating the challenge that presented itself not right away but with the joint forces of time and staying present.

If you’re ready to really explore your yoga practice: Simplify. Feel your feet (and hands) on the ground. Linger in the transitions. Go back to basics and see what changes.

Namaste!

Laura McCorry
Contributing Writer

Yoga and Laura had an on-again-off-again relationship from 2004 until 2009 when they decided to move in together and there’s been no looking back since. Passionate about both yoga and writing, Laura loves to introduce others to the joys and benefits of yoga and healthy living.

Contact: laura@yogaonesandiego.com