Peter Walsh, author of It's All Too Much, is an expert on organizing. On getting rid of clutter, ditching unwanted baggage, and simplifying your life. He's also the man who (indirectly) introduced me to my new mantra.
I'm a word person. I read. I write. I have whole files of quotes I just had to save. I love words. So it makes sense that the idea of a mantra would appeal to me. Words you can say to change your mood, make you think of something in a differnt way, to help you make a decision.
There are a lot that I like. Sarah's favorite yoga mantra is "I am." The mantra Denise learned from her pastor and passed on to me is "All will be well. All will be well. All manner of things will be well." The one I adopted from The Secret is "I'm so happy and grateful." Does it even matter what you're grateful for when you feel so much better just by the act of expressing gratitude?
A few weeks ago, Oprah called Peter Walsh in to help a woman who was a hoarder. Her house had been reduced to about 200 square feet of livable space, because the rest was taken up by stuff. Just all sorts of stuff. And in coaching her on how to get out from under that monkey, he told her that she needed to ask herself two questions about each piece of clutter: Does this help me get the life I want? Or does it keep me from having the life I want? Now, I didn't actually watch Oprah, since, well, I have a job. But someone who takes another Weight Watchers class with my leader saw it, and she repeated it to Courtney, who repeated it to my group. And just like that, Peter Walsh (twice removed, three times if you count Oprah) changed my life.
Because doesn't that just simplify every difficult decision you have to make? Don't most things do one or the other? Bring you closer to the life you want or farther away? It's perfect for Weight Watchers. Going to a fancy dinner with my friends, and then having dessert? It might be a lot of calories, but it's worth it. I want to be the girl who can go out, let go of the reigns a little bit, and just enjoy myself. That's totally helping me have the life I want. But the chips and onion dip I have a tendency to buy at the supermarket and then gorge on sitting on my couch, feeling bad about myself the whole time? Not so much. The week I adopted this new mantra, I lost 4 pounds. I love this man. Seriously. I LOVE this man.
I sat with him by chance at a dinner party six months ago, and it's a good thing I didn't know about this whole mantra thing back then. I might have embarrassed myself. It's bad enought that I gave him an honest estimate about how many pairs of shoes I own. He seems to think I don't actually need that many shoes. Silly man. I won't hold it against him, though. Nobody's perfect, right?
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
New Mantra in Town
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5 comments:
I love this man. I'm going to have to get his book. It isn't one of yours, is it?
oh, fabulous! i saw an episode of oprah a couple of years ago with people buried in clutter, and she called in some expert to help them. i wonder if he was the guy back then too?
does he talk about how to organize what you do have? that is part of my problem. i've become much better at just throwing stuff away (i used to be a pack rat), but i always end up with piles. i want someone to give me a system. maybe i just need polly to bring her OCD over here and figure it out for me. ;-)
I leave the organizing to Blackstone mostly. My job is to tell him what he can't throw away. Like that time he threw out the key to my classroom door off my key ring. He went dumpster diving over that one.
It's a wonderful book (thanks!) and I think Peter might say that if your joy were shoes and you had the space for it -- it wouldn't be a problem. If your joys were a pile of things and no room....well, then, it's a problem.
(I thought I was the only one who had a file of quotes. The Idiot Man once gave me a program that would install random quotes in your sig line but it wouldn't work in Mac.)
I've re-resolved to throw more things in my dumpster; it's funny I come over here and read your posts. Great minds, etc. etc.
I love this man and love his book. I hadn't thought about that mantra in terms of WW, though, and how I want to live my life. Mostly I just thought about clutter and stuff. But behavior and food? yeah, it works for me, too.
Thanks for the eye opener!
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