Yesterday marked a MAJOR accomplishment for me: In just two weeks, I cleared out stacks and stacks of papers, magazines, and books that have been weighing me down for years.

This is a milestone, considering that I gave myself six weeks to get all of this paper out (I hope to be done with the majority of decluttering by January 1^st) and I’m terrible at making lists or outlining tasks.

I still have a ways to go; four filing cabinet drawers and about 10 milk crates worth of papers have been reduced to four filing cabinet drawers, and the next step is to reduce that to two drawers or less.

This process has brought up so much for me, from childhood memories to recent events that I am amazed to have achieved so much in such a short time. On several occasions, I became so overwhelmed that I just couldn’t do anything, my emotions trumping the enormity of this project at times.

But yesterday I just looked at the last few crates and said to myself, finish this now and you can fall apart later. And I that’s exactly what I did.

A big part of why I’m doing this is because I am working towards a goal of being part reverse weekender (Hudson Valley, are you ready for me, again?)/part location independent (Badass Blender Girl coming soon to a city near you!), and I couldn’t see this goal manifesting so long as I had so much crap to think about/holding me back.

When I first moved to the Hudson Valley two years ago, I just packed everything up without really sorting through anything. I left a few things behind in boxes and never unpacked a majority of what I took with me. Most of that stuff is in storage right now, since I had no room to bring any of it back to place I left (my dad was filling up my rooms with his stuff before I had even started packing) which I plan to tackle in the next few weeks.

The response to this project has been interesting. Several people have commented that it has inspired them to make some changes in their own lives, while others don’t believe I’ll be able to keep this up.

My father is especially disturbed and suspicious about what I’m doing. A recent conversation went like this:

Me: Hey, how it’s going?

Him: Not good.

Me: Really? What’s Up?

Him: You. What are you doing?

Me: What do you mean?

Him: You’re up and down, in and out of the basement moving stuff around. You got all these books in the hallway…What are you doing?

Me: I’m getting rid of books I no longer need and anything else I haven’t been using.

Him: But it’s been sitting here for six years!

Me: Exactly.

Technically, my stuff has been in his house for going on eight years now, and I personally think that’s too damn long to not have looked at any of it in all this time.

A friend downloaded my ebook  and opined, over instant messaging, “I really think you just want to tell people how to live their lives. :-p. Not in a micromanaging way, in a “wake up and smell the coffee” way…You want to boss people into action.”

 <insert screwface and sigh here>

So much gets lost when you’re not communicating face-to-face that it’s important to recognize your own mental/emotional state as you interpret what you’re reading via text, email, or chat, and I had to take a few breaths and really think about my words, something I rarely do. It really did annoy me, because I felt like she missed the entire point of what I was trying to say and accomplish with that book.

I’m not interested in telling anyone how to live their lives in a “wake up and smell the coffee” way, or in any way for that matter. I believe people have to take action in their lives if they want to experience a desired outcome, yes, but it isn’t for me to define what that action should be.

I know what is working for me right now and I have observed what has worked for other people on the same path, and these are tools, not directives.

What I’m doing is for purely selfish reasons: I’m working my way out of stuck and I decided to share my journey with people who are interested in hearing about it. I really don’t care if they believe in it, or me, because this project is for and about me. If they ask for my help, that’s another thing, but I’m certainly not in the business of telling anyone how to live their lives because that’s the thing I most despise about humans and their Ego.

Isn’t it amazing how people have no problems projecting their own bullshit into your life?

Just because they are resistant to changing their behavior doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep moving forward with your goals, if it’s what you want.

But I digress. While I was in my falling apart mode yesterday, I caught several episodes of Oprah’s Life Class, where a woman shared a very insightful thought about her life and her participation in her marriage: (paraphrasing): “Other people’s thoughts about me are just their observations that I give meaning to.” It’s something that has always resonated with me, the realization that people and things have power only because we give it to them, or give it away to them, and I needed to hear that again because I’ve allowed my STUFF, and several people in my life to have power over me and my decisions, or lack thereof.

I’ve been stuck for so long that I couldn’t make any decision.

That’s over now.

I’ve got lots of books for sale, along with some furniture and other things I’m just giving away. If you live in NYC and the surrounding areas and are willing to come to where I am or meet me halfway, let’s make it happen. Check out the full list here, which I’m updating regularly.