Getting More FROM LESS

By Cealia Athanason

Keeping an organized, decluttered home is not easy for everyone. Pets, children, personality traits, a shopping addiction, you name it, it can get in the way of a beautifully clean and sparkly home. Often, however, a cluttered home, car or desk can lead to a mind that’s just as cluttered, making living a disorganized, hot-mess-style life that much easier. So if you’re ready to clear out your home a bit, we’re sending help. Pick the method that best suits your madness.

Hygge: The Cozy Culture

Denmark is the happiest country in the world, and a big part of the Dane culture is a lifestyle known as hygge (pronounced hoo-gah).

Meik Wiking, CEO of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen, puts it this way: “Danes think of hygge in the way Americans think of freedom. It’s part of our national identity.”

Hygge is not something you buy. In fact, it’s not something you can force either. Kayleigh Tanner, hygge enthusiast and blogger behind hellohygge.com, describes hygge as an action—something you hope happens but that isn’t always guaranteed. Sure, you can buy the candles and blankets, brew hot cocoa and wear thick, soft socks to assist with your hygge lifestyle, but hygge isn’t found in material possessions alone. The lifestyle of hygge involves creating a welcoming, comfortable atmosphere to enjoy with close friends and family.

“When you’re ‘consuming hygge’ through social media, or books, or articles, it’s easy to imagine it as something static— not the living and breathing act it really is,” Kayleigh writes. “You don’t see the tendrils of steam curling o that cup of tea, or the way the sofa molds to someone’s body as they take their usual spot, or see the goosebumps erupt on someone’s skin as they receive a hug from a cold-skinned visitor at the front door.”

The atmosphere of a hygge-inspired home is often decluttered but cozy, decorated to represent the homeowner’s unique personality and vibe. Danes take pride in their homes and in welcoming others into them to enjoy spending time together. These moments of relaxation and good times spent in a clean, comfortable environment are what hygge is all about.

“For me, it’s about deliberately making time to do the things I enjoy with my favorite people,” says Kayleigh. “Instead of spending a lot of money in a loud, crowded bar, hygge has given me an excuse to hibernate indoors with one or two close friends without feeling the pressure to be constantly on the go.”

In order to grasp the overall meaning and concept of hygge, Kayleigh suggests thinking of hygge as a time when everything seems just right. This often trips up hygge-admirers in their well-designed attempts to achieve hygge. It’s all about the experience, though the setting helps facilitate it. With this goal of spending quality, cozy time with friends and family in a conducive home environment, it’s no wonder Denmark is the happiest country in the world. (Now we’re wondering if Meik Wiking might just be the happiest individual on the planet—he did write the book, The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living, after all.)

Simple ways to incorporate hygge into your life include only slight changes in your home and mindset. Consider your ideal environment and the way you want your home to feel. Let the goal of spending time at home with your favorite people give you purpose for creating a decluttered and comfortable home environment. Take into account the way you live because hygge is a lifestyle—the cozy family room just makes it more accessible.

“I believe most people already have hygge in their lives to some extent— they just probably don’t know it yet!” says Kayleigh.

LEARN MORE › Visit hellohygge.com for more inspiration.

Minimalism: Making Room

Two best friends have recently made a name for minimalism through expressing their happiness and freedom from a materialistic lifestyle. According to Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus—known as The Minimalists of theminimalists.com—if we as a society didn’t attach so much value to material things, the pursuit of the American Dream wouldn’t be the goal and current occupation of our lives. These minimalists push the thought that it’s because we give so much value to material possessions that we lose our freedom, time, passion and purpose. As a result, many of us find ourselves in debt financially and lacking happiness.

For Ryan and Joshua, it’s more than just ridding themselves of material possessions. It’s about making room for more in their lives without letting possessions, or the need for them, get in the way.

They put it this way: “Minimalists don’t focus on having less, less, less; rather, we focus on making room for more: more time, more passion, more experiences, more growth, more contribution, more contentment. More freedom. Clearing the clutter from life’s path helps us make that room.”

Ryan and Joshua share that it’s only when we eliminate our possessions that we can truly find a meaningful life. It’s not just about decluttering your home or your o ce. They explain it’s a mindset change that eventually a ects not just our clutter but our entire view of life. The essays written on their website encourage beginning minimalists to learn from their mistakes and develop their own kind of minimalism without having to follow a whole set of rules. This way, it can become a lifestyle rather than a rigid and unsustainable to-do list.

A good way to jumpstart your way into a minimalist lifestyle is to play the 30-Day Minimalist Game. (Hey, we’ve done it.)

HERE’S HOW TO PLAY:

› Find a friend. Keep each other accountable—send snaps, post on Instagram, do what you need to do.

› Pare down according to the date. On March 1, you must get rid of one item. On March 2, two items. And on and on until the end of the month. You get it.

› Donate, sell or trash. Your items must be out of your house and out of your life by midnight each day—no piles in the spare room or bags in the trunk of your car. (We know what you were thinking.)

› Stick it out, and win. Whoever keeps playing for the longest, wins. Use #minsgame to join others in the purge.

LEARN MORE › Visit theminimalists.com for more resources, essays and podcasts by Ryan and Joshua.

Project 333: Stylishly Minimal

Courtney Carver, a stylish closet minimalist, has a formula to help you get your wardrobe under control. One side e ect is that you’re likely to fall in love with the clothes you have left. That sounds ideal, right?

Here’s how it works: For three months, your closet can consist of only 33 items— shoes, outerwear, handbags and jewelry included. Carver suggests taking a day to clean out your entire closet, shoe collection and jewelry stash. Take your clothes o the hangers, empty your drawers and put everything on your bed. Put the clothes you love most into a pile, and then repeat the process for your shoes, handbags and jewelry.

Go back to your ‘love’ pile of clothes, and sift through it to make your Project 333 wardrobe. Consider the season, and be sure to leave room for outerwear, shoes and accessories. When all is said and done, box up everything that didn’t make the cut. Hang your slimmed-down wardrobe in your closet, and move the boxes out of sight.

“Now that I’ve settled on my 33 items for three months, my closet looks bare, simple and surprisingly inspiring,” Courtney writes.

The point of this challenge is to see how many outfits you can come up with and how much joy you develop for your clothes. Notice if you miss any of the clothes you boxed up, and, at the end of the three months, open up your boxes and consider what you actually need. This challenge may help you identify your personal style, preferred color palette and favorite textures.

“People will not notice that you are dressing with the same 33 items for three months, although they may notice there is something di erent about how you present yourself,” Courtney writes. “You will likely get more compliments. That has been my experience and that of others on this journey.”

READY FOR THE CHALLENGE?

1. Choose your start date. Remember this is a threemonth challenge.

2. Pick your 33 items. These items include jewelry, shoes and outerwear.

3. Box up your remaining clothing and accessories. Don’t forget the tape!

4. Pay less attention to what you wear each day. Notice you’re able to devote more brain power to more important things.

5. Adjust your wardrobe. At the end of your first three months, switch out certain items, build a new 33-item wardrobe and get ready for the next three months.

LEARN MORE › Do the journey with others by sharing your outfits on Instagram with #project333 and following the Project 333 community board on Pinterest. Browse Courtney’s website, bemorewithless.com, for more tips.

The KonMari Method: Finding Joy

The KonMari Method of decluttering originated from Marie Kondo, a Japanese phenomenon known for writing The

Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up:

The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. She’s known for tidying from a young age, and by her early 20s, she had started her own business and named her method of decluttering the KonMari Method.

Elizabeth Player is a professional organizer from Tampa who is certified in the KonMari Method. Elizabeth comes from a corporate background, and she found Marie Kondo’s method when she was looking to change careers.

“When I found her book, it was like a lightbulb went o . I thought, ‘This is what I want to do,’” Elizabeth says.

In January 2016, she wrote to Marie see everything that you have within each category. Categories are clothes, books, paperwork, komono (or miscellaneous items) and sentimental items. Go through the categories in that order.

› Keep what you love. Within each category, keep the items that bring joy and discard the ones that don’t. Then, find a home for each item before moving onto the next category.

“What I love about her method is that you focus on what you’re keeping, versus what you are letting go of,” Elizabeth says. All you need to consider when sifting through your belongings is whether or not an item brings you joy. Elizabeth notes that

Swedish Death Cleaning: Paring Down With Purpose

It’s not as morbid as it sounds. Promise. In fact, Swedish Death Cleaning is a great way to prevent your partner or children from feeling obligated or burdened to hold onto all of your stu after you pass away. It’s not all about prepping for your death either, although that supplies a deeper sense of purpose for this lifestyle.

Swedish Death Cleaning is a decluttering approach that Margareta Magnusson, author of The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family From a Lifetime of Clutter, believes should begin around those middle-age years. Magnusson describes herself as being between 80 and 100 years old, and she has been death cleaning for the past 40 years.

Although it does seem a bit doomsday-ish to think about on your 40th or 50th birthday, the point is to develop a lifestyle of purging unneeded possessions. We say just go ahead and get started no matter your age. Just remember that this method takes a much slower approach than the other decluttering methods—we’re talking about the rest of your life.

Kondo about training, and that summer, Elizabeth was part of the very first training class ever held outside of Japan in New York City. Now, she’s in love with her life as a professional organizer.

“I get to help others declutter their homes using the Marie Kondo method and watch how therir lives and spaces are trasnformed,” Elizabeth says. “It’s so rewarding. You feel the lightness from the very first session.”

Here’s how she suggests getting started:

› Create a vision for how you want to live. Think about how you see yourself living once your house is tidy. This gives you a focus if you feel overwhelmed and helps you commit to the process.

› Declutter by category. The KonMari Method takes this approach in order to it’s very important to go through and discard unwanted belongings before finding the perfect spot to store or display items so you can see how much you are keeping and the storage options that you have.

“It’s important to show gratitude to our things, too. The bottom line is now you have surrounded yourself with things that only bring you joy, which in turn leads to more happiness in all areas of your life,” Elizabeth says.

Just like Marie Kondo’s book title claims, Elizabeth ensures this method to be lifechanging for anyone who embarks on a tidying journey.

LEARN MORE › Find out more on her website, energeticorganizing.com.

Swedish Death Cleaning has been referred to as the morbid KonMari Method because it also takes the approach of decluttering by category, beginning with clothes. Magnusson suggests creating two piles—Pile 1 for what you love and Pile 2 for what you don’t love. Once you’ve conquered a category, move on to another group of possessions. Of course, this is a process that doesn’t need to happen all at once, but it does require a significant amount of maintenance in order to own fewer and fewer possessions over the years. The result is a simple, uncluttered lifestyle because you’re slowly but consistently working to get rid of your unneeded possessions. And that sounds pretty good to us.

LEARN MORE › Find out more by checking out the newly released book on Amazon.

Back in the fall of 2015, if you had told Brad Bowen his road to recovery would begin in the jaws of a police canine, he’d have said you were crazy.

But answers to prayer often come in the most unexpected ways, and Brad is certain that fateful encounter was a direct answer to his desperate cry for help.

Navigating A Rocky Road

Getting to that point of utter desperation didn’t happen overnight—or even over a few years. Brad’s dark struggle with anxiety began in his earliest years.

“When I was 5, my parents got divorced, and for the next five or six years, they were fighting over my older brother and me,” recalls Brad, who was raised in Georgia and moved to Ocala at age 12. “We always knew we were loved, but it was a bitter divorce, and both parents wanted custody of us. It was horrible; we were in court a lot.”

At one point a judge took Brad into chambers and asked him which parent he wanted to live with. It was a decision no 8 year old should be forced to make.

“From a young age I remember my parents’ horrendous arguments,” says Brad. “After the divorce, we were back and forth on the weekends. They were constantly asking us who we wanted to live with. I wanted to live with both of them. I was trying so hard to please, but I was afraid to talk good about my dad in front of my mom because of how she’d react, and I was afraid to talk good about my mom in front of my dad.”

At the age of 12, Brad began seeking escape from the constant, overwhelming stress of his home life through substance abuse and alcohol. The relief was temporary, but it was the only relief he could find.

Brad might have tried to bury his fears and anxiety with drugs and drinking, but that didn’t stop him from getting a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Florida State University, taking a job and becoming a contributing member of society.

At least, not for a while.

But the darkness began closing in.

Brad would have panic attacks that made him feel as though he was trapped in an elevator. His thoughts would race, his heart would pound and his vision would begin to blur. Several times he actually blacked out from the attacks, and when he came to later, he was on the floor.

In 2006, Brad was diagnosed with anxiety and panic disorder.

A doctor prescribed medication, which helped, but Brad didn’t stop drinking or doing drugs and, in 2011, checked himself into rehab because he’d gotten hooked on pain killers.

After that stint in rehab, although he was taking medication for anxiety, his lifestyle continued its downward spiral.

“From 2012 to 2015, I’d been to jail six times, all on charges that stemmed from getting drunk or high,” says Brad. “I lost my job, [and] I lost my apartment—all because of my drinking and drugging—and moved back into my mother’s house. I had lost everything.”

Then one September night in 2015, Brad, who had been drinking all day, left his mother’s and headed to the home of an acquaintance to drink some more. The evening deteriorated further, the two men ended up in an altercation and someone called the law.

“I was on felony probation at the time, and I’d already violated my probation twice. I was so scared; I thought I was going to prison,” says Brad, who can clearly remember the absolute terror he felt upon hearing sirens approach as he ran into the backyard to hide.

Crouched down behind a bush, he saw three sheri deputies and a dog enter the yard. The dog was released, and the resulting bite to Brad’s leg was so severe that he had to be taken to the hospital instead of the jail that night.

That’s when Brad began praying in earnest.

“I asked God to help me find a way out,” he says. But that answer wouldn’t be immediate.

“In jail, I ended up with an infected leg,” he says. “By the time I was taken to an outside medical appointment to see an orthopedic doctor 24 days later, on October 14, 2015, the leg was rotting and I was in horrible pain. At the trauma center, they said another day or two and I would be dead from septic shock. They gave me a 50/50 chance of losing my leg and told me I could actually die because I was septic. I stayed at the hospital for 17 days, during which they did multiple surgeries. They saved my leg and my life.”

Once he was “out of the woods,” Brad was returned to the Marion County Jail, where he awaited his court date. When that day came, he entered the court room using a walker, still unable to bend his leg.

“I begged Judge Stancil for help, and he sent me to rehab instead of prison,” says Brad, who was taken in shackles to The Centers, a private, non-profit organization with locations in Citrus County and Marion County that o ers outpatient and residential treatment services for both adults and teens. “Ultimately, I pled guilty to simple battery and was able to go to rehab at The Centers for six months. I told them I needed help and did everything they told me to do; they gave me my life back.”

A major part of Brad’s recovery, which combined medication and therapy (both individual and group), involved facing the fears he had fought as long as he could remember.

“It all began in childhood. I had fears from a young age, but I didn’t know how to deal with them,” he says. “I never realized how much of an e ect this had on me until I got serious about recovery. Just being able to talk about these feelings I’d been dealing with my whole life helped tremendously.”

Part of his treatment included the Alcoholics Anonymous program.

“The AA program is all about dealing with your fears,” says Brad. “I worked that program and took the help of the medical professionals, and I am free of the obsession to drink and drug. I’ve been sober over two-and-a-half years, and my quality of life now is outstanding.”

Brad fully realizes that for anyone recovering from addiction, it’s a day-at-atime process, not a one-time cure.

Through counseling and therapy, he’s learned coping techniques that are e ective if he feels anxious. Now he can calm himself with those grounding tactics, breathing and meditation practices. He also takes a mild, non-narcotic medication that helps.

He’s a front desk manager/sales rep at Zone Health and Fitness at their Pine Avenue location and has realized how much regular workouts have helped his anxiety.

“I wear myself out in the gym,” he says.

Eating right and exercising regularly have been a big help, as has prayer.

Coming Out The Other Side

Brad, now 37, regularly tells his story to people who are facing the same struggles he overcame. He wants others to know that when you’re ready to turn your life around, there are programs that work.

“There’s nothing special about me; these programs save people’s lives every day,” he says with equal measures of humility and gratitude.

In addition to helping others by sharing his story, Brad is currently studying to obtain his master’s in divinity/theology.

“I want to be a preacher and a Christian counselor. I think the best counselors are those who have been through it themselves,” he says.

“At one point there wasn’t enough cocaine or alcohol in this county to satisfy my addictions. I was so filled with fear and anxiety, I saw no way out. I know it’s nothing short of a miracle that I didn’t die from that infection. Today, I have my leg, I’m sober and I not only have my life, I have a bright future.”

Need Help?

If you or someone you love is battling anxiety and/or addictions, there is help and hope. thecenters.us › (352) 291-5555