Marie Kondo is Teaching Us How to Love

Marie Kondo doesn’t want us to clear our houses of all our belongings. She wants us to let go of the belongings that we don’t really love. Being attached to possessions that have long surpassed their purpose leads to clutter, both physically and psychologically. By going methodically through our homes and testing each item for the joy it brings us, we end up with a home filled only with the things we love.

I have watched several episodes of Kondo’s show on Netflix, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, and what strikes me the most is the initial resistance many of the participants have with giving up their possessions. It is genius that Kondo starts with clothing. As the clothes get heaped together in one pile, it is hard for anyone to argue that letting go is the next step. Not being able to let go can cause a problem for some people, but this is the process made visual. The person can see their inability to let go.

This happened to me about five years ago. After I decided to separate from my second husband, I moved to a new townhouse, 1,100 square feet from a 3,900 square foot home. As we filled the one car garage to the ceiling, my daughter joked, “Mom, you are a hoarder.” Although I know she was half teasing me, it hurt my feelings, and I denied it right away, but for some reason I knew that most of the things in that garage were not going to make it into the house. In time, I gave away most of it, but it took me a while to be able to let go.

I had used buying things to try to fill an emptiness in my life. When I started a new life, I didn’t need or even want all that stuff. What I find amazing is that when I moved again last summer, I was able to get rid of even more items, keeping only the ones I love and find precious.

Sometimes people feel guilty for buying a piece of clothing that they haven’t even taken the tags off, and the purchase was made months and even years earlier. Then they feel guilty for giving it away because they wasted the money on it and never used it for the purpose intended. Kondo will have none of the self-hate. Items have multiple purposes. She encourages the owner of the item to thank it for its usefulness, even if it was to learn that it is not an item that sparked joy beyond the checkout counter.

By facing our stuff, and refusing to beat ourselves up for buying so much of it, or keeping so much of it over time, we face each item and ask, “Does this spark joy?”  As the show illustrates, this can be a painstaking process, and the ability to feel joy and connect with our feelings about our stuff is a skill that grows with practice, thus Kondo’s reason for starting with clothing and not family photos.

Kondo is teaching us to sculpt our own David, our life.  The sculptor removes what is not needed to reveal a work of art. By clearing away items we thought we wanted, and may have loved at some point, we are left with only the items we love now.

Here comes the point that Kondo makes more clearly, I believe, in her book. When we have tidied our homes, and we are surrounded by only that which truly brings us joy, we can then look at that life and know ourselves better. By looking at what we value, what brings us joy, we can see ourselves more clearly. We know what we love. We, also, know that what we might have been looking for in things exists in ourselves and the people we love.

The interesting phenomenon of Kondo’s method, unlike other decluttering methods, is that her customers don’t regress to refilling their homes with more stuff. I recall a storage container commercial of a few years ago, where the family is inundated with clutter. They go out and purchase storage bins, fill them up, stack them neatly in the garage, and someone says, “Now we need more stuff!” and off they go shopping. It is the mantra of a consumerist society that believes we cannot prosper if we are not constantly consuming, but overconsumption has disastrous ramifications for not only our homes but for our planet.

In fact, thrift stores and landfills are piling up with stuff since Netflix began airing the show on January 1. Something in us knows that we cannot find true love in every gadget, piece of clothing, or collectible. Kondo has hit a nerve, and it sits right in the middle of our chests. She is teaching us what love is, and what it isn’t.

By teaching us to have reverence for our homes, gratitude for even the things we are discarding, and to tune into what touches our hearts, she is teaching us what love feels like. She might start with clothing, but in the end, she is showing us how love works.

If we pay attention to the sparks of joy we feel for the items in our homes, show appreciation for them, and thank them for all they give us, that is the beginning of living a life of love. It is only a matter of time before we extend that love out to the world.

Photo by Andrew Seaman on Unsplash