Dejunking yourself, dejunking your life

Well, Happy New Year everyone. This blog has now received over 250,000 views and I am immensely flattered by the growing number of followers.
My offline life was very full  over the past weekend, so I did not have a chance to write a post.
I took some self portraits on 31st but was not happy with the light. I now have a new camera, a Nikon FG, and am keen to put it to good use though my heart is with my Bronica, which is showing its age but is still my beloved camera.
But I am digressing...
I have actually spent much time with a friend who has recently lost his mother and have tried to help him a little, by doing practical things, like clearing up his mother's house. This has become his main pursuit over the long Christmas holiday.
Totally understandable, it takes weeks if not months, to clear up after a parent dies, it took us six months to go through everything after my own father passed away.
My friend's circumstances really affected me and so I decided to clear up my own home. A major dejunking operation. Oh boy, I had so much rubbish accumulated over years - have lived here since 1991.

I have the habit of getting rid of things by putting them, very randomly, into boxes, which I then store wherever I can find some space for them. As a result, I am surrounded by boxes, stacked one upon the other, disguised under pretty covers, but filled with stuff which is very meaningful when I first get it - programme notes from theatre plays I have been to see, exhibition catalogues and so and so forth, but which lose meaning pretty quickly and five, let alone ten, years down the line become complete and utter junk. Well, maybe not the exhibition catalogues, but flyers and stuff, you know what I mean.

And thus I began today the major task, for 2012, of dejunking myself.

Dejunking is not just a physical thing but also an emotional, almost spiritual, experience. It involves a gradual purging of all the stuff you don't need that is clogging up your house and your life, says Maureen Rice. Or as Michelle Passoff, a dejunk consultant says, "It's a truth-telling process. Getting rid of the most basic forms of clutter in the physical environment is a path towards cleaning whatever is in the way of fulfilment anywhere."

Dejunking needs to happen over a period of time, you cannot do it in one day. It is a matter of going through piles of papers and things and asking yourself why you hang on to them , what you would like to keep and what you would like to let go. And it is often the case that after going through the same process again you find that the stuff you want to keep can also go.



Decluttering is a little-known and under-used tool for anyone on a path of personal and social growth and development. We particularly like the impact of clutter cleaning on personal clarity and authenticity, communication with others, and connection to a ‘higher order’.
Clutter cleaning is not a one-time event; it is a lifestyle.
Freedom from clutter of all kinds is a little-known and under-used tool for achievement and fulfillment.
(From Michelle Passoff website)


I would encourage you all to take a long and hard look at what you store and let go of at least a fraction of what you hoard. You will find a great sense of achievement in doing so and the opening up of a new space, physical and spiritual.


Happy dejunking!










(All photos taken by Alex B.)