{"id":480,"date":"2020-07-16T01:10:23","date_gmt":"2020-07-16T01:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onthemovenow.com\/blog\/?p=480"},"modified":"2020-07-16T01:10:23","modified_gmt":"2020-07-16T01:10:23","slug":"the-emotional-side-of-downsizing-part-4-from-depression-to-acceptance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onthemovenow.com\/blog\/the-emotional-side-of-downsizing-part-4-from-depression-to-acceptance\/","title":{"rendered":"The Emotional Side of Downsizing Part 4: From Depression to Acceptance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWell, we did it!\u201d Dan exclaimed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did? What did we do?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cleared out my mom\u2019s house!\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s always nice to see that my clients are happy. But in this case, I wasn\u2019t really sure what Dan was happy about.<\/p>\n

After spending months sorting through and clearing out his mother\u2019s Bay Area residence — and in spite of his wife\u2019s insistence that she did not want him to bring anything back\u00a0— Dan had just filled his car, and an extra U-haul, with stuff to bring with him to their house in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you think Donna is going to feel when she sees you pull in with all of this?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019ll be fine,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally?\u201d I asked. \u201cAre you sure?\u201d
\n_______________________<\/em>
\nIn my decade of helping people downsize and declutter, I\u2019ve come to realize that people often go through five stages, similar to a grief process, as they downsize.<\/p>\n

Dan and Donna, an early-middle aged couple faced with the responsibility of clearing his mother\u2019s Bay Area home, are typical.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve talked about how Dan handled\u00a0Denial, Anger,<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Bargaining<\/strong>\u00a0in previous\u00a0posts<\/a>. Today we\u2019ll find out how Dan made it through\u00a0Depression\u00a0<\/strong>to arrive at\u00a0Acceptance<\/strong>.
\n_______________________<\/em>
\n\u201cYou don\u2019t think she\u2019ll object when she sees all this stuff?\u201d I asked him.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. I have everything sorted and labeled, so if she or the kids are really not interested in going through it, I can easily donate or trash it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dan seemed convinced he had everything handled. I worried that he was in denial about the reception he would get when he arrived home.
\n_______________________<\/em>
\nThe last time Dan and I got together to work on clearing his mom\u2019s house, Dan was deep in the throes of\u00a0Depression,\u00a0<\/strong>which looked a lot like overwhelm.<\/p>\n

“If you want to keep from getting overwhelmed, make rules for making decisions —\u00a0and stick to them,”\u00a0I suggested.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to get overwhelmed when downsizing. Everything is being pulled out and moved around. There\u2019s a lot of clutter and confusion created\u00a0before everything gets cleared.<\/p>\n

Making rules for yourself \u2013-\u00a0what you\u2019ll keep, or how you\u2019ll decide what to keep —\u00a0creates structure. And that helps keep overwhelm from getting the best of you.<\/p>\n

“Post your rules where you can see them, so you have reminders to stay on track,” I added.<\/strong>
\n_____________________
\n\u201cAre we ever going to get through this?\u201d Dan asked, sounding both angry and resigned.<\/p>\n

“It will take as long as the time and energy you have to give it,” I said.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had said the same thing to Dan before, but evidently, it finally got through. When we met for the last time, he was noticeably more upbeat. I had to find out why.<\/p>\n

“I stopped focusing on abstract values and started thinking about what things were important to me,”<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>he said. \u201cI realized\u00a0the time and energy I was putting in to selling this stuff was worth a lot more than the money I might get out.<\/p>\n

“Spending time with my wife and kids is what I really value,”<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>Dan continued. \u201cI\u2019ve been giving my mom\u2019s stuff a lot more attention than it deserves. I\u2019ve got my priorities straight now. It\u2019s time for me to get back home.\u201d<\/p>\n

And with that, we said goodbye.
\n______________________________
\nA few weeks later, I called Dan and Donna at their home in Los Angeles to see how Donna reacted when Dan drove up with a car full of his mom\u2019s stuff.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was not happy,\u201d Donna admitted. \u201cBut Dan promised we could get everything out of the garage in a month,\u00a0and working together we did!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen COVID-19 hit,\u201d said Dan. \u201cSuddenly we had a whole lot more time at home than we expected. \u201cSo we decided to start going through our stuff as a family\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDan makes sure we make progress by sticking to the rules,\u201d Donna laughed, \u201cSo we actually have more room in our garage now than we did before he came home with all of his mother’s stuff! It feels great!\u201d<\/p>\n

After months of effort, Dan and Donna were both happy. And I was pleased to say I knew exactly why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWell, we did it!\u201d Dan exclaimed. \u201cWe did? What did we do?\u201d I asked. \u201cWe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[19],"class_list":["post-480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-declutter","tag-downsizing-parents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthemovenow.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthemovenow.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthemovenow.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthemovenow.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthemovenow.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onthemovenow.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthemovenow.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthemovenow.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthemovenow.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthemovenow.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}