The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing (20 page)

Everything you own wants to be of use to you. Even if you throw it away or burn it, it will only leave behind the energy of wanting to be of service. Freed from its physical form, it will move about your world as energy, letting other things know that you are a special person, and come back to you as the thing that will be of most use to who you are now, the thing that will bring you the most happiness.
A piece of clothing might come back as a new and beautiful outfit, or it may reappear as information or a new connection. I promise you: whatever you let go will come back in exactly the same amount, but only when it feels the desire to return to you. For this reason, when you part with something, don’t sigh and say, “Oh, I never used this,” or “Sorry I never got around to using you.” Instead, send it off joyfully with words like, “Thank you for finding me,” or “Have a good journey. See you again soon!”

Get rid of those things that no longer spark joy.
Make your parting a ceremony to launch them on a new journey
. Celebrate this occasion with them. I truly believe that our possessions are even happier and more vibrant when we let them go than when we first get them.

Once the process of tidying is under way, many of my clients remark that they have lost weight or that they have firmed up their tummies.
It’s a very strange phenomenon, but when we reduce what we own and essentially “detox” our house, it has a detox effect on our bodies as well
.

When we discard everything in one go, which sometimes means disposing of forty garbage bags of stuff in one day, our bodies may respond in a way that resembles a short fast. We may get a bout of diarrhea or break out in pimples. There is nothing wrong with this. Our bodies are
just getting rid of toxins that have built up over the years, and they will be back to normal, or in fact in even better shape, within a day or two. One of my clients cleared out a closet and shed that she had neglected for ten years. Immediately after, she had a strong bout of diarrhea after which she felt much lighter. I know it sounds like false advertising to claim that you can lose weight by tidying or that it will make your skin clearer, but it is not necessarily untrue. Unfortunately, I can’t show you before-and-after pictures of my clients, but I have witnessed with my own eyes how their appearance changes when their rooms are tidied. Their figures are more streamlined, their skin is more radiant, and their eyes shine brighter.

When I first started this business, I found this fact quite intriguing. But when I thought about it carefully, I realized that it isn’t that strange. I think of it like this. When we put our house in order, the air inside becomes fresh and clean. Reducing the amount of stuff in our space also reduces the amount of dust, and we actually clean more often. When we can see the floor, the dirt stands out and we want to clean. Because clutter has been eliminated, it’s much easier to clean and therefore we do it more thoroughly. The fresher air in the room must certainly be good for the skin. Cleaning involves energetic movement, which would naturally contribute to losing weight and staying fit. And when our space is completely clean, we don’t have to worry about tidying, so we are free to focus on the next issue that is important in our lives.
Many people want to be slim and fit, and that becomes their focus. They start to walk longer distances and eat less junk food, and these actions contribute to weight loss without consciously dieting.

But I think the main reason tidying has this effect is because through this process people come to know contentment. After tidying, many clients tell me that their worldly desires have decreased. Whereas in the past, no matter how many clothes they had, they were never satisfied and always wanted something new to wear, once they selected and kept only those things that they really loved, they felt that they had everything they needed.

We amass material things for the same reason that we eat—to satisfy a craving. Buying on impulse and eating and drinking to excess are attempts to alleviate stress. From observing my clients, I have noticed that when they part with excess clothing, their tummies tend to slim down, when they discard books and documents, their minds tend to become clearer, when they reduce the number of cosmetics and tidy up the area around the sink and bath, their complexion tends to become clear and their skin smooth. Although I have no scientific basis for this theory, it is very interesting to see that the part of the body responding corresponds closely to the area that is put in order. Isn’t it wonderful that tidying your house can also enhance your beauty and contribute to a healthier, trimmer body?

Due to the popularity of feng shui, people often ask me whether tidying will bring them good fortune. Feng shui is a method for increasing good fortune by organizing one’s living environment. It began gaining in popularity in Japan about fifteen years ago and is now quite well known. For many people, feng shui is what first gets them interested in organizing and tidying their house. I am not a feng shui expert, but I did study the basics as part of my research on tidying. Whether or not you believe that it can improve your fortune is up to you, but since ancient times people in Japan have been applying their knowledge of feng shui and orientation principles to their daily lives.

I myself also apply the wisdom of our forebearers in my practice of tidying. For example, when I fold and stand clothes on edge in the drawer, I arrange them by color to form a gradation from dark to light. The proper order is to place clothes that are lighter in color at the front of the drawer and gradually progress to darker colors at the back. I don’t know whether or not this increases good fortune, but when clothes are arranged in a gradation of color, it feels great to look at them whenever you open the drawer. For some reason, having lighter clothes at the front seems to have a calming effect. If you organize your
living environment so that it feels comfortable and so that every day you feel energized and happy, wouldn’t you say that your good fortune has increased?

The concepts underpinning feng shui are the dual forces of yin and yang and the five elements (metal, wood, water, fire, and earth). The basic belief is that everything has its own energy and that each thing should be treated in a way that suits its characteristics. To me, this seems perfectly natural. The philosophy of feng shui is really about living in accordance with the rules of nature. The purpose of my approach to tidying is exactly the same. The true purpose of tidying is, I believe, to live in the most natural state possible. Don’t you think it is unnatural for us to possess things that don’t bring us joy or things that we don’t really need? I believe that owning only what we love and what we need is the most natural condition.

By putting our house in order, we can live in our natural state. We choose those things that bring us joy and cherish what is truly precious in our lives. Nothing can bring greater happiness than to be able to do something as simple and natural as this. If this is good fortune, then I am convinced that putting our house in order is the best way to achieve it.

After a client has finished the process of selecting what to keep and what to discard, there are times when I will retrieve a few things from the “keep” pile and ask once again, “This T-shirt, and this sweater, here, do they really spark joy?”

With a look of surprise, my client inevitably says, “How did you know? Those are all things that I couldn’t decide if I should keep or throw away.”

I am not a fashion expert nor do I retrieve these things on the basis of how old they look. I can tell by my clients’ expression when they are choosing—the way they hold the item, the gleam in their eyes when they touch it, the speed with which they decide. Their response is clearly different for things they like and things they are not sure of. When faced with something that brings joy, their decision is usually instantaneous, their touch is gentle, and their eyes shine. When faced with something that doesn’t bring them joy, their hands pause, and they cock their head and frown. After thinking for a few moments, they throw the item onto the “keep” pile. At that moment, there is a tightness in their brow and around their lips. Joy manifests itself in the body, and I don’t let these physical signs escape me.

To be honest, however, I can actually tell which items do not spark joy in my clients’ hearts even without
watching them during the selection process. Before I visit their homes, I give them a private lesson on the KonMari Method. This lecture alone has a significant impact, and often when I make my first visit to their house they have already begun tidying.

One of my prize students, a woman in her thirties, had discarded fifty garbage bags of belongings by the time I got there. She opened her drawers and closet proudly and said, “There’s nothing more to get rid of in here!” Her room certainly looked different from the photographs she had shown me. The sweater that had been thrown carelessly over the dresser was now neatly stored away, and the dresses that had been jammed to bursting on the rod had been thinned out so that now there was some room between them. Yet even so, I pulled out a brown jacket and a beige blouse. They looked no different from the rest of the clothes she had decided to keep. Both were in good condition and looked like they had been worn.

“Do these really bring you joy?” I asked.

The expression on her face changed instantly. “That jacket, you know I love the design, but I really wanted one in black. They didn’t have a black one in my size.… Not having a brown jacket, I thought that I would buy it anyway, but in the end it just didn’t seem to suit me and I only wore it a few times.

“As for the blouse, I was really attracted to the design and to the material, so I actually bought two of them.
I wore the first one until it couldn’t be worn, but for some reason I just don’t seem to choose the second one anymore.”

I had never seen how she treated these items nor did I know anything about the circumstances surrounding their purchase. All I did was observe carefully the clothes hanging in her closet. When you examine things closely, you can begin to discern whether or not those things bring their owner joy. When a woman is in love, the change in her is apparent to everyone around her. The love she receives from her partner, the confidence that love gives her, and her desire to make the effort to look beautiful for him all give her energy. Her skin glows, her eyes shine, and she becomes even more beautiful. In the same way, things that are loved by their owner and treated with care are vibrant and radiate an aura of wanting to be of more service to their owner. Things that are cherished shine. This is why I can tell at a glance whether something truly sparks joy. The genuine emotion of joy resides in the body and in the possessions of the owner, and therefore it can’t be concealed.

Everyone has things that they love, things that they cannot imagine parting with, even though other people shake their heads in disbelief when they see them. I see
the things that other people find precious every day, and you would be amazed at the strange and incomprehensible articles that capture people’s hearts—a set of ten finger puppets each with one eye only and every eye different, a broken alarm clock shaped like the Morinaga Noobow character, a driftwood collection that looks more like a heap of scrap wood. But the immediate response to my hesitant, “Does this … um, really spark joy?” is an emphatic “Yes!” There is no arguing with their confident gaze and shining eyes because I, too, have one such item: my Kiccoro T-shirt.

Kiccoro (“Forest Child”) was one of two official mascots for Aichi Expo 2005, which promoted love for the earth and renewable, eco-friendly technology. The larger mascot, Morizo, is perhaps better known. Kiccoro was Morizo’s sidekick, a little, lime green, roly-poly character, and my T-shirt shows only Kiccoro’s face. I wear it around the house all the time. It is one thing that I just cannot bring myself to part with, even if people were to ridicule me, saying, “How can you keep this? Aren’t you embarrassed? How can you wear that? You should throw it away.”

Let me be clear. The clothes I wear at home are generally cute and pretty. I usually wear girly things, such as camisoles with layers of pink frills and flower-print cotton ensembles, around the house. The only exception is my Kiccoro T-shirt. It is quite a curious article, shocking green in color with just Kiccoro’s eyes and half-open,
full-lipped mouth, and the tag clearly indicates that it’s a children’s size. As the Expo was held in 2005, I’ve been wearing it for many years even though I have no sentimental memories from the event itself. Just reading what I’ve written here makes me feel embarrassed to be hanging on to such a thing, yet whenever I see it, I can’t bring myself to throw it away. My heart starts beating faster as soon as I see Kiccoro’s lovely round eyes.

The contents of my drawers are organized so that I can see at a glance what’s there. This T-shirt sticks out like a sore thumb among all my graceful, feminine clothes, yet that just makes it more endearing. It’s so old now, you would think that it would be stretched out of shape or stained, but it’s not, so I can’t find any excuse in that area for discarding it. The fact that the tag declares it was made in some other country even though it was a Japanese expo could have ruined its appeal for me, yet I still can’t throw it away.

These are the types of things you should boldly hang on to.
If you can say without a doubt, “I really like this!” no matter what anyone else says, and if you like yourself for having it, then ignore what other people think
. To tell the truth, I would not want anyone else to see me wearing my Kiccoro T-shirt. But I keep it for the little joys it gives me, the giggle I get when I take it out and look at it all on my own, the contentment I feel when Kiccoro and I are sweating together as we clean and wondering what to tackle next.