- Do you hold onto things that you really don't need?
Do you hold onto stuff that doesn't serve you,
that can even actually cause you
some stress and anxiety, even unhappiness?
Do you hold grudges?
Do you hold on to hurts?
Do you keep stuff that you don't need?
Do you maybe stay in relationships
or friendships or jobs just because they're familiar?
Things that you really know that you've kind of outgrown.
Keep watching, because I'm going to show you why you do this,
and even more important, how to stop it.
(uplifting music)
So what kind of things do people hold on to?
Well, you know, they hold onto everything.
I see clients who've got
30 years' worth of stuff in their homes,
and I worked with somebody once who said,
"You know my house; I feel like it's put its arms around me
"and I can't let anything go."
It turned out of course
that her parents died when she was young
and her house had become a symbol of being her parents,
and so she kept everything.
She couldn't let anything go.
And it was a wonderful thing to see how she transitioned,
cleaned out that house
and actually moved to a smaller house and became so free.
So we hold onto possessions like,
well, I might need this later.
Oh, well this is the birthday card from when I was 18.
This is my wedding invitation, my 21st birthday invites,
it's the menu from when I got married,
the menu from when I gave birth to my first baby
or my baby shower.
We keep a lot of stuff, clothes, books,
CDs, videos, audios.
I actually just was in the loft of my old house
and found boxes of cassette tapes,
and I just took them straight to a charity shop,
boxes of videos that probably
no one's even going to watch them anymore.
Why do we hold onto stuff?
And what else do we hold onto?
Well, it isn't just stuff.
That's a big thing.
Some people have so much clutter.
You know, I've moved house
in the last three years three times.
I gave up my London house, moved to an apartment,
had 20 years of stuff in there.
Then my LA house flooded.
I had to clear it all out, go into a rental, go back,
and each time I thought,
wow, nobody needs all this stuff,
and I thought I was really doing well at decluttering,
getting rid of stuff,
but still seemed to accumulate so much.
Why do we do that?
Well, one of the reasons we need stuff
is because we often don't feel enough,
and when we come from it with I'm not enough,
you will always need more.
If you don't think you're enough,
you'll need more of something,
possessions, food, people around you.
Because when you have a lot of stuff, you think,
well, I must be enough because look, I've got all of this.
Not feeling enough is something that runs hoarding,
it runs being a shopaholic, it runs many other things, too.
So we hold onto things
because we think the more I've got,
the better I feel.
If I've got so much stuff, I must feel enough.
And actually the truth is actually less is more.
What else do we hold on to?
We hold on to friends?
Well, we've been friends since we were at school
and we've been together for so long,
and I'm scared of letting this friendship go.
I don't want to hurt someone's feelings,
and what if I let them go and I miss them
and I don't have other friends?
We also hold on to jobs.
Well, I don't love this job,
but I've been there a long time.
It has some benefits.
What if I leave
and I get another job and I'm even worse off?
We stay in relationships.
One of the saddest things I see time and time again
in my practice is people who say,
I don't love my partner,
but, you know, better the devil you know.
We're so comfortable. They're like an old pair of slippers
that I can't throw out.
We're familiar.
We don't really have any spark,
but I'm scared of ending that relationship
in case I don't find another one.
I'd rather stay with this person
and be lonely and uncomfortable
than risk the uncomfort of not finding anything better.
We also hold onto grudges, we hold onto hurt.
Some people spend a long time practicing revenge,
thinking of how to get back to someone who hurt them.
And there really is no point in doing that.
You know, if you're in the business of revenge,
you need to dig two graves.
So we got to let go of grudges.
We've got to let go of hurts.
Why? Because they hurt you.
Holding onto something isn't good.
It's the most powerful words in the whole world, are let go.
Letting go is the very opposite of holding on.
So how do we let go?
Well, if you have a lot of stuff,
look at that stuff and really think,
does this give me pleasure?
Do I use this?
When did I last wear these clothes?
When did I last use this kitchen equipment?
Do I ever use it?
How much space is it taking up?
How much of my energy is taken up
in even storing this thing,
and who would get joy from it
when I moved out of my big London house?
I had a little wall outside
and I put all my possessions on that wall,
and everyday people would knock and would go,
"Hey, can I have that?"
Sure, that's why it's there.
I put bikes out there, a set of golf clubs,
and people would knock and go,
"Wow, can I have these golf clubs?"
Of course, that's why they're there.
I had to put a sign out saying, please take me,
to stop people knocking on my door going,
"Hey, is this really free?"
Yes, it's free.
And you know, it gave me so much joy
to see people taking china, taking books, taking clothes,
taking possessions that I didn't need.
It gave me joy.
So think of who would get more joy than you?
Who could you give that to?
Go on Nextdoor and list your stuff?
I did that recently,
and some students came and said, "Oh, thank you so much."
This is a table and a microwave,
and they were so happy to have it
and I was so happy to be free of it.
So list the things you don't want.
Give them away, give them to charity shops
because it will give you so much back
to know that someone is getting joy from something
that you really don't need and you really don't use.
So put your possessions into three mental paths.
I'm keeping this because I love it.
I'm giving this away because I don't need it.
Maybe I'll sell this one and I'll have some money
to buy something that I prefer more.
Less is more.
Downsize, get rid of stuff.
So getting rid of stuff is kind of easy,
'cause there's a formula.
Put it all out.
How often do I use this?
Do I really need it?
Is it giving me any joy?
Can I let it go?
Will I even miss it?
And if you're not sure, put it away for six months.
You know, I haven't even noticed that for six months.
It's time to let it go.
It's time to let someone else enjoy it.
But what do you do
when you're holding onto grudges and hurts and slights?
Well, you got to do the same thing.
Let them go.
The person that hurt you doesn't know they hurt you.
They don't know that you are stewing and festering
over something they did or said.
And very few people wake up and think,
"Oh, I'm going to hurt someone today.
"I'm going to diminish someone today.
"I'm going to be mean and horrible."
That's not that normal.
Hurt people hurt people,
wounded people wound people.
We are all flawed people.
I'm flawed, you're flawed.
Everyone, we're together, we're this flawed,
and flawed people are what I call flawsome.
They have flawed behavior.
Many times I work with clients, and I say,
"Look, you're not broken, but your parenting was broken.
"You're not flawed,
"but the way you were brought up was flawed,"
and I make them see the difference.
You are not flawed, but you went through a flawed childhood.
You're not broken, but the way you were parented was broken.
And when they see the difference,
they have a massive shift,
and you can do that right now.
You know you get to change twice every single day,
once in how you think and the second in how you act.
So look at the grudges you're holding onto
and decide, you know what?
I'm going to let this go.
It's really not worth it.
I'm going to forgive that person, not for them, but for me,
because I will not carry that around.
It's like you've got a big backpack on your back
weighing you down with these slights
and hurts and grudges.
When you dump them, when you let them go
and you forgive the other person or decide, "You know what?
"I'm just not going to give this any more energy.
"I'm not going to allow this to take up space in my head,"
you benefit profoundly.
So look at your grudges, look at your hurts.
Take a few minutes and think, okay, that hurt me.
Can I accept it? Can I let it go? Can I move on?
Can I get over it?
Or shall I keep it?
Why would you keep it?
It's not giving you anything
except stress and tension and resistance.
Get over it.
Let it go.
Move on.
Put it behind you.
The past is gone.
It's never coming back.
You're not going back, but you are going forwards.
Go forwards and do not take old grudges
and slights and hurts with you
because there's no point.
They weigh you down
and they define your life in a negative way.
Let go, we've all been hurt,
we've all been slighted,
we've all been treated badly at some stage,
and yet we all have the power to say,
I'm just going to leave that behind me.
It's like the water of the shower I last took.
It's gone.
Why do we hold on to old friends?
For the same reason.
We think, well, there's some value here.
I've had them in my life for so long,
why should I let them go?
Nothing influences you more than the company you keep.
And I know when I had cancer,
I realized very quickly who were my friends and who weren't,
and when I recovered,
I didn't really see those friends much anymore
that weren't supportive, that were actually negative,
that said, "Oh, my friend died of that.
"It's really aggressive."
I thought, you know, I don't think
I should have those people in my life
because they didn't give me anything.
In fact, they took away a lot.
They didn't visit me
and they tried to fill my head up with negativity.
So I remembered that expression,
nothing influences you more than the company you keep.
And I wasn't mean or rude.
I just stopped engaging.
They invited me to places.
I didn't go.
They'd send me an invitation.
I said, oh, I'm not free.
I just stopped returning calls,
stopped returning invitations.
I removed the energy.
It's like, you can't play tennis with someone
who isn't on the court, and I let those friendships go.
And when I let them go,
what happened is I created new ones
because nature loves a vacancy.
Same thing in a job.
Of course, I get it, that you're scared of leaving a job
that's given you security and certainty,
but sometimes you have to think outside the box
and think, I need something new and better.
If you're in a relationship for no other reason
than it's familiar,
that you worry that it'll be too hard
to go out there on your own,
that you can't afford to divide the home up, rethink that.
You don't have to leave today or tomorrow,
but rethink why you're staying, why you're holding,
and remember the most important words are not hold on.
They are let go.
In fact, I found most of my clients who held on
always had constipation, often had tension headaches,
as they were holding on literally to everything.
Don't hold on, let go.
Here's a saying I love.
You cannot find new horizons while clinging to the shore.
If you want to know how to powerfully, beautifully,
incredibly let go,
Please join my seven day I Am Enough course.
It will make this your reality, and it will be easy.