Capsuling Through Spirituality
I’ve read all the articles about minimalism, decluttering, finding joy in only the items that bring you happiness, and especially the ones on making a capsule wardrobe. My five year journey of minimalism is still in the process, and it wasn’t from initially being inspired by others to get rid of stuff, but through spirituality.
It was back in 2017, that a fellow psychic told me in a reading I would be getting rid of many of my belongings and working with a homeless shelter. I had no idea what he meant at that time. Why would I get rid of anything in my apartment? Especially my clothes that meant more to me than any other belonging. I worked on Wall Street which gave me the excuse to over shop and overspend on clothes. Working in mid-town Manhattan, close to Fifth Avenue, easy access to Rockefeller Center, the Time Warner Center, Nordstroms and an easy subway ride down to Herald Square on my hour long lunch break, gave me a constant array of high to low shopping arenas.
I had just moved into a quaint but small apartment in Westchester County in 2017, and was aghast when the landlord showed me the tiny closet in the bedroom. I told myself I would figure it out later as the apartment had everything else that I wanted. I had just taken everything out of storage from when I lived in my own large two bedroom apartment in Manhattan with three large closets after a brief live-in relationship in which we shared his apartment. Now for some reason I thought I could stuff everything from my large Manhattan apartment into my tiny 1 bedroom. It really was more of a studio with a wall between the bedroom and living room. I ended up putting all my extra clothes in totes, piled up in my small private hallway and in the additional storage area. My small closet was stuffed with the clothes that needed to be hung. If I had to take an item out, the pieces on either side would come out with it. I was just so overwhelmed with clothes that I had collected over the years, pieces that were just beautiful to look at, and pieces I planned on wearing once I cut off the tags.
The psychic’s words kept ringing in my ears over the next couple of months, but I paid no attention to them. “Who gets rid of their stuff?” I asked myself. I started to come across articles about minimalism and became intrigued, but I still couldn’t fathom getting rid of anything even though my small apartment was stuffed to the gills. My queen-size bed and wardrobe took up my entire bedroom space. I had just enough room on either side of the bed to get dressed each day. However, the concept of keeping only what you use made sense, but it was as if I was reading a foreign language. Does anyone really do that?
I got up one Saturday morning and looked in my extra storage area as well as my hallway where plastic totes of clothes that no longer fit me, and that still had tags attached were stacked on top of each other. I reached for a huge black plastic bag and took down the first tote. I tried to detach myself from the item, my emotions, how cute or pretty it was, and I just chucked it into the bag. Soon I reached for the second tote, and did the same process. There were clothes that I had kept from when I had lost a significant amount of weight thinking that I would one day fit into those pieces again, that was six years ago. One black bag filled, within a little over an hour, I had nine large black garbage bags filled with clothes, shoes, lingerie that I had never wore, and handbags that I no longer carried…plus a lot of empty plastic totes. When I came down from this act of just doing and not thinking, I sat there amazed at these huge bags sitting in the middle of my living room floor, and if you were to ask me what was in those bags, for the most part, I couldn’t have told you. I think many of us, before we have started a minimalist journey, sit for a minute and wonder, when did we accumulate all these things, and why did we hold onto them?
I called a good friend and asked if she knew of any group who would make sure the clothes were placed in the right hands. I wanted them to go to women who needed suits for job interviews, or who needed dresses for a new position. She recommended a homeless shelter on the other side of town. I called the director and personally wanted to meet with him, as I wanted to make sure the clothes went to the right women. The staff was very welcoming and showed me around the shelter. My limited concept of a shelter was of cots lined up next to each other, but this shelter had actual apartments for families that were displaced, for example, a house fire. I knew this was divinely guided as was relayed to me by the psychic.
People find minimalism in many different ways. Even though I called myself spiritual at the time, I had no idea that starting to remove unwanted objects from my life would bring me deeper into my spirituality.
At the time, I had no knowledge of how many clothes I had. I now have about 80 pieces for all seasons and about 12 pairs of shoes. From that estimate, I would put my estimate at around 500 pieces of clothing…or more. It seemed normal at the time, but when I look at my pieces now, I am so much more happier and fulfilled when I open my closet and see only a few pieces hanging there and that there is room between them.
Another aspect to all of this was also in finding my correct style. I had retired in 2019, and had done another round of getting rid of the corporate dresses and suits that I would have no need for in the future; again dropping them at the homeless shelter. I tried to understand my new casual lifestyle, which still involved evening wear, brunches in the city, yoga, and meetings with clients when I did healings and readings. It was easy to wear a uniform of corporate clothing each day, but harder to find my style fit in semi-retirement when I had so many other activities that involved different clothing choices.
It took a lot of time and thought. I managed to find my fall-winter style, as I have a love of gray, sweaters, loafers and leggings. By just changing my big gray sweater with leggings for brunch and switching to a dressy tank and blazer over the leggings for an evening event, I began to understand the concept of working with less clothes but actually having more choices. I’m still in the process of tweaking my spring-summer wardrobe. It’s also about having the right pieces. I found that in those 500+ pieces, more than not were the wrong pieces. I purchased things because they were cute, looked good on the mannequin, or they were status pieces.
Becoming more spiritually aware of myself led to my becoming more aware of my choices, not only in clothing, but in life in general. I wouldn’t say I have a capsule wardrobe now, but I have a more minimalist approach to my clothing choices. I still want beautiful pieces, but I’ve learned you can have just enough beautiful pieces that all work together. I’m still a work in progress on this minimalist journey, as well as my spiritual one.
