For anyone facing a move it
can feel overwhelming, sorting, packing, moving, unpacking, what do I keep,
what do I get rid of, how do I do it? The very thought can freeze us in place
like that deer in the headlights. Yet, when you compound that with moving out
of your family home that may have been the anchor for decades of family
memories it is even more so.
In the movie “Up In The Air,” George Clooney’s
character, Ryan Bingham is someone who travels 320 days a year and espouses a
lifestyle of detachment and isolationism. He is also a “motivational” speaker
who promotes this theory. However, if you take his words and apply it to that
moment of downsizing your home, or that of your Mom, Dad or other loved one it
speaks volumes of how it really feels.
Let’s listen to Ryan Bingham;
“How much does your life
weigh? Imagine for a second you’re carrying a backpack. I want you to feel the
straps on your shoulders. Do you feel them?
I want you to pack it with
all the stuff in your life. Start with the little things on shelves and in
drawers, those knik naks, and collectibles, feel the weight as they add up?
Start adding larger stuff, clothes, tabletop appliances, lamps, linens,
televisions, your backpack should be getting pretty heavy now. You go bigger,
your couch, bed, kitchen table, stuff it all in there, your car, your home,
whether it is a studio apartment or a house, stuff it all into that backpack.
Now try to walk, kind of hard isn’t it?”
Feel familiar? Then add all the memories and
emotions attached to all those things, and the family dynamics connected with
them and the entire process in front of you. Those might weigh more than all
the stuff combined.
That is what Caring Transitions does for you.
They come in to take that backpack off your shoulders, to remove the weight
crushing down on you so that you can focus on what is truly important those
relationships without the additional crushing weight of the “stuff.”
Guest Blogger - Jim Morgan - Director of Outreach Caring Transitions Indy North