Homebody Organizing
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Care Package Archive

Rejuvenating and practical frameworks for creating Clarity and Wellness in all areas of your life.

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Care Packages🤲🏽

You know when someone who loves you sends you a parcel with a bunch of goodies in it? I’m endeared to the care package (in whatever form it comes) as a way of making, way of caring, way of sharing. There’s no shortage of possibility as to how a care package presents, what it contains, what assortments are collected, how it’s delivered, how it’s received, and what it might mean to it’s recipients.

I value that this orientation toward making and giving can bring together items that you don’t always see together. You’re simply giving what’s needed and what might land as care. I like when a care package is a sweet collection of some practical stuffs and also things for pure enjoyment (maybe highlighting the functionality of joy and pleasure to our survival); a mix of things you can use in the long run plus some things to use right now. A box containing socks, a nice notebook, some chocolate, a bag of rice.

I like both mail and creating with the intention to give, so the Care Package holds a place in my heart. I send the people on my list a weekly (email) Care Package 🤲🏽. I write them with the intention of both holding space for all the positive possibility that you radiate, and to be of real tangible use. Ideas that you can grab onto, that make a difference in your life.

I created the Care Package Archive to collect these packages all in one place. Sign up if ya wanna receive em straight to your inbox.

CARE PACKAGE 3 🤲🏽 “Organized” Keeps You Scattered

“Organized” keeps you scattered

Thinking “organized” looks a certain way keeps you disorganized and scattered… I’ll explain why.

It’s Spring in New York! No wonder spring cleaning has surfaced out of this season. In so many ways, all of life is doing the same, coming into a renewed space in some way… life emerging from soil and birds relocating to supportive environments.

If you live or have lived in a place with seasons, you’ve probably noticed how happy everyone suddenly is in Spring. I think of it like this- with plants in bloom and the intentional migration of birds, in Spring we’re surrounded by a bunch of living species that are all 100% dedicated to their growth, development, and expansion. It makes a difference. Just like it makes a difference who you surround yourself with and what energy you’re around.

Being at the beginning of this always hopeful season, today I want to share with you a few paradigm shifts that can really elevate you and the harmony in your home:

The best thing you can do for yourself right now and going forward is to stop thinking that “organized” looks a certain way. Thinking that “organized” looks a certain way actually keeps you scattered, because it severs you from your own organizational intelligence.

You aren’t actually that far from the level of organized you desire, because… (this is the thing to really come to know) you are always organizing.

Organizing is: dealing with stuff. Aren’t you constantly dealing with stuff? Making choices and decisions regarding stuff? You are an organizer. Sure, maybe you can refine your toolset a bit, but you are an organizer and are constantly organizing your life around you.

Quick, necessary plug and deeper-purpose tangent-

This is exactly why I wrote my book Place Time Stuff and the only 5 actions you need to organize your life, because organizing is powerful. Organizing is ever-present and has the potential to be completely life and world-changing. Decoding the tools of organizing so that they are grab-able, usable, and shareable empowers us. Recognizing that we are constantly organizing, that we are the makers of the world around us, that we are always either making choices or simply perpetuating choices that have been made…opens up the option to dismantle structures that are oppressive and allows us to believe and dream into building better. I love organizing because it reminds us that we are makers (of our lives and all of the structures that we live within and interact through). Without a fortified relationship to organizing we can find ourselves giving our power away to the stuff that was made by us.

I believe that we not only can, but have a responsibility to, make something better. Here’s one of my main organizational principals, a thought worthy of guiding our choices: every action and choice must be in support of life.

Interpret as you will and apply liberally, I guarantee you it’s true and relevant everywhere. As you go about sorting things in your everyday, ask yourself “is this supporting life?” “Is this supporting my life?” “Is this supporting the percentages of life that might currently be dormant but that I intend to fully step into?” And socially… “are the systems and structures in support of the lives that are affected by them?”

This is exactly why thinking that organized has a look and merely pursuing the appearance of “organized”… is unsustainable and unfunctional.

Have you ever organized something and it looks so great (instagramable and picturesque) but for some reason it doesn’t actually facilitate you using those things or that space? Yea, exactly. Me too, you’re not alone.

Just like with strength, I believe that function has to be the driver in organizing. With strength- it’s absolutely possible to train for appearance, and to achieve it, but to be useless in terms of athleticism and functional capabilities. With organizing- it’s totally possible to achieve an organized look but to still be functionally disorganized and not have improved your life one bit.

Functional strength. Functional organization.

But the function of what? The function of your life and your relationship with your stuff(your things, spaces, subjects, environments, circumstances, etc.), those things that themselves ought to support, uplift, and enhance your life experience. Essentially, whether it be functional organization or functional strength that you’re developing, you are improving your relationship to your external world, which is the basis of being alive.

Golden Nugget- Thinking that organized looks a certain way is rooted in judgement. Judgement prevents you from connecting, which prevents you from creating a real relationship with your home. Judgement does that because it’s an iteration of control. Remember, you can only either be connecting or controlling in any relationship. And the relationship you have with your home and your body are your first most proximal relationships. How you approach them is how you approach everything.

Instead of saying “ah I’m disorganized, I need to be organized!”... do this:

👉🏽 Write out a list of 5 choices you make daily (or have made) in your home that you notice are working for you. Perhaps a way of sorting that is highly functional for you, a placement that makes sense in terms of accessibility and ease of use, a choice you find aesthetically appealing, a piece of furniture that you love and get plenty of use out of, items you’ve shed or gifted and what effect that had on the items you chose to keep. If you’re inclined to share with me and want to schedule a call, I’d be more than delighted to facilitate the process.

A dedicated reflection of your highest good,

Loretta

Originally shared 31 March 2021

Loretta Barrera