Letting go of the inner bibliophile must start with a confession! I love books. That may be a strange statement for the writer of blogs but there it is. That makes me a bibliophile, a lover or collector of books. If I ever come across a book that has some information in it that I may want to use some point in the future, I will buy it. I am also married to a bibliophile, so as you might imagine, we own a lot of books. To add to this strange mix, I will admit to owning an iPad that has three book readers in it. I bought it for two reasons. First and foremost, I bought it for travel. When I travel, I get a lot of my reading done, and with the airline’s weight restrictions, it seemed like a great way to take my books along and not give the airlines my money. Secondly, as a book lover, I’m running out of shelf space. So if I want to benefit from the information in the books I love, ironically, I have to turn them into e-books to read and store them.

And then Soul Coaching® happened to my life. Day 3 of the 28-day program starts like this: “Choose one small area in your bedroom, bathroom, or bedroom closet such as a drawer of shelf. Clear and clean it thoroughly. While you are clearing, affirm to yourself, “I am clearing all that I do not need out of my life.” This is not the first time I have done the 28-day program and I am repeating it in order to deepen and expand my experience. Since I had recently cleared out my bedroom and bathroom (as a Soul Coach I know how much lighter I feel without clutter so I try to keep on top of these things.) Yet, I could feel my office “calling” to me. As I looked around the room, I could feel the eyes of the books staring at me! It was if they were challenging me to deal with them and my book-buying habit.

Now you may have some habits too, whether you buy books or clothes, or shoes, or anything else that you don’t actually “need” so you probably can relate. I’m not talking about things we really need, nor am I talking about books that are really important to have. But these unneeded things that we keep buying are often ways that we fill up our empty spaces or the parts of ourselves that we think aren’t good enough without some outside props or help. In my case, communication and learning are very important values that I hold dear, and when I write about a subject, I want to make sure I know what I’m talking about. Yet the books that I “some day” hope to get to, have still gone unread.  I finally realized—or admitted—that for me, buying all these books were my way of not owning what I know! I let everyone else be the expert while not valuing my own expertise. So I let go of sixty books and donated them for someone else to enjoy.  And that was just the beginning! It’s my way of saying, “I’m okay and I am enough.”And if I need to look something up, that’s what libraries and Google are for!

3 RULES TO NEVER FORGET

1. LOVE IT: If you love something, whether family heirloom and kitschy flea market find, keep it for goodness sake! Surrounding yourself with things (and people) that you love is good! Keep it.

2. USE IT: If you own something that you use frequently, then why would you get rid of it? Keep it.

3. TOSS IT: Okay, so here’s the hard part. If you don’t love it and you don’t use it, then toss it out! Saving it for the one time in ten years that Aunt Gertrude visits and it’s gathering dust? Toss it. Is it a gadget that you found and used once upon a time and maybe, just maybe, in 2024, you might need it and they may not be for sale in the Future? Toss it.

These 3 simple rules will never let you down. I promise. And if you just can’t seem to toss something, knowing full well that you should, then put it in a box, seal it and date it one year in the future. Next year, check the box. If you haven’t opened it once, do not pass go, do not open it, and drive immediately to the local charity drop box and donate it. You will feel lighter, clearer, and you may just begin to fill your inner empty spaces with your magnificence!