Good Morning!

I am not sure why, but how fast a picture, video or movement can go viral and spread like wildfire, STILL amazes me.

About two weeks ago my mom started telling me about this cute little woman, Marie Kondo, and her organizing and decluttering lessons.  My mom often gets into these kicks of learning something new and then completely masters it overnight, like she will literally stay up all night doing it… and then talks about it, a lot. I do the exact same thing and typically follow everything she does in life, because she is the actual GOAT.  

Marie Kondo was no different than so many other of my mom’s new obsessions. Since she talked about it so much, I had to do some digging on my own.  Who is this little woman and what is she all about?  Oddly enough I came to find that she is the author of a book that had been on my Audible wish list for over a year, “The Magic Art of Tidying Up”.  She also has a Netflix show featuring different families she has helped with her lifestyle advice and methods.

marie foldingI had to see what my mom was raving about so I decided to watch an episode while cooking dinner last week.  For starters, Marie is the cutest human being.  She is this perfect, little woman with bangs and the cutest outfits.  In the episodes I watched she wore a simple cardigan, a longer skirt and little flats.  A perfectly picked out outfit, with no wrinkles and every part of her looked perfectly in place.  She looks like what she is teaching: tidy, organized and full of joy.

While watching these families pile all of their things, per category, it really made me realize how much shit I had that I just didn’t need.  When I was watching one family clean out their junk drawer, I blushed because I realized we not only have one junk drawer, but we have 4

Then, when they were cleaning out their clothes and started putting them all on the bed, I started thinking, I don’t think all of my clothes could actually fit on one bed…

Which then got me to think, why the F*** do I have that much clothing when I wear the same 5 outfits on repeat?!

As the episode went on and I watched the families home transform, it motivated me to give it a try.

I watched the episode on Monday and then on Friday night when my husband got home I greeted him excitedly at the door saying, “Guess what we’re doing tonight?!”, unshowered and looking like a lunatic.

He responded, “Drinking wine and watching Netflix?” (what we typically do on Friday night) “Nope! We are cleaning out our closet’s with the Marie Kondo method!!”

To no surprise, he was not entirely thrilled. But, he is an angel. He could see how excited I was and just said, “Oh okay, I didn’t realize you wanted to do that on a Friday night… How long will it take?” He dragged his feet a bit in the beginning, but he did end up doing it with me and loving it because, again, he is an angel.

Once we did this on Friday, I, like my mom, also couldn’t stop talking about it.  I told all of my friends and announced it to every class that I taught that week at the yoga studio.

I was also noticing on social media that friends I hadn’t talked to and people from all over were also doing the Marie Kondo method.  They were posting on Instagram their folded drawers or the bags of clothes and things they were getting rid of.IMG_3867

Didn’t stop there. Last weekend, we were in New York for a concert and stopped at a friend’s apartment before the show. The entire party got up at one point to admire the Marie Kondo method folded clothes in our friend’s dresser drawers.  Let’s stop for a minute here and take that in, an entire party, of men and women stopped drinking to admire clothes and drawers folded in the Marie Kondo way…

 

 

Marie Kondo has created a serious movement and I can’t help but think about it in a couple different ways.

  1. From the business perspective – She offered an easy step-by-step solution in a market that is totally untapped: cleaning and organizing.  Her method can be done or used by anyone and everyone with zero barrier to entry, all you need is the desire to do so.  She has immediately became the leader in this space.
  2. From a self-help perspective – She has offered us a solution on how to bring more joy to our lives, by taking control of what we own by getting rid of it and taking care of it.  She has taught us how to take a good look at everything we own and realize what we really do and do not want. Helping us realize what really matters to us. Teaching us all that less is more.
  3. From a social media perspective – Look how fast something can take hold and go viral. Yes, baby’s dancing to Beyonce is an easy win especially when she’s ADORABLE, but CLEANING?!  Our parents used to have to beg us, bribe us, threaten us, and even trick us into cleaning.  Yet here we are on a Friday night, ecstatic to clean out our lives (I may have been the only excited one.).  Social media is a powerful thing and it is so fantastic when used for good. We often forget it can be used to spread joy, encouraging us to actually do something that will make a serious impact on our well-being.

I personally am very grateful for the Marie Kondo movement.  I can’t explain to you how good it feels to easily be able to close my drawers and find my clothes, to open a junk drawers and realize it’s no longer an actual junk drawer but a drawer with things I need in their specific places.  

But it’s so much more than the way she has us fold and organize things so we can take a picture and post it on social media.  Without realizing it, she has taught all of us to be authentic, that less is more, and that a good deed and intention can impact millions, even when you least expect it.

For this week’s homework, let’s stay on this goodness train and ask ourselves:

How could you be your most authentic self? Not by striving for more stuff, but for more happiness.  

What can you do, in your own way, to spread joy?

 

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