Purging & Acquisition: Last Lap

Getting back on the airplane to Frankfurt after our whirlwind tour of home we were exhausted and laden with luggage.  We came with 2 pieces (one suitcase held another suitcase inside) and left with 4 jumbo bags plus our abundantly plump carry-ons.

Leaving Canada with our stuff was easy, making our train connection in Frankfurt was going to be a synchronized weight lifting event.  Here is a tip:  When travelling by train in Europe, if the schedule states that it is leaving at 15:22 then it is leaving at 15:22. As well the train may only stop for about 3 or 4 minutes before it carries on out of the station.

I worked out with the girls who was going to get on first, who was going to be on the receiving end of me hoisting/pitching/dragging the bags into the train. Then we would negotiate where we would park the bags once on board.

Also, fun fact, I'm not a stranger to packing a well stocked bag and am usually in awe at those around me who get onto the train or check in at the airport with their Barbie size suitcase for a 3 week holiday.  Now I'm not opposed to the concept that you can always pick up what you need there, yeah that is never a problem.  The image of me and my girls with 4 large suitcases, 3 large carry-ons and purses, I believe made many an observer shake their head at us.

We were successful, we were exhausted, we were trying not to be lulled to sleep by the train as we had a station change in short order............Once back to our quaint little cottage, now feeling like it was bulging at the seams with our luggage our shoulders instantly relieved being back in our home.

Over the next few months we continued to cultivate our lives, our friendships, our connections and penchant to cover as much of Europe as possible, all the while knowing that our time in Deutschland and Nederland may be soon coming to an end.



Returning to Europe and back to the now familiar sights, sounds, languages and vibe.  We had been Blessed from the moment we first landed that we were welcomed and it felt like Home.  

Sure we hacked our way through the language, and that continued throughout our time, but very rarely did it feel "foreign" to be there, Germany and The Netherlands were exceptional Hosts.

Not all expats have this experience and I viewed this as a tremendous gift. 

The one thing that expats all have in common is having to say "good bye".

Purging & Acquisition: Zen Garage Sale; Going from 100 to 10%

And some of it was easy, there were clothes that the girls' had stowed that they had outgrown.  There were items that I would have discarded on the last go around but let them stay.  There were things that we wanted to take with us back to Europe that were important.  

Then there was the furniture.  I had already let go of some big articles already, however when I looked at the dining room suite, 4 bedrooms worth of furniture, various and sundry shelving units, etc.,  I began to ask myself the question, "What shape will all of this be in after being stowed away in a storage facility for an undetermined amount of time?" 

It’s not uncommon to hear of damage by the actual move, deterioration while being stored due to moisture or worse vermin.  And then the question begged, if and when the day comes to move it somewhere in Canada will I choose to go back to a property that would be this size again?" Kind of ditches the whole living more simply lesson huh?

After taking a very big breath in and out I made the choice to let go of most everything and boil our belongings down to the essence.

What happened next will always serve me as a clear and resounding sign that I was on the right track.  I called my dearest friend, we drank a very strong coffee, and told her my plan.  Using email and the omni-effecient Facebook I advertised that I was having a Zen Garage Sale.  Meaning, I wanted everything gone and didn’t have time to price it so come and make me a deal that makes us both feel good.

The best part was that my friend never questioned my success and nor did I.  And a success it was. 

We tag teamed at the house, while I unpacked all the boxes she hauled what was going to the garage and merchandised.  Subsequently, I was making calls, fielding calls, emailing and posting pictures, generating a vibe and trusting in it that it would reach the most perfect people.

The emotional value of the contents was a hot topic, pre-sale, during sale and post sale.  I was letting go of some items that were chock full of emotions.  And that can create a conflict, in more ways than one.  The primary conflict that I had to address was how “I” needed to make peace with letting go of these things that held significance.

Tupperware aside there were Wedding gifts, birthday gifts, bought for myself and the house gifts.  Gifts that someone thoughtfully selected and presented to me/us.  That comes with its own attachment. 

My dear friend has a great philosophy when it comes to gifts.  Once a gift is received, the recipient is now in position to “choose” what its fate is.  Be it on display, on use, on loan, stored and even let go of.

 

So when I looked at the beautiful martini glass I was given for my 40^th birthday…yes it was the absolute perfect gift, the giver is a person I adore.  When I look at the glass I am reminded of the gift, the person and the fine beverages served in said glass.  When I looked at it that day, in order to let it go I affirmed that even without the glass each time I have a martini I think of her, the laughs, the giggles and the concoctions we put into those glasses. 

I wasn’t letting go of her, I wasn’t devaluing the sentiment, I was letting go of a glass to someone else so they could appreciate and enjoy it.  I had to be objective and that made the process more peaceful.

There was much merchandise that I had to go through that same process with in order to reduce the emotions attached and simply see things for what they were. 

·        A Glass,

·        A Tupperware piece,

·        Dishes,

·        Pots and pans,

·        Baking sheets…

·        Books…

Simply put I was keeping the memories and letting go of the vessels, it was simply “stuff”. 

In less than 48 hours Myself & two other wonderful ladies opened the garage door and had ourselves a great time! Wheeling and dealing, cajoling (read “bullying with love”) to take the whole box of tupperware not just the one piece!  Directing traffic, organizing people to help lift, carry and haul! Collectively we were making things happen, we were making others happy and lightening my load substantially.  We didn’t even make it the whole day!  We sold out!  

Can’t beat that and the Empty garage made me feel so Full of Joy!

  

The next morning when the moving truck arrived, aware that I had worked to reduce the contents from the original quote, I was blown away that I had condensed our life to 10% of what we had originally….From $750.00 per month storage to $75.00.  Yes I did a little jig!

Purging & Acquisitions: Language of Now

No the phone did not ring with an offer right after I began the process of changing the energy about selling the house. Though how cool would that have been? :)

I knew that this was a transitional time for all 3 of us who were invested in the process and I felt more than ok about letting things move forward on their own as it was easier to do now that I/we were lessening the grip on to it energetically.

Months later there was an event that was happening back in Canada that all 3 of us wanted to be at occurring in October. The timing of the event was in sync with school holidays at the International school, however, in order to travel that distance I wanted to stay longer than the scheduled break from school.  In order to take extra days I had to apply for the girls to be absent well in advance of the time.

On the application form it asks why you require the children to be out of school outside of normal holidays?  My answer, Because we sold our house in Canada and needed to go back to move out.

Which technically was not exactly true, but my intention was for it to BE TRUE.  

So this really amped up my vibeage by way of believing it!  Every time the Autumn break came up in conversation I told people we were going to Canada, to move out of the house!  Yes I was believing my own marketing :)

Three weeks before we were to leave for Canada I received an offer on the house and based on the contract the conditions would be lifted while we were physically there.  Supreme Good Vibeage from that synchronicity and a good way to now release the house both energetically and physically.


As a visual person, I map out what I am doing by seeing it in my head.  So I stepped back into my memory of the house and all the boxes and saw myself organizing them for the mover to come and haul them out into storage.  Yes I kind of clenched about the per month price but now I didn't have a house to store them in anymore so it all balanced out.

I was able to organize most everything via email so that the groundwork had been laid for me to get it done in the time that we had.  A little twist to the whole situation was that less than a handful of people knew that we were coming back since the event we were attending we were showing up as a "Surprise!" That added a bit of mystery and covertness to the operation and a challenge thanks to social media not to spill the beans on the potential sale of the house and our trip back.  

I'm a big fan of chaos, yeah I know crazy.  But I had Zero thoughts that I wouldn't have enough time to accomplish this feat during our 10 days, in addition to other events planned.  It would be hectic but doable.

At my first opportunity I had to get into the house I was going to re-acquaint myself with what we had left to deal with inside.  This meant that I planned to sift through some of the contents that perhaps were important 14 months earlier but today would be different.

Not to mention from a financial standpoint, the boxes not only represented our worldly belongings but along with it a monthly price of $750 for storage fees.  Hmmm doing a quick calculation again...

• I had dodged paying that fee for 14 months, good call Sher!
• I was looking at a minimum storage time of 10 months until...who knew maybe 5 years? You do the math...
• Once our stuff was in storage the next time we would be accessible to it would be when they delivered to our next house.

When I say that the time to Purge was upon me, and I don't mean a bag or 2 of clothes, letting go of some old sheets & towel I mean... 

The Everything must GO NOW PURGE!!!

Purging & Acquisitions: Releasing with Love

I believe that there are varying levels of emotional value woven into whatever we have and are holding onto. 

1. that pair of boots you wore to the bucket list rock concert,
2. the jeans you wore in high school,
3. the cache of baby clothes and your kids are teens or older,
4. the teapot your grandmother used,
5. the ___(fill in the blank)___.

All the things that we surround ourselves with, hold a link to and tell us a story over and over again.  Having memories and items that help you remember times, people, events, milestones with fondness are off the charts in holding emotional value and are treasures.

However, if you associate the jeans you wore in high school with negative self talk like, "I'm so fat, how did I let my body get like this, I will never be that size again", are they truly valuable? Are they motivational?  If they make you feel like that...let them go 

If your intention is to have them as a reminder of your Rockin' Bod and the good times had while wearing them... that's a different story and it feels different to look at them and when you tell that story.

The house I selling was bursting with emotions.  It wasn't just a property it was:

• the house me and my husband built, 
• on the land that he and I loved, 
• in the community that we helped to create, 
• in association with the business he had dreamed of starting and owning for years,
• the place to host friends, family, Thanksgivings, Christmases, birthdays, celebrations of all things,
• it was our Family Home that our girls were to grow up in, move out of and come back to.

I wasn't just selling a house, I wasn't simply letting go of a building and some land, this was letting go of what we had known to be our foundation, of what was and what would never be.  

After my husband died, I had started referring to our going forward as "Creating a New Normal".   After physically leaving Canada every moment and experience was not just a New Normal but also one that required translation from either German or Dutch.  From the get go, when asked how we were doing I replied without hesitation that "We were having an exceptional experience!" And we did for just over 2 years!

Six months after I had put the house on the market and subsequently made adjustments to the price and still no action I felt it was time to address the energy around and feelings about actually selling.  

My intention was not to disregard or diminish the importance of what the house was to me, and my girls, but it was to find a way to make peace emotionally in order to let it go.

I believe in listening to your body and I'm an advocate for and practice listening to my "gut" as my intuitive guide.  Three main things came up for me

1. Whenever I thought of the house I felt a clenching in my chest...Not good.  
2. I felt that as much as I wanted to sell it I was clutching it to my chest...Not conducive to manifesting a buyer.  
3. Whenever the girls and I talked about the house it sounded like we were talking about their Dad, not the building...tricky

So I asked myself a couple questions:  

If we weren't in Europe right now would I be selling the house?  

Answer:  Yes

If we were to repatriate to Canada tomorrow, next month, next year would we move back into the house?  Answer: No

So I went back to the basics and created some affirmations that I wanted to attach to the house to help to alleviate and move away from the chest clutching feeling.

Affirmations

The photo on the right is an affirmation I created recently for someone who is selling and not unlike the ones I began to use myself.

Every time I thought of the house I immediately started to affirm letting it go with Love.

Every time we spoke of a family memory I would thank the house and affirm letting it go with Love.

Every opportunity I could change the language in association with the house I did.  And it began to feel better and easier.

Expressing Gratitude

Next thing I did was wrote a letter and got my girls to do the same.  The letter was dual purpose.  First to express our Gratitude to and for the house and land; and secondly as a Welcome to the Most Perfect New Owners.

I started by expressing gratitude to the house for keeping us safe, warm in winter, cool in summer. For being the most perfect place to live, for being such a gracious host to our celebrations with family and friends and for daily living.  I thanked it for being The MOST perfect place for the girls to grow up.  I thanked it for all the attributes that sprung to mind.

I thanked my husband for choosing the location, for creating such an amazing yard, for tending to the land and respecting it.  For all the things he did to make the house our home.

I thanked everyone who ever came through my door and for adding such positive energy to our space.

Welcoming

Next I welcomed the new family.  I told them how they had made the Most Perfect choice to live here.  I excitedly told them about all the wonderful reasons they will LOVE living here.  I told them how the yard and valley craved for kids to run, play and explore.  I told them how breathtaking the valley was in every season and to watch for the ample wildlife.  I told them how strong and secure the house was and that it will love being freshened up to reflect their style.  I affirmed all of their reasons for choosing to make this their home.

After completing the letters we read them out loud, which led us to share stories of this, that and the other thing.  When we spoke about those things it felt good, it didn't feel like loss.  It helped to shift from "clutching onto it" to "releasing with it peacefully".

To finish what now had become quasi ceremonial, we burned our letters and released them...with Love.

Retail Value

Finally, I asked my agent to provide me with a blank copy of the Offer to Purchase.  I filled it in with painstaking detail as if it were the real deal.

For the names of the Purchasers I put: The Most Perfect Family or Better

For the price, I put in my walk away price:  $XXX,XXX.XX or Better

For the date of possession: I put in a date and added or Better

I signed it as the Seller and Signed it for the Purchaser as above.  Then put it away and let the energy flow!

I'd love this sentence to read, "And after I put my pen down my agent called ..." :)

Purging & Acquisitions - Emotional Value

In order to move forward I believe it is necessary to lighten your load, literally and figuratively.

Think about something for a moment:
Of all the things you have in your house that are...

• stored in a box,
• tucked away in a closet,
• shelved in the garage,
• allocated to the basement,
• in a pile to repair, mend or recycle,
• and even rooms or areas that are tasked strictly for storing things that you don't use regularly or even ever. 

Now ask yourself, 

1. If you did not have the physical space to house these items what would you do with them?
2. Would you pay to store them elsewhere? How much would you pay to do so?

What weighed heavily on me, back in September 2010, was the quote from the mover for storing the balance of the possessions left in the house.  

In order to empty the house it would have cost me (in addition to the move to storage) $750.00 per month, times that by the number of months the house would be on the market, (an unknown value) and I quickly calculated that my best decision, at the time, would be to leave the boxes in the house. 

This didn't sit very well with me since how would that look when a potential buyer came through and saw our collection of boxes?  However I needed to make peace with that and we did our best in storing the boxes in such a way not to detract from the house.

Plus our time overseas (initially) was to be for about a year so sending it over was not even on the table.

At that time, I didn't question the contents that my amazing team of friends came and lovingly packed up for me.  Not only did I have a tight time constraint to get this done and back on the airplane, everything that I did not let go of retained a high level of value, especially emotional value.

I had attracted the most perfect people to help me move forward with the above tasks and I also attracted the most perfect people to be caregivers of our property in our absence.  Our bags were tremendously lighter because of that.

Selling property, can be a true test of patience.  And when that property is not selling it can be a pop quiz on one's self worth.

When pricing your property you factor in the physical attributes, location-location-location, current market information, features, upgrades, amenities, etc etc., blended along with the figure of what you value your property at.

Anyone who has ever bought or sold a home knows that you will only get for the property what someone will pay for it.  Both the seller and the buyer want to manifest their best deal.  From a Universal Law perspective you may cancelling each other out to a certain extent.

Even with the intention of selling I/we still had to figure out how do let go of something so big, (literally) the size of a house?

... 

Purging & Acquisitions: Spatial Awareness

No matter where in the world you live nature is shifting gears for the next season. Whether you are entering into Autumn, or here in Brisbane, we are nearly 3 weeks into Spring.  The transition is becoming apparent outside in the gardens and for some this is the unconscious nudge to start purging or storing items no longer suited.  While simultaneously you begin noticing the things you need to acquire.

I know a little bit about purging material possessions.  

When the decision was made to move overseas to Germany/The Netherlands in September 2010 I put the acreage on the market, boxed up the contents, let go of a large amount of stuff by either selling it or gifting it and set off for an International adventure.

Abroad, we were living in a quaint furnished cottage in Germany, and in comparison were living quite simply.  The house I was selling was approximately 316 square meters versus our quaint cottage of about 75 square meters.  I often said that we would be fine with a house half the size, then we moved into a house 25% of what we were accustomed to...Talk about downsizing!

I measure "simply" not only in actual size, but in features.  And the comfort I found in making that change was that we were living with & within what we needed and there was zero unused space.  

As a testament to making it work I was still able to host a Canadian style Thanksgiving for twelve people, feeding them all my standard fare and did so without having things like...

• a double oven,
• a double sink,
• a dishwasher,
• a formal dining room table, 
• a 2.5 m x 1.5m counter for the buffet, 
• various kitchen gadgets & accoutrements etc...

Everyone ate, drank and enjoyed the celebration!  This validated things for me in more ways than one.

For me that shift, not only to another country & culture,  but into another way of living was refreshing, relieving almost like releasing the breath you didn't know you were holding.  

Would I have attempted to make such a drastic change in houses if we'd stayed in Canada?  I doubt it.

Did I miss certain creature comforts? No question.

Am I blessed that my girls adjusted to sharing a bedroom smaller than one of theirs?  Absolutely.

This transition did not come without sacrifices and challenges, whereas before you would have to look for where a person was in the house, now you were acutely aware of everyone's breathing patterns. :) 

Not to mention 1 Bathroom versus 3 girls in the house...

Even though this was a furnished house there were practical things I chose to add.  However when I was bringing something "into" the house, it had to make absolute sense, it had to fit and it usually had to be multi-functional.  I had to be acutely conscious of my acquisitions to insure they were adding value and not just taking up prime real estate space.  And the wardrobe rule of something new coming in, meant something old was going out was strictly enforced, without discussion.

Arriving overseas with just our suitcases and leaving the bulk of our personal items and home contents all packed up in Canada proved to be a great lesson in value...to be continued.

Creativity is...

When I first saw the picture of Creativity is... it was welcome sign I needed.

First of all, in my opinion, it is a compilation of truths and each phrase was a good shot of the vaccine I needed to quell the overwhelming approach of my Monsters.  

"Monsters" is the term I've been akin to using in my coaching to identify fears, and monsters have been known to morph into what can feel like an omnipresent black cloud.  However I feel that when we are able to identify what feeds the monster and what diminishes it we can begin to take our power back.

Thanks to social media we can choose to be inundated with sage words of wisdom & powerful images of inspiration, its the moment we grasp something that we can carry forward into action that makes the substantial difference in our experience. 

For me, the following motivational words is what prompted me today to get creating some action for myself....

I've been Blessed in my life to have been the recipient of and creator of big life changes.  The best of which is that I regret nothing.  Yes N.O.T.H.I.N.G. Sure there could have been a couple do-over's in choices, but in reflection I'm grateful for everything that life has brought me & taught me about myself and others.

The tricky bit is when you are in the midst of transition, trying to find your feet and NOT doing is easier than doing.  And if I'm not doing "Sherry Things" in "Sherry Style" how is that going to serve my No Regrets record?

Today I'm choosing to keep in my present the phrase "The ability to be able to express yourself freely, in whichever way you choose without having your wings clipped".  

This is my go forward intention to create space!