The A-Team

I was working with a client recently who was befuddled at all the stuff she’d accumulated. She was about to move and was lamenting the fact that she would be transporting a bunch of stuff she didn’t really love to her new home. I stopped her mid-complaint. “You don’t have to take it all. It’s about curating your stuff so all you’re left with is the A-Team.”

This kinda blew her mind and was just the inspiration she needed to edit the hell out of what she was packing. Only pack and move the A-team. Period. 

And what’s the A-Team? It’s opening your closet and literally everything in there is something you love. You want to wear it. You’re chomping at the bit to wear it. You can close your eyes and simply pull out some clothes and viola, there’s your A-Team. 

It’s scanning the bookshelves, the kitchen gear, the living room décor and literally being lit up by your world and your objects. Everything is in working order and it’s clear what’s in the cabinet. Your stuff moves from cluttered and energetically dense burden to your ace support team. The A-Team! 

If you’ve heard of her, Marie Kondo’s approach is holding literally each object in your reality and asking “does this spark joy?” and if it does not, discard or move it on! This is essentially the A-Team approach. 

Look, we hang onto stuff for a variety of reasons. Here are some that I encounter with regularity:

• So-and-so gave it to me and I have to keep it.
• I paid a lot of money for that.
• I might use that someday.
• That’s for an “art project”.
• It was my grandmother’s.
• That’s for the garage sale I’m going to have someday.
• I’m going to list that on such-and-such website.
• That’s not mine. It’s my husband’s-child’s-mom’s-friend’s thing.

Each and every one of these reasons has an invisible energetic string attached to it. Guilt is one. Guilt that you were given something and you don’t love it. Guilt that you spent money on it and now you’re not even using it. Guilt because it feels wasteful somehow to get rid of something that’s perfectly useful. Then there’s shame. The shame that you imagine feeling when your grandmother somehow wakes from the dead and knows you got rid of her china. Shame that you can’t get it together enough to have that garage sale. Lazy inertia is another one. If you truly have a series of objects that belong to other people, snip that lazy inertia cord! Label these items and stage them for pickup or as drop offs next time you’re out. Snip the shame and guilt cords too. They do not serve you and are only real in your head. Snip those cords! Snip, snip using the sword of discernment and decisive action. 

Edit your closet, your kitchen, your dining room and beyond. Leave only the A-team and nothing more. Life’s too short for half ass, B-team living. Virgo season is the perfect time to get on it! 

May it be so.