Making Space for What Matters
My friend and colleague, Melanie Gordon, recently sent an email with the subject line, “We Don’t Need More Stuff”. In it, she reflected on the holiday season’s tug-of-war between materialism and connection. Her message was clear: what we truly need is togetherness, not more things.
Her words struck a chord amidst the relentless drumbeat of holiday sales, discounts, and “limited-time offers.” The messaging urges us to buy more, fill our homes with the latest and greatest, and make this season special—through consumption, of course.
I’ll admit, as much as I resist consumerist messaging, I still make space for it. Over the past few days, I’ve been encouraging my household to clear out what we no longer use or enjoy. On the surface, it feels responsible—a practical way to manage the excess and pass items along to those who might need them more. Yet, I can’t help but notice how this practice unintentionally supports the very consumerism I want to push against.
This cycle of purging and acquiring becomes a ritual: we clear space to soothe the guilt of accumulating more. It’s a pattern that mirrors other habits—like taking one pill to treat a symptom and another to counteract its side effects, all while avoiding the root cause. Or applying a topical cream to mask the damage caused by a deeper habit we haven’t addressed.
And it doesn’t stop with things. Come January, a new wave of messaging will emerge—life hacks for managing the clutter we didn’t deal with before the holidays. Tips for organizing and minimizing will flood our inboxes, just as the “buy now” urgency did in December. Gym memberships will promise to offset holiday indulgences. Meal kits, financial apps, and planners will beckon us to tidy up our lives and stick to resolutions. Each phase feeds into the next, perpetuating the cycle.
This is neither new nor groundbreaking, but it’s worth shining a light on so we can choose to do things differently.
Beyond Physical Clutter: Clearing Energetic Space
The conversation shouldn’t stop at physical clutter. What about the energetic clutter—the obligations we carry that aren’t truly ours? The identities we’ve adopted to meet others’ expectations? The “yeses” we’ve given to opportunities or relationships that don’t align with our deeper knowing?
The holiday season, coupled with the January rush of resolutions, so often tricks us into believing we're taking meaningful action—when in reality, we're just piling on more distractions. A new app, a new subscription, a new promise—each one adds another layer of false solutions to misdiagnosed problems, pulling us further away from our own inner clarity.
What if we turned the act of decluttering inward? As we clear our homes, we could also clear our emotional and energetic spaces. We could give back what isn’t ours to hold—the expectations, obligations, and roles we’ve assumed to keep others happy.
This kind of clearing requires self-awareness and courage to step away from the scripts we’ve been handed. But it’s also freeing. Letting go of what isn’t ours creates space for what truly is: the projects, relationships, and practices that connect with our intuition and bring genuine fulfillment.
Making Space for Less
Perhaps it’s not about clearing out to make space for more, but about clearing out to make space for less. And in that less, we may finally find what we’ve been looking for all along.