In 2014 a book was published that had a quite an impact on people’s lives. It was written by Marie Kondo, a Japanese organization expert under the title “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up”. It was a big best seller.
This year Netflix released the companion television series “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo,” a minimalist home/life improvement show that has also had a big impact on the way people live, especially their relationship to all their “stuff” as the late comedian George Carlin referred to all the material things that literally fill our lives – clothes, books, sports gear, records, knick-knacks and the other items that get crammed into dressers, cabinets, closets, shelves, garages, attics and basically every room in the home.
If you are not familiar with the tidiness craze here’s a helpful article from CNN that explains this phenomenon
The basic principle that underlies Marie Kondo’s global trend is called KonMari. According to KonMari, you literally pile all the items in your closets, garage, etc, into a pile and pick up and ponder each item, one at a time and ask yourself this one question: “Does it spark joy?”. If it doesn’t, Kondo recommends you let it go out of your life by donating, giving away, selling off and eliminating the items that just don’t do it for you anymore.
How does KonMari relate to Borderline Personality Disorder? Well, it brought to mind something that is a key element in the BPD treatment Dialectical Behavior Therapy developed by Dr. Marsha Linehan. She calls it Radical Acceptance
Borderline Personality Disorder is typically described as a person’s inability to regulate his or her emotions. The DBT skill of Radical Acceptance promotes the idea that best way to eliminate the negative emotions in your life is to first recognize them, accept them for what they are and finally let them go. That’s not as simple as it sounds and it takes a good deal of time learning how to accomplish that. But like the “test” for letting go of personal items that do not serve you well, you are similarly identify and evaluate all the emotions you experience and let go of those that do not give you joy.
You can learn more about Radical Acceptance and letting go as well as other DBT skills on the excellent website DBTSelfHelp.com published by Lisa Dietz.
Photo courtesy Yahoo.com
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