The minute someone tells me they can’t let go of something in their clutter because it’s sentimental or inherited, I know we’re dealing with our old friend fear.

People often get confused between sentimental and inherited things in their clutter. They’re both dealing with the same things – feelings, memories and emotions. The difference is who those feelings, memories and emotions belongs to.

Not all inherited things in our clutter are sentimental, and not all sentimental things are inherited.

• Inherited things are objects that trigger feelings, memories and emotions in us about the life of the person they belonged to.
• Sentimental things are objects that trigger strong, positive feelings, memories, and emotions about an event or experience in our own life. 

You may have a pack of photos inherited from your grandparents with pictures of people you don’t know but were part of your grandparent’s life story. You don’t have the memories, feelings and emotions about the events or experiences in those photos – your grandparents did. Only those photos in which you recognise the people and were at the event might it be sentimental to you if it connects you to the positive memories, feelings and emotions.

Perhaps like me you see an inherited photo of your grandparent (in my case my grandmother) and it triggers a strong NEGATIVE emotional response and feeling. Inherited – yes. Sentimental, definitely not.

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Reliving negative emotions

is a form of self-harm

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Then of course there’s the things we think SHOULD be sentimental or keep because we’ve inherited them, even though they don’t trigger a strong positive emotional response or feeling in us. Inherited – yes. Sentimental – no. 

Inherited things from people we DO remember and trigger a strong positive response can be extra challenging. All their things can be sentimental to us because even a coffee cup that person owned can trigger a strong emotional response that triggers other specific memories of them. It’s those other memories that make that coffee cup sentimental, not the cup itself. It’s why learning to separate the memories from the objects and capturing those memories so you can let go of the objects is part of the grieving process.

It’s a particular a challenge for those of us who struggle with clutter because we often struggle with identifying our emotions. This means we don’t always know the difference between the feelings triggered by inherited items and sentimental items. That’s why on the Clutter Clearing Journey, we give ourselves a sentimental Category when we start work on our big and bulky backlog clutter on Step 4: Mount Everest.

You can clear your clutter fast, or you can clear your clutter forever, but you can’t clear your clutter forever, fast. 

To find out how Clare can help you clear your clutter Forever, without the need for an expensive home visit, click here now: https://www.clutterclearing.net/clares-help-centre/