Has your closet gotten bigger with the passing of time? I’m talking about even those who remove the winter clothes and replace them with the spring & summer duds. Taken together they amount to an ever expanding closet. Why not use a diet plan for your closet?

You may have to invite a friend over so you don’t get overwhelmed.

Here are a few tips to slim down your over abundance of clothes/shoes.Christmas wrapping, dead gifts, etc.,etc..

• Invite a bunch of girl friends over for a clothing exchange. Make yourself a deal, you set out things you can let go of and you promise only to take half that number back. 12 out, max 6 in. Newer clothes, less in closet.

• Pull everything from the closet and organize it into piles. You’ll quickly see how many duplicates you have. Take the duplicates to the consignment shop, but if they don’t take them, give them to a hospice boutique or St. Vincent de Paul.

• Create the unbreakable rule that for every new piece of clothing that comes home, one (better 2!) must leave. Not stored–Leave!

Let me know your results, what walls you run into, what worked. We can all share this and help one another to thin our closets.

I have too much paper. I think I need to keep it….ALL? No, truth is, I don’t need much of it PERIOD.  But how to do it so I don’t start screaming when I tossed the wrong thing? Here’s my guidance – a first pass if you will – because I, and possibly you, need an effective system to thin the flotsam from the jetsam.

1. Where do I keep my manuals? I go there and toss everyone for products I no longer own.

2. Set aside all the manuals for the major appliances I own. I may need them and  should pass them on when I sell. I use an expandable plastic envelope. (It’s pretty fat…ummm)

3. Go online and check to see if the manufacturer of the appliances and devices have a manual on their site. If they do, download it and put it in a folder “Manuals”. Then toss the paper copies.

4. Shred (shredding can be fun!) the following:

• Credit Card applications.

• Unwanted paper that has my address, account number or access information: birth dates, driver license numbers, luggage tags, medical information, passwords, report cards, signatures, social security numbers, used airline tickets.

• Credit checks on tenants or home helpers. Passports, visas, any old identification cards.

That’s the start. This series will be continued!

PS – when disposing of the shreds (cross cut recommended) toss part into recycle and part into trash. Yes, it’s no quite as environmentally sensitive, BUT it’s a great deal safer from prying eyes.

No, I don’t think the world is going to end. There is a large misunderstanding about what the Mayan Calendar ending today means. Those who understand the language of the calendar tell us that it is the end of an era and the opening of a new. Not so different from Vedic tradition which says this is the end of the Kali yuga and the opening of the next yuga (only 20K years long!)  But if this is the end, let it be the end of all that which does not serve us. And from the Buddhist  tradition of Metha here is a variation from Gwynne Warner in Portland. Use it to help yourself and all those less fortunate:

“Step 1: Breathe in suffering. The worst thing that ever happened to you. That sunk feeling. That thing you wish you could take back. Recapitulate it in breaths. The blackness, the sickness, the fibrous seething rage, the sticky-scratchy, inconsolable weight of it. Take in the unbearableness. You may want to escape. Press on. Go beyond the embrace. Inhale the pain in to your every cell. You won’t die. You’re going to expand. Keep breathing in the misery.

You’re on the verge of a miracle.

Step 2: Now breathe out joy. Soothing golden warmth. Luminous flying birds of clarity. Electric rays of smiling karate chops. Feel your lungs as powerful creative engines of healing and righteousness. Pulsate rapture. Let happiness emerge from the fractures. Let scar tissue become bridges that lead to a festival of relief and dancing. See joy. Feel joy. Hear joy. Sing joy. Breathe love into every cell of the situation.

Now do it for other people’s suffering. Please. For that homeless man on the street, in winter. Cold and demoralized. Inhale his agony. Exhale comfort and transformation. The jobless folks with families to feed. Cancer patients fighting to live. People gone mad. Soldiers who kill and the families they destroy. Take in the wreckage. Turn it into light and give back compassion and tenderness.

When your heart is heavy, when you want to feel alive…
Acknowledge the dark. And take the light into your own hands.”