DECLUTTER YOUR MESS TODAY: How Khim Moved from Mayhem to Minimalism and Found Happiness

By Khim Sim Tan, Raymond Aaron and Loral Langemeier

Declutter Your Life in Bite-Size Steps
Here's How to Get It Done!
Decluttering is overwhelming. There are no two ways about it. As someone who's lived through de-junking and de-owning for several years, Khim Sim Tan knows intimately how difficult that path can be. And how easy it is to give up and live with the mess. But, as she discovered, when you get rid of the stuff which no longer serves you, you draw to yourself the life you want to be living. For Khim Sim, that included attracting the love of her life. Declutter Your Mess Today is filled with practical tips and tricks, but it separates itself from other books on decluttering because it also documents Khim Sim's personal journey. How she dealt with her negativity, a feeling of lack and a broken marriage and how she came out from under to find her passion to help others hampered by hoarding. This book is for you if you want to lead a meaningful life; one filled with purpose, not possessions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781772773583

Book preview

Maker

INTRODUCTION

My Story as a Recovering Hoarder

My name is Khim Sim. I would like to share my story. I suffered from a hoarding disorder for a large part of my life. Today, I am working towards a minimalist lifestyle with my husband, Jim; but getting to this point hasn’t been without some huge challenges, physically, mentally, and emotionally. But there was also much joy and happiness to be found along my journey, not the least of which was gaining self-knowledge about what had shaped me and created my hoarding disorder. As I cleared piles of junk from my house, I was also clearing old dysfunctional beliefs and thought processes.

With each bag of junk that was removed, and each box of clothes that was donated, so too was I removing mental and emotional garbage that had led to depression, loneliness, and a broken marriage. And today, as I write this, I am newly and happily remarried. I have found the love of my life, and I am positive that had I not taken this road to de-cluttering, de-owning, and de-messing, I wouldn’t have been in the right space to fall in love again, and Jim and I may never have met, as we did in early 2019.

My journey from mayhem to minimalism wasn’t a straight line. There were stops and starts and a gap of five years between two determined attempts to get it right and organize my home and my life. I fully succeeded on the second attempt, which I initiated with the help of the Declutter Divas, who had helped me in 2013 to get started on this road.

My story may be similar to yours, or it may not be. But I share it so that you will know that while hoarding is a disorder, you can get on top of it. You can come out from under, no matter how mountainous the pile of stuff, or how insurmountable the task may appear. And just as importantly, you don’t have to walk this road alone. Help is available when you ask for it.

As a young girl, I was always told that I was not good enough. My mother somehow took the stand that I was useless and a failure, and I struggled to please her. I was the third in a family of five, but no matter what I tried to do, I was the last of my siblings to get any encouragement or praise from her. In this environment, I created a self-belief that regardless of what I did, I would always end up a failure. Through much of my adult life, believing in myself or having any confidence in my own abilities was a huge struggle.

And so I tended to believe that the glass was half-empty, and I dwelled in a negative mindset, until I met Maria, who became a dear friend. It was Maria who told me that I could change my mindset, and that I could make deliberate choices that advanced my happiness. She told me that I could overcome any negative programming that had been instilled in me from a young age, and that I wasn’t shackled to my