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Do we own stuff or does stuff own us?

Posted on November 21st, 2007 by Wilma (7 Responses)

Do we own stuff or does stuff own us?

That is a question relating to your mental posture regarding ‘Having’ and is an exercise in the arena of ‘Be-Do-Have’ of mental fitness.
For the graduates of Leverage & You this relates to the health of your relationship with your structures.

I always have been in awe of people who have a house full of beautiful stuff.

They have beautiful furniture and artifacts and I absolutely love looking at all those things they display so nicely.
But I see the flip side of owning all that as well.
It can tie people down as they become fearful of losing those precious items. You can see it in the amount of alarms and fenced in housing estates.

At the moment I am happy with my balance of possessions, but I had to learn to own stuff competently.
In my forming years as a student possessions were seen as bourgeois status symbols and being seen to own any was something to avoid at all cost.
The only things we allowed ourselves to possess were books.
Having books looked good and I built up quite an extensive library and ironically in hindsight what I was doing was of course making the books my status symbols.

When the time came that I decided that Holland was a bit too crowded for my liking and New Zealand was the place to go based on a few beautiful nature photos I had seen, I had no trouble leaving stuff behind. I didn’t have much treasures anyway.
Only leaving the books behind did hurt.
I do remember the sense of loss and grief of letting go of the wall of books that looked so good, had served me well as my disguised status symbols and had provided so many hours of pleasure.
With my incompetent relationship to stuff, I was stingy in passing my precious books on to my friends.
I eventually did grudgingly give some away, but it could have happened so much more joyfully for all parties.

Once in New Zealand I didn’t miss any of my old stuff and I happily gathered some odds and ends around me as I did in Holland.
Starting all over again wasn;t in the least upsetting.
I wasn’t longingly waiting for a container to arrive with my stuff to begin my settling in.
From day one we had what we had so we could get on with life in New Zealand.
But I also saw immigrants bringing containers full and somehow those people didn’t seem to adjust very well.
They tried to create the same as they had in Holland, couldn’t let go of the past and subsequently were the ones who went back home after a few years.

Since then I have been wondering about owning stuff.

The less I am attached to things, the less baggage I am accumulating in life, the more fluid it is and the more change I can handle to go onto bigger and better things.

In the course ‘Embodied Abundance’ Victoria Castle speaks of letting go, not holding on to things at all costs.
She is of course not only alluding to material stuff but also to attitudes and believes.
She alludes to a healthy balance of having and letting go, which in turn will generate a healthy and abundant flow.

In the book ‘Love without End’ Jesus talks about only having things in your live that you love and for which you have the energy for.

In ‘Leverage & You’ we talk about looking at the structures in your life to see where the flow comes from and where the flow of abundance gets stopped and then let go of the ones which stop the flow.

I am getting that it doesn’t mean that having things is dangerous or unhealthy once you know how to deal with ownership.

I am learning that it is okay to buy things I like and that bourgeois is an outdated notion.

It is also about knowing that having things doesn’t mean getting tied down or becoming a slave of your possessions.
It means to learn to enjoy the things when I can and letting them go when it is time to move on.

It is about competency in ownership.

That is what is happening to this little house we live in.
I love it, we have just done up the kitchen in a way that is exactly how I want it and I feel a bit sad to let this house go to move away from the city.

But now I am in balance with stuff, I feel so secure.
I don’t feel a big loss or a need to hang on or feeling resentment towards the person who is going to have my new kitchen.

I love my things but the preciousness is gone.

I am learning to own wisely and with that I learned generosity, security and to live voluptuously without lack and scarcity.

So I am now lovingly letting go of my gorgeous little house and my perfect kitchen.

And now it is your turn to check your mental posture about ‘Having’.
Does your posture regarding ownership needs adjusting?
Is there an obvious structure or possession that owns you?

7 Comments to “Do we own stuff or does stuff own us?”

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  1. joyologist says:
    November 21, 2007 at 9:13 am

    hello Wilma…..precious!….when i moved to current locale i surrrnedered almost all possessions…for a day or two i twinged with loss,.then it struck me the things were part of my “shabby” past….dont make that bad…just a word….in that space i let go and indeed am surrounded now by only those beautifult hings that i love the most which includes my speaking stuff and my art…my puppets amd a select few books…i have a lovely car that serves me well on all fronts…i surrendered once ebfore and sols everything and traveleld australia for five years ina motor home….in that experience I had a more bountiful life than perhaps before or since..i was never without income ..i lived on seafood and fresh vegetables and rarely had to pay for them….yiu have me thinking about structures now …what is it that owns me and has me holding back…or is it simply i have been in planting time and soon will reap rewards….i indulged myself recently and “spent “$11.350 on furnishings for my new home…then walekd the marina wondering what i could spend the $16,000 change on….funds from the wildly wealthy lady in qld…..i saw a sting ray….huge…as big as my bed almost wand was just in awe at the beauty and ease with which it moved…i seek that….and so i let go of struggle this morning thanks to you wilma….i will allow the day to ufold in divine order…and it tugs my heart strings that you will move for i have always known you there…but of course i cna know you anywhere…and love knows no bounds…or boundaries..i love you both for the association…john froma ll those years at NSANZ … and his delight when he first met you…that is the best ..the evry ebst we can ever crreate …love!!!!..i am yours in humour, joy and creativity…Pat

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  2. joyologist says:
    November 21, 2007 at 9:15 am

    ha…and in trying to be a speed typist the spelling is not the best….lol…..but there are no demerits!!!!

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  3. Bertie says:
    November 21, 2007 at 10:02 am

    Thanks Wilma. The merit in “letting go” of stuff, of opinions, people, etc. there is no end to the “letting go”, and for me it is a continual thing. Holding on for me is related to feeling safe. I did come here with a container full of my past (including lots of books!) and have had some fantastic clean-ups since. It sure feels good to let go. I don’t find it easy, but am inviting it into my life. A great book about this is “Clear your clutter with Feng Shui” by Karen Kingston. I always get into action after I have read this and I’m sure one day I will let this book go and pass it on to someone…..Great blog Wilma, thanks Bertie

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  4. Graham Southwell says:
    November 21, 2007 at 10:14 am

    I think that the challenge of “having” is being honest with yourself about what it is that is driving you to “own” stuff. Do you want things for the glamour – or do you wish them for the joy that they bring. I find that part of the joy of having possessions is in the sharing of them with others. I am really enjoying building up a library of books for example – if a book makes it onto my bookcase it is becaue it has touched me in some way, and keeping the book allows me to track that and the part it has played in my spiritual development. More importantly however, I love sharing these books with others.
    Thank you Wilma for sharing your thoughts with us – they are clearly your greatest possessions and you share the with such loving abundance.

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  5. fiona says:
    November 22, 2007 at 5:17 pm

    HI Wilma
    Great post, thank you! “letting go” is one of the biggest challenges in life I think… I know I’ve ‘held onto’ things (relationships, friendships, stuff, work) that are way past their usefulness date…and only until I’ve let that go can I move to another level. As for collecting ’stuff’ ; I’ve been burgled a couple of times and that’s a great lesson for not getting hung up on, or attached to ‘having stuff’ !

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  6. wilma says:
    November 24, 2007 at 1:55 pm

    Hi All
    Thanks for your great comments. I placed a reply before from this computer in Vietnam but apparently it didn’t get posted. So I will try again.
    At the moment I am in Vietnam with Vera and it is a great lesson in posessions here.
    Not much posessions and a lot of how you as a tourist adapt to another culture and things being different.
    It is fun to see the various reactions of the tourist to the unknown.
    There is nothing wrong about posessions, just how we deal with them and it is so great to see your comments. Graham, you are so true, your books are treasures for more people than just you.
    @Fiona, yes forced letting go will certainly get us!
    @ Pat, thank you :)

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  7. Andy Baird says:
    November 27, 2007 at 7:14 pm

    Fantastic post Wilma, having just travelled to Vanuatu you can certainly see how people can live very happily without any possessions! The most important thing with everything is that they serve us, not the other way around! Otherwise we become trapped, and that’s no fun at all :D . Hope to see lots of photo’s of Vietnam.

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