How Minimalism Changed my Life in 2019

As a child and into adulthood, I was surrounded with what I thought was abundance. An abundance of material goods, which I relied on in order to both literally and figuratively cover all of my deep-rooted insecurities. Hoping that as I walked down the hallways of my affluent, predominantly white High School, I could trick my mind into thinking that my pristine dressing skills were the reason why I was treated differently, stared at by visitors for just a little too long. I would later find out that no number of designer jeans could mask my skin color, the alive and glowing shade of brown trying to push its way through the fabric I had bound it within. 

As I got older, and realized that this expensive coping mechanism wasn’t working, either for the racist world around me or my parents’ pockets, I figured I’d try something different. As I looked around my bedroom, with each possible hiding place filled with items of clothing I probably didn’t even like, I began to realize that this abundance was actually covering up for something else. A lack. 

All of these things, and yet I didn’t feel alive. My literal space crowded with materials, but my mind and heart a vast wasteland. How was I so young, and physically in so many spaces, surrounded by so many things, but still felt so lonely?

In 2016, a documentary titled Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things was released. A year later, I found my excited and eager 17 year old self watching it. This easily was one of the most formative years of my life; I’d also started taking vegetarianism, environmentalism and social justice advocacy more seriously around this same time. I simultaneously watched with shock and wonder. These people were happy with so little, how can that be? Obviously at that time I hadn’t begun to criticize capitalism or its habit of marrying ideas of success with material earnings. That would come a few years later; my peers wouldn’t have been ready for that conversation yet. They still aren’t. 

I almost instantaneously decided I no longer wanted to be a slave to whatever materialistic demon (capitalism) was holding my soul captive. I needed to work through the racial trauma that told me that having these things would increase my proximity to whiteness and therefore guarantee me a better life, one that didn’t have to live with the daily reminder of my own oppression. One that thought it could literally buy or wear my way out of racism. I forgave the wounded soul that felt like this, and the young girl inside of me who had internalized so much racism it left her broken and afraid of her own heritage. And after I gave that wounded soul a much needed hug, I began decluttering my closet, and therefore my life, in one swift motion. 

Decluterring felt like love and pain at the same time. In many ways, I was shedding the old parts of me and redefining a happiness that didn’t include many parts of me that I had grown to depend on over the years. Who was I without these designer labels? Who was I if I didn’t have hundreds of clothes options to choose from each morning, each year adding 365 more veils over the being who I really am? I was forcing myself to be vulnerable and exposing the insecurities and traumas with me that I used to be able to cover and ignore. It was absolutely one of the most challenging transitions in my life. But this transition actually just marked the beginning of a lifelong self-love journey. I needed to figure out who the real me was without all of the conditioning, triggers and falsehoods that I had adopted over the years as a result of my experiences. Minimalism was just the first step. 

More than anything else, practicing minimalism is an everyday choice. It’s a choice to choose yourself over things that don’t serve you. It’s a choice to seek abundance in love and gratitude--things that build strong relationships and confidence. Things that can’t be bought. It also leads to abundance in your bank account, which doesn’t hurt. 

The Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh said that “mindfulness enables us to live.” Think about when you shop: will the item you’re buying bring you closer to true self? Or will it bring you further from it, helping to maintain that version of you that is detached, making you feel the lifelessness that I felt as a late teen. Could what you’re actually looking for--confidence, self-love, balance--actually be found for free out in nature? 

Consider how asking yourself such questions daily and being more mindful about the decisions you make might bring you closer to peace with yourself and the world around you. 

For me, I know that I will be asking myself these questions for the rest of my life until I fully recognize and accept that happiness exists nowhere but within me. Minimalism opened a portal for me to connect deeper with myself and the environment around me. I was finally able to comfort my inner child and forgive her for neglecting herself and her own happiness for so long. But I was also able to bring her out of the shadows and expose her to all of the light and abundance in the world that I’d found. I began pouring love and kindness into the spaces that used to be filled with things. And where there was lack, was now an abundance of life and love.