Letting Go of Sentimental Items

Are you ready to focus on decluttering your sentimental items?

My grandmother was in many ways my closest friend and when she died it was difficult for me to move forward. I grew up spending a good portion of each summer at my grandmother’s small home in the quaint New England town of Charlestown, NH. She was strong, honest, independent and a hard worker. She built her own home and had immense pride in this home and also the other things she owned including her yard, garage full of tools, vehicles and tiny red horse barn.

I believe she had valid reasons to love her home and all the items within. She had a tough life. She didn’t have much as a child, lost a parent at a very young age, lived through a difficult marriage with a gentleman that didn’t return healthy from WWII and lost her son to an accident when he was in his 20s. I believe she perceived stability in her home, items and town, thus offsetting the instability of her life.

As I sat in her home, reliving memories, I couldn’t fully process donating all of her stuff. How do you donate all this stuff she worked hard for and valued so much?

Over a week or two, we did give away a lot, but many of the sentimental items remained. This remaining stuff I packed into boxes and drove south from her home in New Hampshire, through the busy streets of New York City, and into the DC metro to their new home — a storage unit and a basement. I had a problem. I needed to figure out how to let go of sentimental items.

I believe we’ve all been here. We have sentimental items we don’t want to let go, yet they’re not being used and are taking up space. How do we let go of sentimental items?

Joshua Becker created the platform Becoming Minimalist where you can find courses and books on decluttering and more. Joshua believes “the best things in life aren’t things.” Joshua provides three specific ways to approach letting go of sentimental items

1. “Remember that less is different than none. No one is saying that you have to…