Decluttering Your Midlife: When a Loss is a Gain

There appears to be a large majority of folks who view decluttering in terms of loss. They fear letting go because it will somehow cause them to lose a part of themselves (their memories, who they used to be, a loved one, etc.) When your midlife years have descended and the idea of decluttering makes you feel like you are losing your life, I have a re-frame for you. You aren’t losing, you’re pruning! You are cutting away the old growth that’s dead and making way for the new growth that’s coming. Pruning is good,in fact it’s necessary to encourage new growth. And your midlife should be a season of growth!

The Growing Season

The child rearing years seem far removed from your midlife, but let’s pause and remember that growing season.  I remember mine as crazy busy. Three children with needs and demands (and schedules, oh the crazy SCHEDULES!) A career I loved that required a lot of mindshare and travel. Cooking dinners for my family of 5 that could only work if I planned out the meals in advance and shopped on the weekends. And a marriage that mostly functioned as a tag-team for the kids. There was barely time to look up, let alone appreciate the growth that was happening. Thank goodness I took a lot of pictures!

The child rearing years are a whirlwind – a fun whirlwind, I grant you – but not a time where you are doing much pruning. Your family is too busy growing! The amount of time, money and space in your home consumed by sports equipment, craft supplies, birthday party gifts, holiday decorations and board games was vast. And don’t forget we were raising these kids in the pre-streaming era. So there were cabinets full of DVDs and CDs as well!

Now in your midlife, you have a moment to look up and notice just how much stuff mindlessly entered your home during those crazy busy growth years.

The Brain Connection

Let’s pause at the conclusion of child rearing and your home full of stuff. It will wait as we delve a little deeper into this concept of pruning. Want some validation for how decluttering your midlife is a gain vs. a loss? Let’s turn to the latest in brain science. I was recently exposed to the benefits of pruning through The Scientist In The Crib, a book about babies’ brains that I recently finished, as well as a podcast on the changes in the menopausal female brain. Both were fascinating and went into depth on this concept of pruning.

It turns out that through the course of our lives our brains don’t just make more and more connections. Instead, they grow many more than they need. Over time, deleting (pruning!) old connections is just as important as adding new ones. In fact, it’s necessary to be able to add new ones. Your brain is naturally decluttering all the time, you just don’t realize it! 

And there are certain biological times of life where there is more pruning happening, especially for women. The first is adolescence, when your body and mind are changing in anticipation of bearing children. The second is post-babies, when the changes are focused on raising children (and accumulating a ton of stuff!) The third is midlife, when the brain is shedding the deadwood and making room for a post-children future!

Cool, right? And logical? Now let’s go back to the house full of stuff you collected over the child rearing decades.

The Well-Pruned Midlife

If your brain has begun a major pruning effort as it prepares for the next season, can’t you follow suit and prune down the clutter in your home? I am not saying you have to get rid of everything. Only the things that aren’t relevant for your new-and-improved midlife.

Maybe a grown child’s old room gets pruned back and decorated as an AirBNB guest room, using your home to fund midlife travel! Or maybe the dumping-ground closet transforms into craft-studio storage space that inspires you to create. When all the old sports gear is cleared out of the garage you have room for the new E-Bikes that you can take out on your commitment-free weekends. The possibilities are endless and specific to you, but they won’t happen until you prune!

I have found that the pruning concept enables me to let go of any guilt I may harbor when donating things that were once important but no longer have relevance. It also gives clarity to my purpose, which helps with decision fatigue. My home now feels like a reflection of how my husband and I want to spend the new-found time we find ourselves with in this season. I’m so excited for the future that I spend less time mourning the past, and decluttering feels like gain instead of a loss.

I’m hoping this reframe helps people embrace the incredible opportunity that is our midlife years. Decluttering your midlife could be the pruning party that encourages a new season of growth you haven’t yet imagined!