Last weekend, I recycled 10 years & maybe 40 lbs. worth of magazines. Part of me did it as an exercise for the Stratejoy Holiday Council as we wrap up the year, and part of me needed the space for our big ass Christmas tree. I'm the type of gal who will buy a magazine solely because someone I like is on the cover. Most of these print relics from the past decade featured Beyonce, Victoria Beckham, Michelle Obama, Nicki Minaj, Thandie Newton and other boss ladies. I still have the YM Magazine I'd stopped to buy just before I met my boyfriend almost 15 years ago (!) 

Magazines are so disposable, and maybe that's why it was so easy to mindlessly hold onto them for so long. This Year of Simplify has been one of taking old habits and turning them on their head. I resisted the impulse buy for most magazines this year, and for the ones I did get, I went through, ripped out what I wanted and recycled the rest without so much more than a fleeting thought about them.

Going through a decade's worth of magazines is a bit of a different story. It took a few hours and a LOT of reminiscing. I kept cool things I might put on future vision boards and those cover articles that prompted me to buy in the first place, but everything else had to go.  Like cleaning out a closet full of clothes, I knew why it was so hard to part with some of these print relics. It's time for memories had to find a place in my heart and the physical items to part from my home.

That's been one of the biggest lessons in this Year of Simplify. I've been working consistently to purge the physical, spiritual and mental things that have held on to way too much closet, soul and mind space. This mission of simplifying has been the rallying call I needed to finally say, "No, I don't need these magazines, a bursting closet and packed calendar that stresses me out anymore." If there's a corner of your house or something that's taking up way too much of your space & time, I highly recommend putting in the work to purge.  I have a lot of work to do, especially in the digital space, but my life feels so much lighter overall. 

We must break free of the things that hold us back to make room for what will bring us light!

Follow my Year of Simplify here.