Marie Kondo’s Cleaning Method May Help Reduce Stress
Sharon Salzberg, a meditation teacher and co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society, is the author of "Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation" and "Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness."
UPDATED JULY 18, 2016, 3:22 AM
Any action, from writing an email to drinking tea, can be meditative so long as it is done with awareness and intention.
And the acts of sweeping, doing laundry or folding clothes can certainly fit that bill. The more contemplative the action — the more present and connected to the experience we are — the more we smell the scent of the soap, or feel the heat of the dried clothing as we fold. With cleaning, we can also see the results of our intentions: a tidier home, laundered clothing. That can all be immensely powerful.
When we reach for stress reduction, eliminating external chaos is an excellent place to start, and Kondo’s books offer a concrete and actionable takeaway.
I do think that clutter affects our mindsets and can exacerbate stress. When we reach for stress reduction, eliminating external chaos is an excellent place to start, which is why Kondo’s books have reassured so many readers — they offer a concrete and actionable takeaway. That said, there's value in balance. One of my students struggles with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and she has told me many times that meditation helps her let go of the compulsion to clean, organize and tidy.
In Tibetan Buddhism, the word “adornment" refers not to jewelry but to anything that can bring more joy into life, but is not essential. Knowing the difference — between what might “adorn” your life to bring more joy, and what you actually need to make you feel complete — is pretty powerful.
Kondo's exercise of assessing possessions based on whether or not they “spark joy" shares some similarities to the act of questioning what is essential, but it is a focus on identifying the "adornment" in the clutter. Her technique may not be probing what is essential in life but it's a cleaning technique, after all.
We live in a world of distractions, with information and visual material thrown at us wherever we look. It seems natural that there’s a growing cultural emphasis on looking inward, and trying to find more simplicity. In that sense, perhaps we have become obsessed with the notion of trying to be more centered and connected to ourselves in our daily environments — and not just plugged into our inboxes or Twitter feeds.
