By Natasha Josefowitz, Ph.D.
LA JOLLA, California — When you need to move, whether to smaller quarters, to a new job in a different city or wherever, you may not be able to take all the furniture and the accumulated belongings of a lifetime with you. Downsizing can be a tough challenge. How attached are you to your garden, your home, your mother’s dining room table, your grandfather’s rocking chair? How attached are you to the books you will never re-read, the suit or dress you won’t wear again, that silver tray that needs polishing? Some of us so love our possessions that just thinking about giving them away, selling them, or discarding them, gives us a heartache (for me, it’s a stomach ache). Yet there are others for whom it is not a big deal.
I see loss on a continuum. On one end is the loss of a child, a spouse, a sibling, a parent; slightly below is the loss of a dear friend; farther down the line is the loss of a pet. On the other end, still lower on that continuum, is the loss of belongings: the security of a home, the familiarity of a bedroom, all the objects we have lived with and cherished, the possessions that have defined us, that in some way are extensions of ourselves. Losing a loved one is painful. The stress hormone cortisol floods our bodies. The thought of having to give up treasured objects full of memories can also release stress hormones (although to a much lesser degree), which stops us in our tracks.
When someone dies, there is a lot of support. You have family and friends to comfort you, who call, who visit. When a loved one dies, there is nothing you can do about it except to mourn. With beloved objects, you often have a choice: keep them and stay in your home or move without them.
Another difference is that no one will come bearing food and sit with you, crying and saying: So tell me about that dining room table. It really is beautiful, but you must be brave. Time will heal. You’re on your own! With no support, how do you give away, sell, or throw out things that have been part of your life, that have given you pleasure? One strategy is to take a photo in order to keep the memory, which then makes it is easier to give up the object. Yet it is equally important to validate the feelings, the painful emotions of divesting oneself of the familiar. How attached you are to the old will define how easy or hard it will be for you to move on to the new.
The question is what do you get in return for giving something up? It is a trade: moving to a new location, to a better life, to an easier one. If you are risk-averse, it will be more difficult to move on than if you see change as an adventure to embrace, to look forward to. How did you deal with leaving the security of your parents’ home long ago? How did you feel when you left for a new job or went off to get married? The way we dealt with the fear of the unknown will give us a clue as to how we will face the next change in our lives. So if you are both attached and risk-averse, you will have a harder time moving than if you can let go of the old and can imagine the new with excitement and anticipation.
For this, you need to be able to reinvent yourself in your new surroundings. If it is to a retirement community, see yourself sitting on your balcony, reading a book without a care in the world, having meals with interesting new friends, or being driven to a concert without worrying about parking; in other words, a life with freedom to develop new interests or explore long-postponed ones.
A lot of what holds us back are unconscious emotions that influence and also control our decisions and behaviors. Life experiences, whether they bolster or undermine our choices, also impact our decision-making processes. Making the effort to become conscious of our past reactions to similar situations—how we dealt with loss and change—is one of the keys to a successful transition. This will also help to make rational decisions as opposed to being driven by old habits.
Moving out of our comfort zone is a choice. I wish you all strength and courage to overcome your individual hurdles.
© Natasha Josefowitz. This article appeared initially in the La Jolla Village News. You may comment to natasha.josefowitz@sdjewishworld.com