Create Ease with Decluttered Spaces

(mouse clicking) (soft music) Headspace Studios. (gentle music) Hi, it's Andy here, and welcome to Radio Headspace and to Friday morning. We're at the end of the week. I don't know what you've got planned for the weekend. I'm going to be packing boxes. I'm in the process of moving home, and I don't know, some people don't like it that much. I really like it. There's something about, I don't know, maybe it's giving things away, giving things up. There's a sense of sort of clearing out and decluttering that happens when you move home. Even moves that I've had in my life that have not necessarily been through choice where I've sort of had to move, but even in those situations, I've quite enjoyed it. There was one move in particular that I was reminded of as my wife and I were going through some things the other day, deciding sort of what to give away and everything else. And I was reminded of the time when I actually sort of became a monk for the first time. And the instructions for the monastery were to give everything away. So as a monk or a nun, before you go there, you give all your belongings away. At that stage, I'd been away traveling and stuff, and so most of my stuff was at my parents' house. So I went back to my parents' house and I went through a process, probably over a number of weeks, a month, just giving everything away. It's a very strange experience, but also quite a liberating experience. You know, I started with the wardrobe, and I got my clothes out and I thought, "Okay, which friends would like these clothes?" And you know, they came round and they took them. And I was just about to say I got rid of my tape cassettes. I realized that will sound, I mean, I sound really really old saying that, but you know, that was the reality. Tape cassettes and things that I had, and, you know, I gave all those away, and I gave away all of my belongings. The only thing that I kept behind sort of at the advice of my mom were my photos. And she said, well, can you just give them to me as a present? And then, you know, you don't have to give them away. I'll stick them in the loft and they'll be there. And I'm, retrospectively, I'm really grateful that she did that. But everything else was given away. And living as monk, there weren't really any personal belongings, especially in the early years when I was a monk. It was a very sort of strict framework for living in the monastery. And you literally have no possessions other than the clothes you wear, the bowl that you eat out of, the razor that you used to shape your head. And it's kind of pretty much it. And on the surface, that may sound not...