Letting Go of Our Stuff

This blog entry is the fourth entry on the topic of legacy. If you are new to this topic, you might want to read the last three entries.

In my last blog entry, I told you about the four-paragraph template that Rachael Freed suggests we can use when we want to write a legacy letter in which we share something we learned from an experience we’ve had.  I referred you to P. 26 of her book Your Legacy Matters where she writes about what she learned from an encounter she had with a pregnant, homeless lady on the New York City subway. I really like that letter, and I would like to write that kind of legacy letter, but I decided to begin by writing a few easier letters first.

One of the legacy letters Rachael suggested we write when was training to become a Certified Legacy Facilitator was a letter to go with our “stuff.” She gives several reasons for why such letters are important in Chapter 10 of her book.

 Older people often say they wish they could get rid of their clutter and excess stuff and how difficult it is. People often say this will be a goal of theirs when they retire. Personally, I don’t have a lot of stuff, but when I think about this topic, I picture my children having to clean out my house after I die and how painful that might be for them.

Rachael quotes Oprah about the importance of letting go: “Letting go leaves space for more to come. Cleaning house—both literally and as a metaphor for life—is a great way to hit the Refresh button. When you look at your relationship to things—and the energy they contain—ask yourself if they promote joy, beauty, and usefulness, or are they burdensome?” (148) When I read this quote, I thought of the concept of Feng Shui and how meaningful that was to me at one time.  And I especially like this quote because if we want to age well, learning to “let go” is really important. I think letting go of stuff might be good practice for letting go of what is even more important to us. To some extent, I can even see beginning to let go of our stuff as a spiritual practice.

One of the things that Rachael suggests is asking the people who will inherit our stuff to choose what they would like ahead of time. That way there won’t be any disagreements after we die, and we can write legacy letters to go with some items, which will make the inherited item even more precious.

I wrote my first legacy letter In April of 2017 to my son and daughter-in-law. I wrote in an earlier blog entry that I don’t have many possessions to pass on, but one thing that I did have was a very large cardboard picture of my parents and me on my birthday that was once an advertisement on billboards for 7‑up. The reason we were on the billboards was that the 7‑up slogan at the time had been written by my grandfather. My son asked if he could frame the picture and put it up on the wall in the play kids’ playroom. I wrote my first legacy letter to go with that billboard picture. In the letter, I wrote about some of the sadness of my childhood, and after reading it, my daughter-in-law cried. At the time I was surprised, but now that know how powerful legacy letters can be, I understand.

Finally, after writing about deciding what to do with our “physical stuff” in Chapter 10, Rachael writes about dealing with our “psychic stuff,” our family secrets. I’m guessing that for some people dealing with these secrets may be even more beneficial than dealing with their “physical stuff” before they die. I  can see how legacy letters might be the perfect vehicle.