Getting Rid of Our Golden Calves

And I want to start there because I think  it should be more shocking to us than it is that we are stressed out in our own homes. That home  isn’t a safe, calm, quiet place. I have six kids. They’re still pretty young. I don’t know that it’s ever going to be a quiet place, but I want my home to be  a refuge.

I want it to be a place where I can let down my guard, where I can be at peace. And as I’ve said many times, being at peace is not the same thing as being peaceful. Being at peace means I’m okay.  I can handle my life. I can handle what’s going on right now.  And we should be able to feel that way at home. 

And yet, because so many of us have so much stuff, the amount of conversations that we have to have  with our husbands and our kids and ourselves about managing all of the stuff has made it  so that we are stressed out in our own homes and that it feels overwhelming to take care of the things  in our own homes. 

And despite being, I think, very aware of that, I don’t think any of you are not aware that that’s what’s going on. And we struggle to solve this problem. So I mentioned on the podcast before, one of the big categories for me that was the hardest to get rid of was crafting supplies. And it’s because I had this desire to see myself as a mom who does crafts with the kids.

I wanted that identity. That felt important to me. It felt good. It felt noble. Like good moms do crafts with their kids. I want to do that. And so I bought all of this craft stuff and it was overwhelming in this, this one particular standup Ikea, you know, cabinet that we had. And my husband kept saying like, why are you keeping all that stuff?

You don’t use it anyway. And I remember being mad and noticing that and thinking, oh, it’s so interesting that I’m mad. Like, he didn’t say it in a mean way. He wasn’t even telling me that I had to get rid of it, but he knows that I wrote an entire book on minimalism, so he was correctly saying that it was odd that I was having trouble with this, this category of stuff. 

And I realized it’s because I wanted to have this identity. Around being a mom that does crafts with her kids and by itself, that desire is not a bad thing. It’s not sinful. It’s not wrong. But  when we make an idol out of something. When our desire for having an identity supersedes the identity that we have in Christ, it becomes a golden calf. 

And this actually came out of a meeting with my team. I was meeting with some of my team members who are Catholic moms decluttering challenge with me for several years. And we were talking about how the really hard stuff to get rid of is the identity stuff.  And the refusal  to let go of that identity  is what makes it a golden calf situation. 

And we all have different flavors of this. It’s a way that we want to see ourselves. And we’re so attached to seeing ourselves in that way that we keep  stuff  that supports this identity, even though. It’s creating stress in our homes. Now, it’s not one category, right? It’s usually ten different versions of this that when you add it all together is creating so much stress in the home  because of the sheer volume of stuff that we have.

But, it’s worth looking at all of these identities and really forcing ourselves to look in the mirror and say, Am I creating a golden calf out of? This thing. So it might be exercise. It might be Montessori stuff. It might be books. It might be clothes. It might be a certain category of clothes.  Maybe an activity that you used to maybe used to be really into exercising and you have all these exercise clothes but now you don’t exercise that much but you want to be a person who exercises and so you never get rid of the exercise clothes and If anyone came up to me and said, Hey, I want to be a woman who exercises, I’d say, awesome.

That sounds great because it does sound great. But if you told me that you can’t put your clothes away because you have 40 pieces of exercise clothing items and you don’t wear them, but you want to be a person who exercises, but you aren’t and you keep the clothes because someday you might. But today the laundry keeps living on your bed or a chair in your room. 

Because you want to be a woman who exercises. Well, now that’s beginning to sound a little disordered, right? Where we can see that your attachment to this identity, which by itself, isn’t bad, but your, your attachment to this identity, which has superseded your ability to run your home well, and to have peace in your own home  feels out of order. 

And it’s so easy to do this because like I said, each of these identities, they sound good by themselves. I’m a big fan of Montessori toys. I think they can be great. Kids love them. But, if we have this idea that having lots of Montessori things, whether the kids use them or not, and then we don’t have places for them, or we’re not sitting down and using  them with the kids, we’re not teaching them how to use them, and then we’re frustrated, and we’re snappy with the kids, now something’s starting to be disordered about wanting to be a mom who does Montessori stuff with your kids. 

It could be your kids’ sports. Some of these identities are around the things that your kids do, but you want to be the kind of mom that has kids that do these things. 

And I will tell you, it will take great courage and humility to do this work. One of the things we were talking about, my team and I, was that there are tons of free decluttering checklists and like mini programs and things you can go find. Lots of people on the internet who will teach you how to declutter any space.

And you know that’s not what we do. What we do is we really show you why. Why are you struggling  to get rid of this thing? And then, what are you making that mean about yourself?  And somebody asked me, hey, why do you do that every year for Lent? I don’t understand what decluttering has to do with Lent.

Which is true, you can declutter, any time of the year, but to me, one of the reasons why decluttering makes so much sense to do during Lent is because the difficult part, the suffering part comes down to the category of stuff that you kind of think you should let go of, but you’re having trouble letting go of it, and it will be rooted  in some sort of disordered attachment  because the good and healthy things are easy to keep.

And the trash and broken things are easy to get rid of. That’s never the category of stuff that we’re talking about. We’re talking about the stuff that we have conflict about. And we want to ask ourselves, why, why am I struggling so much? Let’s just pick something maybe even a little sillier like Tupperware. 

Maybe you have a lot of Tupperware and every time you open the cupboard it spills out and, and your family’s frustrated and you’re frustrated and you can ask yourself, why am I having this? Thanks. So hard of a time getting rid of Tupperware. And then whatever that answer is, I want you to imagine giving that answer to the Lord.

Like we like, poof, Jesus comes down. He’s hanging out with you in the kitchen  and you say,  Lord, I have to keep all of this Tupperware. I have to. And usually we feel that kind of like, like urgency or stress or tension in our bodies about this category. So immediately he’d probably just look at you and not say anything. 

And just let you kind of hang in that moment for a bit. He’s like, really, Sterling? This Tupperware?You seem awfully stressed about this Tupperware. But it will never be about Tupperware, and you know that.  It’s gonna be about what you’re making the Tupperware mean.  And you might have to dig a couple layers  even beyond that.

So let’s say, uh, you make it mean that it’s wasteful to get rid of the Tupperware. I’d say, okay,  what are you making that mean if you are a person who is wasteful?  And so you might need to dig another layer to say, oh, well, I was raised in a house that said, you know, we should be good stewards of the environment and we shouldn’t get rid of things that are useful. 

And again, by itself, doesn’t that sound like a really lovely thing to think? We shouldn’t get rid of things that are useful. right? That doesn’t even sound like a problem. But when we choose to live in such a way that the stuff in our house causes us stress and we open the cupboard and the stuff falls out and then we feel angry and then we snap at our husbands or our kids, that is a real problem. That is not how we are supposed to live. It is not how we are supposed to treat each other. 

And  It may not just be the Tupperware, the Tupperware might be the cherry on top of a really busy schedule and feeling stretched thin and not having a lot of sleep. So I’m not saying that the stuff is the only problem, but in my opinion,  it is a very straightforward thing that we can deal with. I can help you in six weeks, significantly decreasing the amount of stuff that you have. 

And you’re going to see  that by battling some of these ideas you have about yourself, some of these identities that you’re clinging to. It’s not just that you’re going to get rid of the stuff, but you’re going to get rid of this pressure and you’re going to realize that you can be a good mom who doesn’t do crafts with her kids. 

You can be a good mom even if your kids don’t use those expensive Montessori toys that you bought. You can be a good mom  who doesn’t exercise every day and has 40 pieces of exercise clothing. And I’m just picking common things that I coach on. I do a lot of coaching on clothes and toys. And just kid crafts and art supplies and sports equipment, right? 

It doesn’t matter what the thing is. And it’s probably not even one category. It’s probably ten categories that when you add it up together means that there’s just too much stuff in your house and you’re struggling to manage it. But if you’re like most moms, you’re taking that out on your family and yourself.

You’re just walking around not feeling comfortable in your own home. Your house is a place of stress because you beat yourself up and you tell yourself you’re bad at homemaking  and then you’re snappy with the kids and then you judge yourself for that  and it’s because you have too much stuff. But I can help you slow all of that down. 

And look at the stuff in front of you  and figure out why. Why am I having trouble getting rid of these art supplies? And that year, it was a couple years ago, but that year that I realized that I had this big identity wrapped up. In this, in the crafting supplies, I was able to just let it go and pare it down. 

And I did  what I do for most of the other categories of things that I have in my house. I just decide how much space I’m willing to allocate to that. And then that’s the amount of space I give myself and I don’t let it go beyond that.  And so I just said, okay, well we’ve got these three shelves  and I’m going to keep as many art supplies as fit on those three shelves easily and well. 

And over time, they build back up. But then when they don’t fit in the space anymore, then I know it’s time to pare them down. And I’ve taught my girls how to do this too, because I have these three girls. They are now 14, 11, and 9. And they love art, oh my goodness. And we actually have three places in our house now where we keep art.

The girls have an art drawer which is where they keep the common things like colored pencils and markers and papers and watercolor paints. And then they also stuff that drawer with their art and I let them do it until the drawer can’t close. And then that signals to all of us, Oh, it’s time to clean out that art drawer because we only keep the amount of art  day to day art stuff that fits in that drawer.

Then they each have another small drawer in a different, like, bookcase in the hallway. Which is kind of for art, kind of for, like, bracelet making things, or their diamond dot things. It’s more for their personal stuff. And the same thing, I don’t even really regulate it that much. I just go, hey, this is your drawer. 

And as soon as it gets so full that you can’t close it, you have to get rid of some stuff. And then I still have those three shelves in that Ikea unit, and those are things that we use less frequently, like pearler beads and tissue paper. And so I still have some of that stuff and I don’t use it super often, but I have the shelves. I’m fine with the three shelves and I keep stuff there and I don’t let it expand beyond that. 

I was just able to realize that I can be a good mom,  even if I’m not doing art with them all the time.  And you just have a couple things like that where you’re clinging to  the stuff because the stuff is allowing you to believe something about yourself.  And believing that about yourself feels really, really important. 

And we just want to be curious about why. Why is that really important  for you to believe this about yourself?  And is it worth it  to hold onto that  and to not have your home be a place where you feel safe?  I mean, I don’t want to use the word relaxed. Again, I have six kids. I’m not sure that my house feels like a spa. To me, the word relaxed feels like a spa. 

I want to be able to walk into a room and not feel like that room and the stuff in it is the boss of me.  I want to feel like the boss of that room.  And one of the big emphases that we’re going to make this year is we’re gonna have you pick five spaces and it could be a whole room, but it could be a category of things like books or art supplies. 

And we want to teach you how to take those five spaces and make each of them 10 minutes to tidy.  So, I think everybody should do this with their living room and their kitchen where the living room in the kitchen is so well organized and everyone knows where everything goes and it fits where it’s supposed to go, right?

We don’t have more Tupperware than fits in the Tupperware cupboard so that  it only takes 10 minutes to tidy up that space.  And I’m telling you, when you get to the place that any room in your house can be tidied up in 10 minutes, you will feel so much calmer walking through your house. It won’t feel overwhelming. 

And most of us, if somebody calls and says, Hey, can I stop by? We’re tidying the kitchen, the living room, and the bathroom. And, you know, I think you could do all three of those spaces in 15 minutes. If you’ve gone through and decluttered enough that the space is manageable and you know where the things go. 

And even if you don’t do it. Right, even if you walk around and there’s kind of stuff in those three places, your brain will just feel calmer knowing, you know what, I know where everything goes.  I could tidy that up pretty quickly. I want to teach you how to do that.  But this is just not a challenge about  getting rid of stuff and organizing stuff. 

You could do that. I don’t know, in so many different ways with so many different people, I’m going to teach you  how to see  what things  you are making a golden calf out of, what identity you’re clinging to so hard that it is then superseding. Your identity in Christ, where Christ says, be anxious for nothing. 

I’ve got you. You’re okay. Be at peace. As soon as we allow our worldly attachments to control us in such a way that we lack that peace, that okayness,  we’re making a golden calf out of something. And that is why I think Lent is the perfect time to do this work, because it really is a spiritual work. I think it’s a really important time to think about our own mortality.  You know, I, I, when I hold up an item, especially one that I’m not sure if I want to keep or not, I just journey with it in my mind through the rest of my life. 

Like, where is this going to go after the kids are gone? Where is this going to go when I’m retired? Is anyone going to want this later? And it really helps me once I realize I’m probably going to get rid of something at some point anyway, I can almost have that emotional processing right then. And then I just decide, is it today?

Or is it three years from now or five years from now, but it doesn’t feel as heavy when I know at some point I will be parting with it. I will be getting rid of it. So I want you to consider joining us for the Lenten Declutter Challenge. Yes, we’re going to declutter. Yes, you’re going to put trash bags of stuff in your car that you’re going to throw away or  give to somebody else or take to a thrift store. We’re going to get stuff out of the house. But more importantly than that,  we’re going to look at the stuff. 

That you want to get rid of but you’re struggling to get rid of and we’re going to invite Jesus into that category of stuff and say, Lord, why am I having such a hard time with this? What am I making this mean? What am I making more important  than being at peace with you? Because Christ is enough.  He is the only thing that we need. 

And when we really believe that in our bones, the rest of this stuff feels so temporary. It can be here. It can not be here. Either way, I’m okay,  and that helps us to then  just detach from enough stuff. Our goal is just to, to get rid of enough stuff that the house feels manageable, that you can tidy up a room pretty quickly, that you don’t feel like your home is a prison, and that it’s bossing you around and that you’re drowning in it. 

We want you to feel really safe at home. It might be loud, there might be lots of little kids. They might spill things and leave all the Legos all over. But  we want to know, where do the Legos go when we pick them up? Where is that towel from the kitchen to clean up that water that they spilled? Where should the shoes go when they’re muddy? 

And this is the feeling I think most of us want, which is feeling in control of our homes that we can manage them and not feeling so stressed and so anxious and so guilty. And that is what we’re gonna do  this Lent. So if you want to go to catholicmomcalm. com. com slash Lenten Declutter, Lenten Declutter. You can sign up  for this Lenten challenge.

Week one is prep week, which is my favorite thing that we do at Catholic MomCon, we give you an entire week just to get your head in the game. Because, you know, we start the week of Ash Wednesday. So you’re already going to be like, it’s Ash Wednesday. How are we getting to mass? And you’re trying to solve all of that.

And that is just a week that we are thinking about doing this challenge. And then we actually start doing the doings  the next week. and I’m excited. I’ve got some plans this year that I’m really looking forward to. I’m gonna do the work, too. I mean, like, hey, Sterling, who are we in this chapter of life?

What identity do I need to be less attached to? And I’m really looking to purge some stuff out of my house. And I’ve been really wanting to paint. The downstairs. So I’m going to make a deal with myself about getting rid of enough stuff that then I go, Okay, and then your reward is going to be painting. I really love painting. 

So I’m going to kind of hold that as a reward for really just holding my feet to the fire and saying, Hey, we got to get rid of some stuff so that things are more simple and we can manage the house better. And it’s a continual process. Even though I know how to do this, I do it every year  at Lent. And I’m going to teach you how to do that too.

I’m going to teach you how to create a system for maintaining this going forward because it is a rhythm,  but we’re Catholic. We’re really good at rhythms, right? Built into our lives is the liturgical calendar and the rhythms of the year. And we’re just going to add this one in  so that we can continually manage the stuff in our homes.

Well, all right, my friends, the link to sign up  It’s in the show notes, catholicmom.com slash Lenten declutter. I am praying for you. Please pray for me. Thank you so much for listening and have a blessed day.