{"id":304,"date":"2011-07-15T08:02:56","date_gmt":"2011-07-15T12:02:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/awakeintheworld\/?p=304"},"modified":"2011-07-14T09:45:24","modified_gmt":"2011-07-14T13:45:24","slug":"simple-living-101-letting-go-of-fluff-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/2011\/07\/simple-living-101-letting-go-of-fluff-stuff.html","title":{"rendered":"Simple Living 101: Letting Go of Fluff Stuff"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Much of what we think we need is really fluff stuff. It\u2019s not vital to living a full and meaningful life. It simply weighs us down and makes the journey harder. Have you ever tried travelling with a lot of baggage? It\u2019s hard to maneuver. If you\u2019re on a train it blocks the aisles. If you take a plane it costs a lot. In both cases when you get to the destination if you can\u2019t find a porter (they\u2019re virtually non-existent these days), then it\u2019s a challenge to figure out how to move ahead with so much trailing behind and around you.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/%7E\/media\/350EA5152CE842C2B7CE77B935935BEE.ashx?w=400&amp;h=300\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Life is much the save. Simple living is a virtue. Keeping possessions to a minimum is a way to conserve natural resources and travel light on the spiritual journey. Have you heard people who have lost homes in a natural catastrophe? The wise ones often say, \u201cWe\u2019re alive and that\u2019s what counts.\u201d They face the challenges with courage and rebuild in a new and better way. They view the loss as an opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>A lot of people talk about simple living, but not many actually do it. Plagued by desires for so many possessions, we often find it hard to cut back and live with just what is necessary. Many people keep storage facilities filled with stuff that no longer fits in their homes.<\/p>\n<p>Today, consider what you can do to simplify your life. Start by clearing out closets \u2013 both inner (inside your soul) and outer (in the garage, closets and storage facility). If you have a storage facility, consider what you might sell or donate to others. The things you have around that you never use may be of great help or bring joy to others. Try giving away something without expecting a financial return or even a thank you.<\/p>\n<p>Move inside and look at what kind of personal baggage you need to let go of. I cut out coffee (an addiction I loved, but did bad things to my digestive system), gave away many of my things that I did not use and I stopped holding grudges. All of these things made me feel lighter and happier. What will you let go of today?<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0Bio:<\/strong> Debra Moffitt is author of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Awake-World-Practices-Divinely-Inspired\/dp\/0738727229\">Awake in the World: 108 Practices to Live a Divinely Inspired Life<\/a>. A visionary and teacher, she\u2019s devoted to nurturing the spiritual in everyday life. She leads workshops on spiritual practices at the Sophia Institute and other venues in the U.S. and Europe. Her mind\/body\/spirit articles, essays and stories appear in publications around the globe and were broadcast by BBC World Services Radio. She has spent over fifteen years practicing meditation, working with dreams and doing spiritual practices. Visit her online at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.awakeintheworld.com\/\">http:\/\/www.awakeintheworld.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Much of what we think we need is really fluff stuff. It\u2019s not vital to living a full and meaningful life. It simply weighs us down and makes the journey harder. Have you ever tried travelling with a lot of baggage? It\u2019s hard to maneuver. If you\u2019re on a train it blocks the aisles. If&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":409,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,4,125,17,3],"tags":[207,205,206,204],"class_list":["post-304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-inspiration","category-oneness","category-sacrifice","category-spiritual-practice","tag-donating-excess-things-to-benefit-others","tag-letting-go-of-stuff","tag-lightening-the-load-of-posessions","tag-simple-living"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Simple Living 101: Letting Go of Fluff Stuff - Awake in the World<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Simple Living 101: Letting Go of Fluff Stuff - Awake in the World\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Much of what we think we need is really fluff stuff. It\u2019s not vital to living a full and meaningful life. It simply weighs us down and makes the journey harder. Have you ever tried travelling with a lot of baggage? It\u2019s hard to maneuver. If you\u2019re on a train it blocks the aisles. If&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/2011\/07\/simple-living-101-letting-go-of-fluff-stuff.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Awake in the World\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-07-15T12:02:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-07-14T13:45:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/%7E\/media\/350EA5152CE842C2B7CE77B935935BEE.ashx?w=400&amp;h=300\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"debramoffitt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Simple Living 101: Letting Go of Fluff Stuff - Awake in the World","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Simple Living 101: Letting Go of Fluff Stuff - Awake in the World","og_description":"Much of what we think we need is really fluff stuff. It\u2019s not vital to living a full and meaningful life. It simply weighs us down and makes the journey harder. Have you ever tried travelling with a lot of baggage? It\u2019s hard to maneuver. If you\u2019re on a train it blocks the aisles. If&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/2011\/07\/simple-living-101-letting-go-of-fluff-stuff.html","og_site_name":"Awake in the World","article_published_time":"2011-07-15T12:02:56+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-07-14T13:45:24+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/%7E\/media\/350EA5152CE842C2B7CE77B935935BEE.ashx?w=400&amp;h=300"}],"author":"debramoffitt","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/2011\/07\/simple-living-101-letting-go-of-fluff-stuff.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/2011\/07\/simple-living-101-letting-go-of-fluff-stuff.html","name":"Simple Living 101: Letting Go of Fluff Stuff - Awake in the World","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/2011\/07\/simple-living-101-letting-go-of-fluff-stuff.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/2011\/07\/simple-living-101-letting-go-of-fluff-stuff.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/%7E\/media\/350EA5152CE842C2B7CE77B935935BEE.ashx?w=400&amp;h=300","datePublished":"2011-07-15T12:02:56+00:00","dateModified":"2011-07-14T13:45:24+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/#\/schema\/person\/02075581804fd841fea631836d89cb7e"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/2011\/07\/simple-living-101-letting-go-of-fluff-stuff.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/2011\/07\/simple-living-101-letting-go-of-fluff-stuff.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/2011\/07\/simple-living-101-letting-go-of-fluff-stuff.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/%7E\/media\/350EA5152CE842C2B7CE77B935935BEE.ashx?w=400&amp;h=300","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/%7E\/media\/350EA5152CE842C2B7CE77B935935BEE.ashx?w=400&amp;h=300"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/2011\/07\/simple-living-101-letting-go-of-fluff-stuff.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Simple Living 101: Letting Go of Fluff Stuff"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/","name":"Awake in the World","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Debra Moffitt","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/#\/schema\/person\/02075581804fd841fea631836d89cb7e","name":"debramoffitt","description":"Debra Moffitt is author of Awake in the World: 108 Practices to Live a Divinely Inspired Life. A visionary and teacher, she\u2019s devoted to nurturing the spiritual in everyday life. She leads workshops on spiritual practices at the Sophia Institute and other venues in the U.S. and Europe. Her mind\/body\/spirit articles, essays and stories appear in publications around the globe and were broadcast by BBC World Services Radio. She has spent over fifteen years practicing meditation, working with dreams and doing spiritual practices. Visit her online at www.debramoffitt.com.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.awakeintheworld.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/author\/debramoffitt"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/409"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":307,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions\/307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/awakeintheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}