From Tightrope to Balance Beam: Minimalism and My Mental Health Journey

Yesterday before I dropped off my sons at school, my oldest asked me to hold his hand as he walked along the playground border that separated the sidewalk from the playground’s wood chips. I steadied him as he carefully walked across.

“I want to go to the end,” he said. I looked ahead of us. It seemed like a long way to balance, but he made it with my support. Then he jumped off and ran to the classroom door.

My mental health journey since discovering minimalism (and becoming a mother) has felt a lot like this. Back in 2014, when I started removing the excess from my life, I felt like I could better focus on what was important to me. In this case, going through fertility treatments to become a mom. Minimalism cleared the physical, mental, and emotional clutter and made a path for me to move forward. Because of it, I was able to trust that I was going to become the mother that I knew in my heart I was destined to be.

After having our second child in 2018, I realized for the first time that I was walking a tightrope. If I looked down, my eyes clouded by tears, I saw it all. The exhaustion, frustration, and anxiety that came with being a mom of two under two. I was steadied by my faith, family and friends, and medication. Even minimalism helped me from falling, because I wasn’t burdened by the extra weight of my clutter.

So I continued on my journey, and as the months went on (and I started to sleep more) the tightrope turned into a balance beam. For a while, it seemed like I could even walk it by myself. But then in 2019, I started again to lose my balance again. I struggled with anger toward my children and my inability to control their behavior. I looked down into the abyss below and saw the anger I felt bubbling up like hot lava about to burn me. This time, it was Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy that helped steady me and move me along.

What about minimalism? It continued to be a tool that allowed me to have the space to pursue the things that were most important in my recovery: therapy, consistent exercise, nutrition, meditation, journaling, and prayer. But minimalism wasn’t the answer. None of these things, on their own, were the answer.

Here’s the truth about minimalism: it isn’t a silver bullet. It isn’t going to solve your problems.

You can declutter your entire home and only be surrounded by the things you use and love.

You can only say yes to the things that are most important to you, and spend your time, energy, and focus on those things.

You can focus on experiences over things, relationships over stuff.

You can recognize your limiting beliefs and negative thoughts and work to change them.

You can do all of these things and never get to the “end” of minimalism. There is no end. As Erin Loechner says in her book Chasing Slow, “We can chase slow. (It’s still a chase.)” The same is true for minimalism. When you remove the stuff, distractions, comparison, need for status and approval, your problems are still waiting there for you. You can’t outrun them.

I find myself again in a season, reminded that I can’t outrun my problems. Some days my balance beam starts to feel like a tightrope again. But instead of frantically going on another decluttering spree, deep cleaning my house, or tightening up my routines, I recognize that while minimalism is a tool to support my mental well-being, it’s not my savior. As The Minimalists say, it is the “thing that gets us past the things so we can make room for life’s important things—which aren’t things at all.” It is the outstretched hand taking us along the journey, but it is not the destination.

So like my son, I reach out my hand, knowing that I will have help balancing as long as I need it. I fix my gaze ahead and move along, step by step. And someday, when the tightrope becomes a balance beam again and possibly something even wider, I can let go again.

Mindset shifts have been incredibly helpful in my minimalism journey, and have been another tool in my toolbox to assist in my overall mental health and well-being. You can find my free workbook of five mindset shifts to help you let go of clutter here.