Welcome, dear reader, to another month of taking metta off the meditation cushion and out into everyday life.
December had me holding space for a friend who was decluttering her apartment in Metta Bagged Up. January found me back again, making inner and outer fresh space to welcome 2026.
For any readers who have gone down the decluttering rabbithole, you’ll know there are 101 techniques and philosophies that one can follow to create a blank slate. Some are faster than others, some are slower. Some are gentler than others, some are stricter. Not unlike meditation techniques and philosophies.
The friend I helped declutter last month was inspired by the Space Maker Method, and I watched some of April Tandy’s weekly YouTube episodes to understand why. What struck me, compared with many similar approaches I’d explored, was April’s genuine kindness and compassion in guiding her clients through a process that runs deeper than simply rearranging furniture and donating unwanted items to charity. The title of her book, The Mindful Art of Making Space: How to Declutter When You’re Overwhelmed (Flume Canyon Publishing 2024) and the tagline of her channel, “Free Decluttering & Organizing Help for People Who Need a Fresh Start” say as much.
Space Maker Method’s most recent episode revisited a friend whose wardrobe April had helped pare down with a first pass last year. In decluttering terms, a first pass is the initial letting go of excess belongings. A second pass is sifting through what’s left a while later to make sure it really is what someone wants to keep, and then reorganizing in a way that makes more functional sense.
As they sat on the floor with their legs outstretched to celebrate halving the wardrobe once more on the second pass, April commented on the new echo in the room compared with last year’s soundproofing thanks to rails and rails of clothing. She grinned, acknowledging how much fresh space they had also made in her friend’s mind now that she had less clothes to maintain and consider.
The parallel to my own experiences in 2025 made me grin in turn—outgrowing both a spiritual community and two bullying workplaces as I returned to my friend’s apartment to complete the first pass we’d begun in December and to noodle my own next steps. For me, it felt like an inner gear change: from a year of holding space for vulnerable volunteers and coworkers to making fresh space for something new.
As we sifted through outgrown and worn-out clothing and kitchenware, and then tackled the dreaded storage garage, my friend held space for me in terms of a place to stay and digest walking away from toxicity of all sorts. I made space for her broken foot and recent bereavement. Belongings helped my friend to feel safe, making space helped me to feel safe.
The first morning we rolled the garage door up, I could see that we had our work cut out for us: it was quite literally where my friend had put anything she didn’t want to think about or look at for the past eight years! Our first instinct was to throw away any obvious garbage and recycle empty cardboard boxes. The piles soon grew too big for domestic disposal, so we booked a visit to the local dump. That visit turned into three more, along with umpteen charity shop and recycling drop-offs, and video calls to relatives who might like new clothes or reminders of loved ones who had passed. The most touching moment was holding up a pair of pajamas that had belonged to the caller’s mother and hearing them catch their breath before saying they would have them just to give them a little sniff. I packed up all her choices with extra metta, knowing exactly what she meant.
Having a practical focus—essentially being my friend’s hands and feet—also helped me do an inner first pass of all I had experienced. Some distance and some breathing space helped me take some of my self-doubt to the dump: while part of me was still kicking myself for putting myself in harm’s way a second time by requesting a transfer at work, only to encounter more bullying at the second site, a wiser part could now step in to comfort me. I had given all concerned a second chance, and it was now clearly the company’s issue rather than mine. Walking away sooner, rather than later, would have left me with more self-doubt in the long run. And speaking with a law firm and discovering the legal terms and repercussions for all I had experienced helped too. I was proud of myself for exploring that rabbit hole, but decided I had nothing to gain from pursuing it further. No amount of money would give me those eight months of my life back, and—considering only the bullies were left now—the business was on its way to self-imploding with or without my “help.”
It warmed my heart to watch my friend’s courage and clarity grow with each small decision and small win. And I sometimes had to remind her to take a break or have a snack or drink before tackling more memories. And she did the same for me when she sensed that I was spiraling in my own inner echo chamber trying to make sense of all I’d experienced in 2025.
Probably the biggest breakthrough in our space-making efforts came when I noticed that having too many options on display was confusing to someone struggling with brain fog. I shared a take-away from psychologist Barry Schwartz’s book The Paradox of Choice (HarperCollins 2004): that having too many options was its own lack of freedom, that having more than three choices often froze most people’s brains with analysis paralysis. After that, we created shelves or areas in every room for everyday use with only the basics in sight—no decision-making required—and tucked any spares or fancier options out of sight for restocking or special occasions. Poetically, my friend also insisted on having a pair of scissors in every room as it was the thing she lost most time looking for.
On the days she went to work, I took myself on walks and out for coffees between research and applications for possible next steps. Some days, it was exciting to imagine what else to try in life. Other days, I mourned all I had already tried—the good, the bad, and the ugly. As I sat with all that was ready to surface and release, new levels of self-compassion expanded alongside new levels of understanding that I probably would never understand much of what I’d experienced in 2025. Not unlike my friend’s brain fog, contemplating too many past and future options made my own brain freeze, and witnessing the clutter around me ebb day by day made space for fresh hope to flow.
And when a plumber came to inspect the radiator leak I described last month, they flushed the internal heating system for a morning with giant magnets to purify the water of rust. Once the water ran clear, they held up the magnets covered in an inch-thick layer of rust particles. I smiled to myself at just how thorough the Dharma was being with this refresh.
No big epiphanies or movie-script happy endings followed, just one sit and one small inner and outer decluttering turtle-step toward making space for more of what we loved at a time. A space that was now drier and warmer too.
Hilariously, my friend received a speeding ticket during one of our trips to the dump, and after that she programmed her cruise control for 20 miles per hour, much to the annoyance of fellow drivers. We laughed at us both finding ourselves driving in life’s slow lane in every sense, grateful for good company and good ice cream along the way.
And so, dear reader, whatever may currently need decluttering or detoxing from your own life, please slow down to hold and make space for more metta driving through 20 miles per hour school zones.
Or, to metta-morphose Imagine Dragon’s paradoxical mash up of the Taylor Swift track “Blank Space” about having too any choices and Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me” about having just one:
So it’s gonna be forever
Or it’s gonna go down in flames
You can tell me, when it’s over
If the high was worth the painGot a long list of ex-lovers
They’ll tell you I’m insane
But I’ve got a blank space metta
When the night has come
And the land is dark
And the moon is the only light we see
No, I won’t be afraid, no, I won’t be afraid
Just as long as metta stands, stands by me
See more
Space Maker Method
Space Maker Method (YouTube)
The Paradox of Choice – Barry Schwartz (YouTube)
Related features from BDG
Going Beyond the Script: Nonviolent Communication in the Kitchen
Book Review: How to Let Things Go
The Koan of Letting Go and Staying Engaged
Of Rainbows and Sea Turtles: Letting Memories Guide and Heal Us
