Designed Intention
I’ve achieved a number of academic qualifications over the course of my life (in architecture, dance, Japanese), arguably without utilising any of them fully. They may finally be fulfilling their value now however – in the sense of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.
Allow me to explain.
One of the key benefits I’m aware of, as I progress through my certification as a KonMari Method® Consultant, is my understanding that a good life doesn’t just happen by chance. Rather it happens by design. That is, a good life requires a conscious consideration of structure and relationship – across all aspects of our lives, whether tangible or intangible.
This is an issue of much interest as I progress through my certification as a ‘Spark Joy®’ home organiser, leading me (and my clients) to ask: what is joy exactly in this context? And how is it built? Moreover, why do we need to physically touch or hold an item in the KonMari Method® to accurately discern our joy?
Touch and True Joy
Architecture, if you like, can be defined as a structure you inhabit. A designed structure. Within this definition, you could say we occupy many architectures in our lives, the primary one of course being one’s own body – well, we inhabit it without choice! But how we inhabit it – now that’s another question…
Then there is clothing. In my hierarchy of architectural proximity, clothing is a second skin, or architecturally speaking, a second ‘architecture.’ As clothing houses the body after our skin, it’s the closest relationship we have with the external world. This is why, within the KonMari Method®, we start with the category of clothing (before the other categories of books, papers, miscellaneous objects, etc). Within the clothing category there are further subcategories meaning that we begin with the article of clothing closest to the heart. This is because working close to the physical heart allows us to more easily attune ourselves to our personal experience of joy.
In this way the KonMari Method uses somatic experience (the experience of one’s living body) to help us connect to our authentic appraisal of joy. In sum, it is a process that draws on the relationship between our sense of touch and our apprehension of truth.
Photo courtesy of KonMari Media, Inc.
The Truth of Heartfelt Experience
You may have noticed that everything you do in life is accompanied by a felt condition. By feeling, I refer to both a visceral and emotional condition. One’s body is not incidental – rather it is (scientifically speaking) energetically integral – and quantum in its intelligence. As it turns out, the body knows, even when the mind does not! To know joy in this way then, is to know one’s designed self in its authentic condition – it can be something of a revelation… Indeed it can (and does) change lives.
This joy is the power behind the KonMari Method,® and is available to you. Book a call with me to learn how, as a Certified KonMari Consultant, I can help you have more authentic joy in your life!