I have a theory. I think that there are a few external indicators to your internal state of mind, (and therefore your body) they are your handbag (or work or gym bag for men) and your refrigerator!

Think about  it for a moment… It’s kinda true right?

If you are one of the millions of women who carry there lives (and half of her kid’s and husband’s too) on her shoulder you know what I mean. As the day goes along you toss random odds and ends in, and then one day, when you’re stuck on the subway between stations and the batteries of all your gadgets are drained,  you begin to amuse yourself by rifling through your bag. Well it starts as amusement and quickly sublimates to horror. Often I find that my bag is  it’s like a crime scene in there, you can tell exactly where I have been, and what I have been doing (and eating – due to empty Cliff bar wrappers and restaurant receipts). I have found a lone sock (the mate of which I washed earlier and thought I lost the other) rings, loose tampons rolling around and panties (no I am not a hooker, but as a dance teacher I do change my closes several times a day in various places).  When the inside of  my purse looks like a cyclone hit, often I look and feel like a cyclone HIT ME! The same is true of my Fridge when I have it clean and organized I am more centered, cooking more for myself, and therefore eating better. When I open that door and see a wasteland of containers from either take out or left overs left WAY OVER, I know that something in my life is out of balance. So these two places are like microcosms of the way that are lives are functioning at the time. Perhaps we just are like that regularly, or we are having a hectic week, or month but it by looking into our handbags, we can gauge what might me askew in our lives.

I found this cool article about how to organize your handbag, and though it is just an external effort, it can really be a start to shifting something internally. I know that whenever I clean my apartment, handbag or refridgerator (it’s best when I do all three at the same time) I always feel calmer, like I have a grasp on things, it may be temporal but sometimes a little bit is all I need to feel like I can do my life… Check it out!

 

and what’s inside…

hosted by stylist.com

How To Be Organized: What The Average Purse Weighs And How To Organize It

“Do you have a pen?” my friend asked.

“Yeah sure, just go into my purse,” I said.

But what my friend found wasn’t a pen, but approximately 5 handfuls of receipts, a small notebook and 4 lipsticks/lip glosses. There was at pen, at some point, in this fashionable garbage pail that I call a purse. And even worse, I had actually downsized from a larger satchel to the smallest purse I could get without it being a clutch, because I had noticed that the former just attracted stuff like a junkyard magnet.

Let’s be honest: We put lots and lots of stuff in our purses, without even thinking about it. My most vivid memory of my friend Adrienne isn’t the time we tried to find the best burger in Manhattan, but the time she upended her tote en route to a lovely restaurant in an effort to find her wallet. There, on a perfectly smooth marble step, she went through 3 (hardcover) books, a makeup bag, two journals, packs of gum and a water bottle. I had to ask her how it all happened.

“I’m not really sure…” she said.

And that’s another thing. A messy purse isn’t a time capsule of the day you decided to throw in the contents of your junk drawer. It’s a work in progress. A teeny tiny taxi receipt, tossed into a purse, will soon become…well, five handfuls.

Though I know I wasn’t alone in this, I had to see just how much I was carrying on an ordinary day. Out came the scale. Then, I made all the Stylelist, Huffington Post Style and Stylelist Home editors around me weigh their bags. And then I made them show me everything that was in there.

How did everyone fare? See the slideshow below.

read the rest here

here is one common problem, and a solution!

So how can we lighten the load? “I make a point of tossing those anything made of paper every morning before I leave my house, keeping important receipts and notes in my wallet or in my notebook,” says Stylelist intern Jada Wong, who had the most well-organized bag in the bunch.

The receipt issue seems to be a big one. Stylelist Home cleaning experts Stacey Platt and Sarah Nina Hayon collectively had this to say:

Rather than haphazardly tossing things into your handbag, take an extra minute to put cash or change in your wallet, receipts in their designated place, or a colleague’s business card in your planner or notebook. Aim to have nothing floating at the bottom of your bag except larger items like your wallet, eyeglass case, or planner.

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