Part 1: How I Decided To Organize My Jewelry
EEK! I can't find my earrings!
Actually I can’t find much of anything in this jumble!
Have you ever had a moment like this? You’re in a hurry, getting dressed, and your last step is to grab your jewelry. The chances of finding a small matched pair of anything seems pretty dim.
Some version of this scene has probably happened to most of us who have been collecting jewelry for more than a week.
It’s a frustrating experience, and in that moment, your entire collection may seem overwhelming.
Something certainly snapped in me when I could not find the mate of my favorite yoga studs. I decided it was time to organize my jewelry box.
Actually I can’t find much of anything in this jumble!
Have you ever had a moment like this? You’re in a hurry, getting dressed, and your last step is to grab your jewelry. The chances of finding a small matched pair of anything seems pretty dim.
Some version of this scene has probably happened to most of us who have been collecting jewelry for more than a week.
It’s a frustrating experience, and in that moment, your entire collection may seem overwhelming.
Something certainly snapped in me when I could not find the mate of my favorite yoga studs. I decided it was time to organize my jewelry box.
I had been thinking about this for a while. For years it has been all “incoming” and no “outgoing”; things were getting crowded. So I had a goal in mind. My aim was to re-connect with the pleasure that my jewelry brings to me. After all, it’s there to make me feel good. And that can’t fully happen when every encounter with my jewelry involves so much darn hunting.
It was time for a change.
Since it would be really gratifying to readily find and wear both parts of a pair of earrings at the same time, I decided to start with the Earrings category first.
The earrings that started it all….
Yes, I can hear my Marie Kondo of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up fans saying….why not organize the whole collection? In the same process you can reduce the excess so that you can truly enjoy what you keep. That is Marie’s way and there is a lot to be said for it, of course. It’s comprehensive. It’s dramatic. When you’re finished, you are Really Finished. It is entertaining on reality TV.
We are definitely going there. In stages.
In real life I find it can be practical to break up large or daunting projects into smaller sections. Especially when a project involves an emotional component…like coming face to face with jewelry pieces collected over many years that evoke many memories of myself and my life at various stages. The danger with such loaded projects is that one can become overwhelmed and then may over-react, either abandoning the whole project or going too far and clearing everything out wholesale. Neither of these is a good idea.
My earrings project will of course likely present the entire range of issues that make jewelry such a notoriously daunting category to address. For example, I can expect to encounter:
• broken or damaged pieces
• pieces I collected many years ago that no longer speak to me and that I no longer wear, but they are in good condition and “might” appeal to me in the future,
- pieces that were gifted to me,
- pieces that are connected to precious memories,
- single pieces whose mate still has not turned up by the end of sorting
- pieces that require more upkeep (polishing) than is practical for me
There will be drama enough, I suspect.
For now, I’m focusing on what a sweet gift this will be to my future self. And what a joy it will be to open my jewelry box then.
What do you think? Are you ready to consider trying this project? Read on to learn the steps I took next.
Part 2: Jewelry Box Makeover: 100 pairs of Earrings??
I pour a strong cup of coffee and proceed to take ALL of the jewelry out of their drawers and put it on a tray. Now I have a daunting pile of jewelry of all kinds.
I calm myself by remembering I have only one decision to make at this moment: Are these Earrings: Yes or No? That’s fortunate, because that is all I feel prepared for right now. Breathe. Nothing momentous must be decided at this moment.
As I pick pieces out of the pile and apply the Single Question, I place them on a tray and the pairs begin to find one another, a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. It feels like we are on the right track, somehow.
It takes a while, but when that initial sorting process is complete, many single earrings have been reunited with their mates for the first time in ages. Yay! In the next stage, I am going to place each pair in a small jewelers bag so they can stay together from now on. Here are the bags I used (Amazon link, affiliation).
A few earrings are still singletons. I put those in a bag together and set them aside for now. (Who knows…?)
And suddenly, the easy part is over. I am face-to-face with the hard question, Keep: Yes or No?
As I survey my trays of matched earrings, I sinkingly realize that only about 10% are in current use. Many of the pieces are connected to prior eras in my life. No wonder my box seems crowded I see now that merely matching up the earrings and then arranging better storage is unlikely to bring me the full relief I want. I don’t want to go through multiple containers to find my earrings.
Gradually it becomes clear that to fully reconnect with the pleasure of my jewelry collection, I will need to reconsider each piece and keep some but not all.
But how to decide about that when all these pieces are longtime friends who have been living in this jewelry box for so many years they feel like family members?
Part 3: Jewelry Organization Expert Help Needed
Deeper than "Decluttering"
I am no novice around sorting and organizing projects. Many such projects involve tolerating tedium as you do them. Others are about tolerating powerful emotions like attachment and loss, acknowledging change and the passage of time, and facing the reality of mortality (oh fine). For me, jewelry fits squarely in the category with all the emotions.
With so much meaning attached, it is no wonder we struggle with making decisions about our jewelry that *potentially* involve our parting with something. It never seems like the right time to engage with such a touchy subject. And yet, as Margareta Magnusson reminds us in The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, ultimately we can’t take it with us, and if we don’t make decisions about our precious things, they are likely to be disposed of summarily (auction or landfill).
While my project is not undertaken as a ‘death cleaning’, her perspective reminds me that despite my sense of responsibility for my things, my ability to keep them does have a limit. Even if I store everything beautifully, eventually dispersal will happen. Hmmm.
Although I found myself with a collection that included over 100 pairs of earrings, I am certainly not saying 100 pairs is too many. Of course not! There is no rigid limit. It is a highly personal subject that depends on your own vision of what you want to accomplish with your collection. I do not collect particular jewelry artists, but many people do. Others have extensive collections of vintage items, etc. The size and shape of your collection is completely in your dominion.
For me, these 100 pairs are more than I want to engage with, take care of and store. They also represents a lot of emotions and memories to work through. How can I move through this process carefully, with dignity and respect for myself as well as for the pieces I have gathered and kept for all this time?
It was at this point I realized that the “sparks joy” concept was not going to be sufficient for me here. I needed more powerful help, but from whom? Who would truly, deeply get it? Additionally, I was not just trying to get through this project for myself. So many of you wrote in after I shared my project that you too have this task ahead of you. Who would have the wisdom to really understand our deep attachment to our jewelry and also help us navigate a thoughtful path forward.
On my daily walks I pondered it.
What kind of expert could help? Who could help me find the right questions, guide me to clarity? A stylist? But this is not about “accessories!” A professional curator? An organizer? A therapist (for all the feelings)? It is such a multi-faceted situation and no single expert seemed likely to have all the qualities I wanted in a guide. Breathe and keep walking.
Mid-walk one day it came to me. For an undertaking this profound, I must reach beyond the obvious crowd of experts. I could only find the kind of wisdom I need from my Council of Stones.
Part 4: Consulting the Wisdom of the Council of Stones
What is the Council of Stones?
Official portrait of Council of Stones
Regular readers have already met my Council of Stones. Allow me to introduce them once again.
Distinctive stones have a special appeal to me and I seek them out when making jewelry. I find wisdom and magic in these beautiful stones that I use in making jewelry in my studio. I love to include such stones in talismans and special pendants.
Who better to call upon in these circumstances?
And so I summoned my Council of Stones and poured out all my concerns, all the dilemmas and feelings and distress that emerged for me when I posed the question “Keep: Yes or No?”
I had confidence that the Council would help somehow, but what would that even look like? I had no idea what their perspective might be on these human concerns or if they even had one.
Then they began to speak.
The Journey of Jewelry and the Journey of You
by The Council of Stones
“We greet you. We have been waiting for you.
“Remember. The elements of your jewels are precious stones and metals. They are created by the Earth over millions of years. Their journey is not the same as your own. They existed long before you and their journey is meant to continue indefinitely, long long after your own journey is complete.
“During the time that you and your jewelry are together, you are its guardian and its steward.
“During your time together, you may enjoy its gifts and allow it to enhance your life.
“Always remember that at some point during your time together, you must take up your role as steward of these nearly immortal objects of beauty.
“As steward, you have the duty to protect your jewelry’s long journey by facilitating the move to its next stage. You may influence the nature of its future path. You may select when that transition occurs.
“In this way your jewels become imbued with your own values and take them along as they travel together into the future. Thus do you enhance your jewelry’s potential to bring more good into the world.
“This is the gift your jewels give to you as you release them to their future, the gift of opportunity to contribute to and thus share in their future, their immortality.”
Then they were silent.
Stewardship
Pondering the Council’s words, I see now why I had so much hesitation about “organizing” my jewelry. All along, though I could not yet see it, there was a bigger picture to be discovered. And there was an opportunity to shift from a mindset concerned most with personal loss to a mindset opened to the opportunity for contribution to greater good.
The contribution mindset would satisfy our stewardship role and keep our jewelry’s flow of goodness going, not languishing in boxes or, yikes, spending its eternity in a landfill.
But still, that hard question: how to decide which pieces to release, and when? I asked the Council for more specific help.
They responded with this Meditation.
Jewelry Organization Trays
Keep it simple at this sorting stage with 3 empty boxes which you can mark Keep, Release and Uncertain, and a supply of small bags if desired. Bring your tray of All Earrings
Optional: Soothing music? A candle?
Tool: Meditation for Seeking Clarity About Your Jewelry
Meditation By The Council of Stones
“Taking a deep breath, we begin.
“From your pile, take a pair of earrings into your hands. Notice its beauty and form. Disregard any tarnish or imperfection; focus on its loveliness. Slowly bring forward your memories of this piece, how your paths first joined, what called you together. Your piece now invites you to go back in time into your own life history. Breathe.
“You can remember the many days you selected these earrings and put them on your body before you went out into the world. You can remember the feelings they gave you as you ventured out together. Remember the many places you went. Your earrings were your companion through it all.
“Choose compassion for yourself as you dwell with your memories. Allow the memories to unfold without judgment, regret or shame, but rather with a feeling of abundance.
“Remember that in each moment of selecting a piece of jewelry, you were reaching for beauty. In itself, this is a life-affirming act. You were finding in yourself a positive intention for the day or the event, and choosing a jewel to represent that intention. When you took that jewel and that positive intention into the world that day, you presented a gift to the world.
“Linger with these memories as long as you wish. These memories are another precious gift from your earrings.
“If time has passed since you last wore them, will you once again select these earrings to symbolize your positive intentions and take them with you into the world? Or is your world, and you, different enough now that these earrings may no longer be the best symbol? Can the memories of your times together be sufficient for you?
“Can you now consider allowing these earrings to find their next place in the world, a place where their destiny as objects of beauty can continue to be fulfilled?
“Whatever the answer, take a moment to thank them now. They have served you well. Take a moment to take a photo of them in your hand.
“If the answer you heard back is ‘Yes, I am ready to Release them’, thank them once more. Place them in your Release box.
“If the answer you hear back is ‘Not’, again, thank them. Place them in your Keep box.
“If the answer was not clear, thank them also. Place them in your Uncertain box.
“Repeat this process with each pair of earrings until all have found their way into the Keep, Release or Uncertain boxes.”
At the end of each session, I thank the Council and excuse them until the next session.
Meditation Debrief
This is intense work. I am attending to the heart of the matter. These questions feel like the right ones for me with my general collection and my general objectives. Someone with another sort of collection and other objectives may try out other questions. It is a personal exploration.
I could work for about an hour at a time. I needed multiple sessions. But I did eventually hold every one of those 100 pairs in my hands, remember our times together, and eventually make a decision about its next stage.
Already I feel lighter and more centered about my collection.
My Keep pieces are now back in their drawer. Milestone! I decided to keep most earrings in their baggies to ensure togetherness. (I will move sterling silver pieces into tarnish resist baggies.)
I decided to use two Release boxes, one for Release and one for Place since I often thought of a potential recipient while sorting. (I used a sticky note to jot down the name.)
And I am actually looking forward to finding worthy new homes for the items now resting in my Release box. My mindset has been transformed from one preoccupied with ‘loss aversion’ to one expanded by a sense of promise and purpose. I am so glad I did not miss the amazing stewardship aspect of owning jewelry, which imparts a depth and dignity I did not see before and available to us all.
Sorted 'Keeps' Back in the Box
Part 5: Next Steps
Charities, Donations, Pawn Shops?? (Plus recommendations.)
With the “Keepers” back in the jewelry box, congratulations are in order! What sweet relief!
Now to work on our Release box. We will put on our Steward hat and research the highest and best path forward for the pieces in our Release box.
Donating to charity is the swiftest way to re-home your Released jewelry, and it can bring a tax deduction as well. Learn about two of my favorite charities for jewelry donation at 3 Things I Learned From My Jewelry Collection Refresh.
Your jewelry will have an amazing new life and can actually change lives when you donate to specific charities that will put it right to work helping those in need.
