Anxiety and Moving House

Does moving home have to be stressful? Noooooo!

antique crumpled crumpled paper dirty
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Alongside illness and losing one’s job, apparently moving house is up there in the top most anxiety-inducing activities, not forgetting of course divorce, death and going to prison. ‘Activities!’ What a dreadful description … Honestly that makes them sound like a day trip to the beach with a dripping ice cream, striped deck chair and a fishing net. Anyway, apart from the ‘going to prison’ thing which I am hoping to avoid, I’ve gone through all of the above and survived.

I have discovered, that in actual fact moving is not the equivalent of being dropped in the fiery pit of hell. Indeed, I’d go so far as to say that it is possible to actually rather enjoy it. It’s rare to be moving house to somewhere that you don’t want to move to … So on the whole, one is moving to a better place, whether upsizing, downsizing or simply to be closer to the equator … hmmm France would be glorious, love Scotland as I do, the weather is truly shite.

So with optimism in abundance for a positive move, a month ago I planned, packed and labelled boxes with vigour and a happy heart. Yes, I was leaving my friends, but if they’d have me, I could always go and visit.

Where was the stress and anxiety when the day arrived? Decidedly absent.

Why? Because of a simple yet forceful positive change of attitude and meticulous military-style preparation.

There’s always something that goes slightly awry … in my case it was the key to a large old linen press so really not the end of the world. It turned up, eventually. As long as the keys to the new house and the kettle is to hand, nothing else really matters.

In the old days, I’d have had sleepless weeks beforehand worrying, stressing myself into a sweat-induced nightmare. And about what? Change and a fear of no control and the unknown.

So now, let’s embrace the new, use planning and preparation to keep charge of as much as we can, and then just go with the flow. More than that we can’t do, after all, this is life that we’re dealing with. It’s short and really should be very, very sweet.

Katie xx

How do you cope with anxiety and stressful situations?

16 thoughts on “Anxiety and Moving House”

  1. It’s been many years since I last moved. The last time I did, I was in my 20’s and it was a DIY, pay friends with beer kind of affair. And I decided that was the last of that BS. I’m a grown up, I can pay movers. As for handling stressful situations, on a good day, I try to organize my way through it. On a bad day, I run as fast and as far as I can in the other direction 😉

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    1. I think we’re quite similar!! Because we’re with the military, they pay for the movers to do all the packing …. however …. the previous move, the company who shall remain nameless, broke and damaged 16 different items, only one of which was not handed down to me from my late parents. As one piece of furniture after another was unwrapped in Scotland broken, torn, punctured and wrecked, I ended up sobbing hysterically in front of my new husband and the bewildered removal men. Not my finest hour! So, this time, I decided to do it all myself. Frankly exhausting if strangely therapeutic, but in future I think I should find a happy medium and allow someone else to maybe pack at least the majority of it (whilst I stand over them wringing my hands in anxiety and handing them the bubble wrap!). 😉

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  2. I’m helping my parents move at the moment. Because my father’s cancer treatment makes him very breathless he can’t do a lot to help, which he obviously finds very frustrating and stressful. So we breathe deeply and silently imagine kicking the removal boxes across the room from time to time 🙂

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    1. I bet they’re really grateful to you for helping them, particularly if your father is ill. I think as we get older it’s probably more difficult too … well done with the breathing! I’m sure it helps! ☀️☀️☀️❤️

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  5. I also enjoyed the experience of moving…it was to our first home together, where we still live now. The whole processcwascso exciting…unt my mother-in-law decided to get involved in the packing! Now that was stressful 😉

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      1. She shoved me out of the way, ruined all my organising so thst i was unable to find things for weeks afterwards and broke a new bottle of malt vinegar (which I was then told to clean up). All we had initially wanted was to borrow her steam mop!

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