What Sparks Joy? Unschoolers Knew...

Back to Marie Kondo and why it matters to unschoolers.

Her new book applies the Japanese concept of kurashi, or “way of life” or even "the ideal way of spending your time."
Now you're starting to see the connection?

While she probably has no idea what unschooling is, Marie’s new kurashi-inspired ideas are very unschooling-aligned!
It’s all about expanding on simple ways to “spark joy every day and lead a joyful life.”

And this is what parents wrestle with as they begin their unschooling journey:

Reframing what they've been told should be the priority

vs. what the reality is for their family.

Marie Kondo has evidently irritated a lot of people who "followed" her Kondo Method, and now don't like that she has shifted.

Humans always seem to want a formula, a solution, a way to "tidy up" our thinking so it makes sense, right? But the reality is that while we're gathering ideas from other people, we have to move away from the concept of following people blindly.
We have had YEARS of school conditioning that pushed us to do exactly that!
But unschooling parents are discovering that letting THAT concept go allows us to create the truly individualized lives we know we (and our kids) deserve.

And, yes, that can be messy - our thoughts AND our living rooms!

I'm happy Marie has been brave enough to share the changes that she's making as her family grows. Can't we all remember ideas we had BEFORE we had kids - stories in our heads of what we would tolerate or how we would parent? And then, as if the Universe was chuckling a little, saying, "Oh yeah? What if you have kids that are like this? What if your Life looks like this?"

It's ok. We don't know what we don't know. And then we know better. And we make the necessary adjustments. Like you're doing now as you're letting go of the storeis in your head that prevent you from having the joy that you and the kids deserve. Lives that FIT. Lives that are REALITY-BASED. Lives that you all enjoy.

Marie asks a simple question. It's an expansion of her earlier premise, but we unschoolers use the same way of approaching the world too:

“What if every decision you made,

every goal you set

and every aspect of your life

was guided by what sparks joy?”

When I went over to her website and dug a little deeper, I saw that Marie said,

"when we consciously cherish something precious, we deepen our relationship with it.

This, in turn, deepens our bonds with other things in our lives, bringing out the best in them and in ourselves.”

She even developed 4 specific action steps for exploring your own kurashi:

1. Expand your vision
2. Let go of Constraints
3. Give Yourself Time
4. Hold Space for What Matters

And there's our unschooling connection.

Shifting our perspectives, prioritizing our relationships. Focusing on what matters.

Ahh... Having kids.

They really do shift our perspectives.

Even Marie Kondo’s!

I can feel unschooling moms smiling over their coffees this morning!