Coming Clear: Confessions of a Packrat

“I want to shed my waste with quiet reverence like the pine…
Keep me mindful of what I take into my home, the items brought to substitute
for real living…Help me slowly to surrender all excess.”
–Gunilla Norris, Being Home

I’m a packrat.

There, I said it.

Yes, squirreled away in the dark recesses of my house I still have boxes of things I haven’t seen or used in over twenty years. I have food in the freezer that is over six months old. I have postage stamps issued during the 1984 Olympics when it cost 13 cents to send a letter first class. I have a cigar box full of those tiny keys you get when you buy a new suitcase—each pair neatly secured with a twist-tie.

I hang onto more bubble-wrap and cardboard boxes than I need “just in case.” I have computer “diskettes” with God-knows-what dating back to the early 90’s (without the technology to open them even if I wanted to see what was on them). Stacked neatly in the corner of my desk drawer is a year’s worth of price tags for clothes I’ve bought …and washed… and worn…

Most people who know me as the space clearing expert, a healer of homes, a teacher, author, and devoted messenger of hope to the clutter-weary… are surprised when I tell them I am not clutter-free.

Your home may be free of all excess, or be super organized and neat-as-a-pin, but if you live in a body that thinks thousands of thoughts a day (not all positive), feels pain and loss and fear from time to time, gets out of balance, or loses itself in the worries of the moment, I hate to break it to you: you’re not clutter-free either.

The fact is, most humans suffer one way or another from a condition called “holding on.” Me, I was born with squirrel tendencies based on a deep fear that there is not enough to go around. Softening the hardwiring of my past is my Hero’s Journey—my spiritual pathway that involves consciously clearing one suitcase key, postage stamp, and freezer-burned-lump-that-passes-as-food, at a time.

But this is good. The past fifteen years have taught me that we can soften our grip of attachment—slowly and gently—by first naming and feeling the object of our stress and distress. We can release the charge that these issues or patterns hold on us by taking them less personally and seriously. We can change our relationship with any thing by clearing it, or just moving it from the floor to the drawer. Yes, even a single paper clip has the potential to change our lives.

I’ve learned that by shedding light on the places we resist in ourselves, we can bring our home, and our world, back into balance—one thing, pile, and thought at a time. It’s a journey of a lifetime that we can, if we choose, even enjoy!

This article was published in Ezine Articles. To view other articles like this one, go to my expert author page at EzineArticles.com

Photo: Sequoia, pdphoto.org