I’ve been cleaning again. In order to rescue the guest bedroom from the chaos of being a catch-all I’ve been peeling back the layers. When I cleaned out the storage unit thirty photo albums condensed into seven boxes. Pretty good, right? But now what do I do with the seven boxes currently residing in my guest bedroom? And if I’m not looking at them why have them at all? This is the curse of sorting, it’s never done.

I think it’s the same process with the internal stuff. Our thoughts and feelings accumulate, getting layered one on top of the other, creating a confusing soup of broken emotions and reactionary behaviors. They become clutter that needs to be cleaned. Dealing with the inner clutter is much the same process of clearing out a junk room, we look at each thing in turn, evaluate how we feel about it, and decide if we still want to keep it around. If all the memories and the feelings are hurtful or holding us back it’s time to start sorting. This is how we transform what’s been into what will be, by honestly acknowledge what actually is. 

Going through all my old things felt like a life review. Everything has a back story. Where I was, who I was with, and the reasons behind all the things that now surround me. There is the actual possession and then the story of our lives that lives within it. Our past and the vast webbing of good and bad decisions lives in plain view. This makes it emotionally exhausting to go through every item, really we are confronting our past. And after all that recapping of a long life it’s strange to box it all up and store it to be left unseen in an attic or unused room. Why hang on to what’s no longer meaningful? This goes on inside as well, we compartmentalize and store away what we no longer want to look at or feel. We skip the sorting, which is really a conscious choosing, and go straight to boxing it all up. All the hurtful feelings, mistakes, and misgivings are put away, maybe never to be seen again.

But to move forward we have to come to terms with painful parts of our past otherwise they keep popping up in different disguises. The process of sorting lets us own our choices and feelings and put attention on the parts that still want recognition and healing. To move forward without this step doesn’t clear out the clutter, we just ignore it exists. It’s necessary to navigate through the pot holes and obstacles of the past to make way for what’s to come. That’s how we head in the direction of our tomorrows with greater clarity and recreate our lives.

It can be hard work to look back, deciding which parts will come with us to what’s next and which parts are really over. This is the delicate work of consciously becoming more of who we really are. What emerged from the sorting of the chaos of the guest bedroom was a space where I could dream up what’s to come. A place that’s all mine to write, read, reflect, and give more room to the voice that wants to be heard. Pretty good payoff for all the hard work of clearing up old clutter.

So what needs sorting?

kb