Cleaning
Still cleaning, still throwing things away.
Does it ever end? Do I want it to? Or is the process of clearing, cleaning, releasing, revamping, reconstructing, another form of internal death and rebirth?
I’m starting to believe we cease to evolve when we resist the need, the flow, the urge to let things go. I’ve let go of many belongings and objects, even relationships, over the past several months. Even in times of pain, even in times of wishing for something different, I’ve always come out of it a little clearer, a little lighter.
I taught some yoga this morning and some words came through me that I needed to hear I think more than the students did. I said,
“Notice your breath. Notice how you’re feeling now compared to when you walked in. Is it any different? Is it maybe just a little bit easier to hear yourself? And can you listen to yourself?”
It’s in these moments of pausing, which are so similar to the moments when we’ve emptied something out, that we have two choices. We can choose to follow the anxiety and quickly fill back up again, leaning on the crutches of convenience and comfort. Or we can choose to breathe into the discomfort. We can choose to cry because our body is aching to feel it so that it can RELEASE IT.
Our nature is to evolve, to grow, to heal. We are designed to go through processes, especially emotional ones, for the purpose of positive change. We are meant to feel things in order to eventually let them go, not to house them as repressed traumas. The same goes for our belongings. When something no longer serves, no longer has a purpose, we should let it go. Give ourselves a free hand with which to keep climbing the proverbial mountain.
I know it’s hard, I know it’s easier said than done. But collectively we need to start teaching our people, our children, our future generations how to create that internal space, how to slow down, how to clean and cleanse so that we can have the capacity to allow emotions through. It’s just like the ways in which we allow objects to enter and leave our lives. This work needs to be normalized. Pausing needs to be normalized. Emptiness needs to be taught, accepted and normalized. This is how we grow, change and evolve not just as individuals, but as a species.
If we don’t. If we hoard our lives, we’re only paving the way for more pain when the universe inevitably rips it away from us. Whether that’s our things, our relationships, or our lives, one way or another, everything comes to an end. And that too is beautiful because within the frame of the greater cycles, an ending is merely the start of a new beginning.
I sit with these ideas constantly because it seems I’m inspiring others around me to clean as well. I’ve watched and helped my boyfriend release things from his studio and his home. I’ve witnessed just how emotional and powerful these processes are, how we sometimes keep things because we identify with them, so releasing them holds even more weight.
Ryan has transformed Artifakt Studios and his home, and I can feel it in the air. The air is paved with newness, with clarity, with a chance to pause before the next thing fills it up. Magic. Just magic.
My moving and releasing of my things has also caused a physical ripple effect. Because my folks have agreed to temporarily house my belongings, my mother has to actually make space for said belongings. She said it made her happy because it would force her to finally (after how many decades?) release some things she’s been unnecessarily holding onto. I so look forward to this day when I get to help her, to go through her life in the form of objects with her, and to hold the space for her clearing.
When it comes down to it… simpler is better. More space around me means more space within me. Less stuff equals less complications, equals more clarity. I’m no longer confused about what’s where’s whose is that because things can just be SIMPLE.
And creating this kind of life has left me with the time and space to ponder… What do we really own? Is it all just an illusion perpetuated by organized society? In the end, we have to give it all back. Any claim we make is just temporary, is just an illusion. The truth is, we only own the depth of our truth. Because what we feel so too is fleeting, and should be.
The real power is sourced in the emptiness and the conscious choice of when and how to fill it.
Open space is much like internal silence. And that is priceless. I want more of that.
Aho.