The pains of letting go
clutter, people, patterns, body image, and choosing myself
I value any and all support for this newsletter. You can like, comment, subscribe, share with a friend, share to social, or pay for a subscription, I don’t care! It helps me keep this going if I feel I’m being of use to the people receiving my message. That requires your feedback. I hate to say it, but it does. I need your support more than I need your money.
Lol hopping right on in. Get ready for a big tone shift. Hahahahh
I’m really comfortable with pain. I don’t need to say why or where it originated to state the fact. The pain that I’m most comfortable with is the kind where I’m trying to enforce power over myself. Sometimes that looks like setting unrealistic expectations and sometimes it’s my internal voice picking apart an interaction to find where I need to do/be better or some other way entirely. The source is what I would now call low self-esteem. So I know that whatever way this pain shows up is a lie. Every. Time.
Okay, I’ll provide some context.
I have had “all of my belongings” in Los Angeles since January 2022.
I’ve told myself many stories about these “things”:
I’ll have the money in a couple of months.
I already spent this much on the unit rental so I have to continue, or what’s the point?
If (insert random situation) hadn’t happened I would have been able to get it all here by now.
There has to be a solution I don’t see!!!!
I chose these things with care.
Higher Power brought these objects into my life/I attracted it so it’s meant to be with me. (Ugh woof)
I found most of it for free. What a steal! The cost I’ve invested to store counts as the money I saved.
I don’t feel comfortable hiring a stranger to deal with my personal problem/things.
I don’t want a close friend to be burdened with my problem. This is mine to deal with.
I don’t know what’s in there so the task is too overwhelming for anyone else to deal with other than me.
The world is not set up in a way for single women to succeed.
If only I knew someone with a car that wanted to do this for me.
It’s so little - there has to be an economical solution.
If I talk about this with as many people as possible to get as many perspectives as I can, I’ll know what to do. More eyes, more solutions. (Then reject all advice of course)
I can hire someone to sell it all!
I’ll just drive to LA(from Iowa) in the Fiat and pack whatever fits and turn around and drive home. (4-day drive if I push it)
This whole situation makes my (inner)child so angry. I’m so mad that I have to face the truth. Truth is, I already brought what was most important to me. My cat, his accouterment, clothes, paperwork, my record collection that is probably ruined (no way of knowing since I didn’t bring the player), plants that have long died, and essential kitchen supplies. Truth is, I already had parted from the rest, I just didn’t know it.
I’ve known that there was a divine message in this situation for me for a while. I didn’t know what would happen but also kind of did. I knew that there was something juicy there. That the irony that I created spaces for others and not myself, had somehow translated to me being away from the objects that I held dear in the pursuit of creating that space for myself.
The past couple of weeks have been eye-opening. I’ve been doing the most diligent work I ever have on cleaning up my life. The things that no longer serve me, to my understanding today, are very obvious. I see, again, the divine timing of all of this. I’m cleaning up what is no longer relevant to who I am today and rebooting the system.
I was targeted this video on YouTube from a minimalist mommy blogger who spoke about clutter and its affect(effect? Yeah, effect. Fuck I’m a writer hahah) on mental health, among other very interesting points. I really resonated with the idea of this silent to-do list. From my understanding, it’s the feeling of objects telling you what needs to get done by simply being there. A dirty dish in the sink, a half-finished painting on the living room wall, or a book you’ve been meaning to read on the table.
It got me thinking about the invisibility of this storage unit I have. I hold the weight of not only the storage unit as a whole but all of the individual objects within it. That’s a ton of wasted energy.
Karmically, it makes zero sense. If I care at all about the energy of objects themselves then I also have to include how I feel about them in the current moment. That’s a huge factor. Right now, they all feel like a burden. A huge ass burden. What am I supposed to feel? Good or satisfied with when I magically get these things here when I’ve been feeling so burdened by it? No, I’d probably get rid of the same things when they arrived as I would now with the distance.
I have been trying to wrap my brain around this problem since its inception. So I have made some traction, a couple of weeks ago I had a very close friend rehome some of the bigger items that I spent most on. Which felt relieving enough to see that this storage unit thing is getting taken care of very soon. I didn’t know how, rather just that it was going to happen.
I’ve been saying this thing to myself recently: I don’t need to know what will happen or how it will happen. I just need to know that it will happen.
This has been helping me keep in my place and to leave things up to the mystery of life, universe, God, whoever the fuck.
So I got an inch of the freedom of offloading some of my things and now I’m more willing to be completely done with it all. Well, most of it at least. I’m no damn saint.
I’m simultaneously going through a phase where the same “dead weight” is being cut relationally. It’s not like I’m going through a list of people and making cuts or anything. But rather, cutting my own behaviour that doesn’t serve me in any relationship. Which may very well result in cutting out a full relationship. That isn’t up to me though, I trust that changing my behaviour around something that is hurting me, will allow the space for the right people to stay and those relationships to deepen.
Another area where things are shifting is my self-image. Literally - I’m about to part with a ton of the clothes that I have in my storage unit. Internally - I’m seeing that some areas where I challenged myself in radical acceptance can be updated now.
I’m getting ready to shake shit up in my personal style. Getting rid of what I no longer give a shit about is going to give me some beautiful space to have fun here. I’m thinking color babyyyy, no more hiding!
There are so many areas of my life right now that have been calling me to see the opportunity in them. For many different reasons, my eyes were closed to those areas. For many other reasons, I put on armor to protect my closed eyes. I see now and I have to answer the call. Some of these things have been screaming for 30 years. They are literally irrelevant to what is happening within this moment, right now at 32.
Unless I’m acting within a child-like response, which still isn’t whatever I’m experiencing in the moment.
To bring this all back to the storage unit. I think I know what needs to be done. All that I can do now is take precautions in preparation for its inevitability.
I will say that the process of trusting my instincts has proven to have nothing but a benefit to me. A friend told me this and it’s so simple, I love it.
“The things that are bad for you will feel really good in the moment and horrible afterward. The things that are good for you will feel really bad leading up to it and you’ll be relieved afterward.”
-a wise friend
It’s a matter of perspective with that belief. I can count that in the immediate it’s going to be really shitty donating 90% of my things. Looking at the timeline of this, it already has been terrible. My capacity to inflict this pain on myself is at a year and a half at this point! What is about to happen pales in comparison to what I’ve already collectively felt. A temporary pain to benefit my future (aka growth!).
I can also count on it feeling fucking amazing to not have to deal with it! To not have to pay $300 a month?!? What a wonderful relief that will be. I’m sure the emotional weight lifted will feel great as well.
Where does this relate to who I am now? As Alex who lives in Des Moines, IA, who knows that she is special, and has a lot to offer. I have everything I need in my home right now. It could use some improvements but the freed-up funds can aid in those. Truly, I’m good. In fact - it’s very apparent that I am better than ever and only more healed every day.
So what is the function of holding on to this…stuff? As identified at the top, pain. Do I actively inflict pain on myself when I have awareness of it? No. Therefore, I no longer need most of that stuff.
Another thing is that I have to accept the mistake. Yeah, well, guess what that’s life and this is part of taking responsibility for my mistakes. Shelling out thousands of dollars in the pursuit of holding onto a safety that doesn’t exist.
Now I ask myself: Am I going to get anywhere without leaning into the mystery of it? Is that not a major part of the magic of this life? To trust fall into things and relish in the fact that now I feel supported to do so on many fronts. Simply because now I’ve decided to do so. I don’t need to know more. Any more knowledge will hurt me. I promise.
What doesn’t hurt me? Action. So, I’m going to go paint now that I’ve identified that the unfinished painting on my living room wall is lowkey stressing me out. Hahaha bye!
Thank you, you mean more to me than you know.
-Alex