Today is Day 7. For 7 days I have kept my commitment with expressing myself. Sometimes it has been to others, but mostly it has been expressing myself, to myself. Tonight was a night where I decided to focus my attention inward, and take a look at what I have been avoiding. Tonight this manifested in the physical form.
I realized after I ate dinner tonight that I never liked how my living room was arranged, so I decided to change everything. What had been "stopping" me before was the TV and all the wires and cables. I told myself I didn't know how to do it - as that was something my ex handled. But I was determined to do it and to do it myself and so I began moving furniture and unplugging wires and cleaning things out and burning sage and incense and lighting candles and going through drawers and cleansing and purging and so on. And as it turns out, I was MORE than capable of unplugging all the wires, moving the TV, and then plugging all the wires back in, in the correct places. I even moved the furniture by myself - maybe not at the fastest pace, but I still did it.
And then I moved on to my bedroom and closet and hall closet and backyard - cleansing and releasing and throwing things out and cleaning. It came to my realization that I had been avoiding doing all of this sorting and cleaning. Parts of me really didn't want to let go of my old relationship or old patterns or old beliefs. I wanted to hold on so I had a "reason" to be "overwhelmed" with all the things that I constantly reminded myself that I wanted to do, but just never actually did them. So tonight, I did them.
Since I was 18, I have carried a small (18 inches by 18 inches) plastic box with me every single time I have moved. In fact, this box is the only thing that I have consistently brought with me to every single apartment, city, etc. And in this box I have kept photos, cards, letters, etc. And I never really considered why I was holding onto these things and every time I took a moment to open the box and go through everything, I felt sad. Tonight I decided to go through the box and the same wave of sadness came over me - so I stopped, paused, took a deep breath - and realized that instead of holding onto these things because they were adding to my happiness, I was holding onto them because they added to my sadness. Let me tell you, it felt so GOOD to go through that box and throw out everything that didn't put a smile on my face. Yes, everything.
What I am learning in this process is that self-expression is something that I have been hiding for a very long time. From myself and from others. And in this process of self-expression, it's like I have to go back a little and take the time to devote attention (i.e. cleaning out that box) to the things and areas in my life that I have ignored. I need to "clean up" in a sense. It's like I needed to clear certain areas of my life that I had been avoiding in order to really allow myself the space to fully move forward, move into, awaken to all of these new found parts of myself. And after 7 days of "cleaning out and cleaning up" - I feel ready to keep on going and see what else this process has to offer. So far, it has been nothing shy of completely amazing.
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