Cleaning out the closet

[Gabben]

My bedroom closet is just about the only room in my house that is cluttered and unorganized; sort of as if all that I do not use or stuff that I do not really want just gets thrown in there, like my unconscious. There is so much in there that I do not even know what it is and where it came from and why I still hang onto to it. My closet is a walkin closet, big and roomy but, currently there is no space for me to hardly walk into it, let alone store one more useless thing.

I like to think of some aspects of our outer world are a reflection of our inner world and my walk-in closet has stood out in my mind as a reflection of my unconscious: messy, dark, cluttered, disorganized, unknown stuff, and a burden to think about cleaning out; something that I procrastinate on.

For the last few months I have had my mind turned to my messy closet which for the last many years the clutter and mess as not really stood out to me, once again, just like my unconscious as not really stood out to me in many years... Not the way it has stood out to me and for me as it has been in the last few months, giving up secrets of my dysfunction, the why of why I do what I do.

Yesterday, or last night I was in a vicious dark tunnel, as I call them, where it feels as if my unconscious as taken a hold of me and pulled me in, sucked me back in time to release old buried FOO pain that got embedded and is desperate to work itself out. Sort of like my closet, everytime I walk by I can hear it calling me "clean me!"

After a very dark night of what felt like agony, loneliness, despair, tears and sobs, I awoke this morning feeling an overwhelming desire to clean out my closet and all the other places in my house where this is stuff that is unwanted and useless, sort of like the unwanted and useless fears that my unconscious was carrying around and now is getting free from.

I pray that this is REAL progress and not just some wishful thinking. I know that the pain I have been in is real.

Lise

[Meh]

I love the term "psychic clutter".
It's all the stuff we carry around in our minds and emotions etc. --gets piled on top of each other, piles of stuff.

[Hopalong]

Hi, Lise...

That's a lovely place to be taken...I hope you will try it.

After eons of just feeling blue and sludgy when I looked at it, the other weekend I opened my closet in a crisp but peaceful frame of mind and just started whipping things off hangers and out of bins that I simply don't wear or were in poor shape.

It took very little time to fill multiple bags for donation, then I hung together:

jackets
dresses
long-sleeved tops/blouses
short-sleeved dittos
pants
skirts

I removed 1/3 of what was in there. Don't miss one thing!
I put the shoes all in hanging bags except for one pair.

So I could even vaccum the floor.

It did have a good effect on me. Decluttering is now spreading.

I support you wholeheartedly!

If it's HUGE, maybe do one yard of it. That's all.

Then another day, another yard.

good luck!

Hops (and I do feel lighter emotionally around that space...a daily gift)

[Ami]

Dear (((Lise)))
 You inspire me not to give up and to FEEL what comes up. Lord, no one understands these feelings. I have a hoplessness so deep I want to lie down and sink, and sink.I guess it is the hopelessness I felt as a child--a huge "WHY bother?". I was a rat in a maze as a child.  Every way was blocked-- the rat in the Learned Helplessness Studies. Why bother? Why bother? You have no power to influence anything.
 You get it ,Lise.
 After one of these ,I seem to get real insights and true change. I just have to hang on, hang on.
         xxooo  Ami

[Gabben]

Dear (((Lise)))
 You inspire me not to give up and to FEEL what comes up. Lord, no one understands these feelings. I have a hoplessness so deep I want to lie down and sink, and sink.I guess it is the hopelessness I felt as a child--a huge "WHY bother?". I was a rat in a maze as a child.  Every way was blocked-- the rat in the Learned Helplessness Studies. Why bother? Why bother? You have no power to influence anything.
 You get it ,Lise.
 After one of these ,I seem to get real insights and true change. I just have to hang on, hang on.
         xxooo  Ami

Oh Ami -- I know the feelings, you are OK, we are not our emotions, we are not our shame. You have a right to have needs, be human, make mistakes, want, hunger, have a voice and be here. You were created by God to live, breathe, speak, love and care about life.

I know that "why bother" feelings....ugh...it is so painful where you are. I wish I could be there to just sit with you, make you an ice scream sunday, give you a huge hug while you have ALL of your feelings, the good the bad and the ugly.

Your going through a tunnel of shame, just brace yourself, it will pass, try to shed some tears about the losses you feel in the depths of your soul.

Love you (((((((AMI))))))

[Ami]

THANK YOU (((((Lise))))
I am better for the moment. i feel understood which is very very powerful for me. I have not felt understood very much in my life . I did some retail therapy.
I am gonna practice the guitar.
Your being there was what I needed to move a little bit away from this pain. Thank you so much!!!     Ami

[Gabben]

Your being there was what I needed to move a little bit away from this pain. Thank you so much!!!     Ami

Glad that I can be there for you. It is good that we understand, huh? What a blessing to count. (((AMI)))

[Ami]

Oh Lise
 WHAT a blessing. What a wonderful time  to be blessed by it. God is so good and so loving.!!!!!             Ami

[Gabben]

I did not get my closet cleaned out yesterday, as I had hoped. I fell into old FOO wounds that just keep coming to the surface, old deep aching bitterness and rage at the loss of my voice and the loss of self, what it was like to be objectified to the core of my being.

Sometimes I feel hopeless because I have been working on these deep core issues for so long and they just keep coming up.

Once thing that helps me to feel better is recognizing that two years ago, when the core of my being, early developing memories, imploded onto my landscape of reality much of my first approach to healing was trying to get an intellectual visual understanding of what exactly my little inner child's mind and heart were doing. I found an article on Victim Anger which illuminated much for me, but mostly, at first, just on an intellectual level, it has taken some time, in between all of the current realities I have had to cope with, to allow the information to sink in, the information of self blame and self attack in an attempt to seek satisfaction or relief, in other words hurting me is how I get back at them, my parents for the excruciating pain of powerlessness to do anything in the face of abuse. It is all about seeking relief and not being strong enough to put up a good fight.

I just have to surrender, again.

Today the wound is the wound of objectification, what it felt like to be objectified. Once again the pain is excruciating, my chest feels as though someone is stabbing it. I awoke, starting to pray my favorite first eye opening prayer which is AA's 3rd step prayer, begging God to take direction of my soul. That was when the victim anger article flashed in front of my mind. I was like yep...but did I and have I not already been here through this and in this for so long. God's response was that my core wounds were not made over night, my injuries were sustained over and over again everyday for years: the denial of my needs, the denial of self, the conforming, the loss of self, the deep well of shame that is still in my being. Ugh.

All I can say is that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, more than I ever have. But it is still dark.

[Ami]

Dear (((Lise)))
 You really helped me yesterday when I was so down I could barely move. I feel better, today. I think a key is to STAY with the feelings JUST as you are doing Try not to think you are good/bad cuz you had them so long (hopelessness)
 I realize that my M was the personification of hopelessness for me and my whole life I have felt hopeless b/c of it. I felt thise feelings yesterday and it was so SCARY.
 The abyss was open and pulling me down with both hands. No one understood but you. Now, I am better and I can be there for you!
       Ami

[Gabben]

I think a key is to STAY with the feelings JUST as you are doing

Ami -- What you said above "STAY with the pain" is the answer to just about all and every emotional disorder and dysfunctional way of being there is.

Our first response to the old pain is to run or fix. I know I did this for years just through denial. But through self exploration I was able to dig into myself enough, as well as 12 step work gave me something extra, to allow my inner child's world of pain to surface. This started for me when I was about 28. I'll never forget the day that I sat in my T's office telling him about the excruciating emotional pain and tears that I could not control that were up. He was so gentle and warm when he said the words to me like a father caring in warmth for a little girl, I'll never forget when he said "try to stay with your pain." My heart and mind opened up and I recalled all that I had witnessed in AA over the years of others doing deep emotional healing work and how they would say "roll on the floor in pain if you have to" "scream into a pillow and just allow yourself your hurt", you have to or it will kill you.

When my T told me to "stay with the pain" no one had ever directly to me or just me, at least not in my darkest moment of pain. His invitation for me to have my pain was a major turning point in my life.

From that moment on I started allowing my child's voice of pain to be with me at all times. It was hard work, sometimes the pain was masochistic, my T would help me sort out what was real pain and what was self inflicted pain so that I could feel the real stuff to get well.

Ami - I have learned how to stay with my pain for so many years that I can do it now without thinking. But the new pain, the deeper powerless pains and shames are really stubborn, they sit and won't budge, like a baby grasping her fists together, she wants what she wants in her rage and powerlessness.

I felt those feelings yesterday and it was so SCARY.

The fear is about our identity. We identified ourselves with our emotions, if we allow ourselves the pain and grief then it dredges up the fears in us that we are going to die, it is primal survival fears in detaching ourselves from lies that keep us in bondage.
We will not die from feeling our pain and shame. We will not die.

The abyss was open and pulling me down with both hands. No one understood but you. Now, I am better and I can be there for you!
       Ami

I love this "abyss" yes, I know this all to well, I have been pulled into the abyss of my unconscious many times it is terrifying and dark. But as you say it passes, if we just stay with the pain. It is easier for me to stay with my pain when I am with safe others and moving around doing things that serve others as well as just pouring out my love to others, while I am in pain. The reason for this is that the love that I feel, while I am in a painful abyss, helps in strengthening me to carry my cross better. When I am alone, I fall more easily because I feel so isolated and afraid, more. We really need to be with compassionate people when we are healing so that we can in strength move through this stuff without wrecking up our souls so much in falling.

[Meh]

Wow, this is such an important post, about staying with the emotions and just going to that place. Thank you.

I've seen a few times people really going to that place the equivalent of screaming into a pillow and doing the emotional equivalent of rolling around on the floor. I have always been sort of afraid of this. I guess I've only been there twice myself, once I was drunk and the other time when I was totally overwhelmed with anxiety. It's no walk in the park thats for sure.

[Gabben]

It's no walk in the park thats for sure.

It is why so many people just staying walking in the park rather than taking the trip into the desert of our hearts, the desert of dry swelling heat of the pain of what is was like to be unloved. A very dry and painful experience -- not a walk in the park, as you say.

[Hopalong]

maybe I'm a chicken but I avoid that deep gestalt now...

I think people can break.

I have.

I think I've intentionally decided that there is a level of despair I never want to visit again.

Unless life forces me to it, I won't break my own heart again.


Hops

[sKePTiKal]

me neither on the "breaking my own heart"... there have to be other ways... I'm pretty sure there are.