As a 25 year-old who had traveled internationally a fair amount on her own, I considered myself rather worldly. When I began this work of organizing and decluttering, I entered into a whole new world- the interior one of the mind, that was new and much more textured and intricate than international travel.
To me the process of organizing and decluttering was straightforward- things weren’t the way people wanted them to be. They needed a little or a lot of help to make them so: maybe they needed the support of someone else there, or an expert eye that could gauge space and guide them, or maybe they needed someone to do the heavy lifting because they were senior or had recently had an operation. Whatever their needs, I was up for it. It was all fun to me, and great exercise…when I began, I didn’t understand how nuanced and emotional it all was.
Coming from a family of sentimental Jewish pack rats, it did make sense to me that people would cry when they’d go sort through their stuff, either from good (or bad) memories, or from the anxiety or self-judgment of uncompleted old tasks they’d abandoned and forgotten about. That was easy to understand. What I didn’t understand was when they told me someone sex-related things…and why their faces would flush as they went through and finished their taxes. (PS, I know what date it is, let me know if you need a great accountant referral…;)
A few months ago, my client was going through some old bills paying, shredding, and filing the rest. She looked up at me:
“Why am I sweating,” she said, fanning herself and blushing, “and feeling strangely excited?”
Years of experience hearing from clients that they’d woken up at 4am to continue organizing, gone off pain or anxiety medications, or had unusually powerful orgasms (!) made it possible for me to answer her:
“These old bills were stagnant- literally and energetically, hanging over you and taking up space in your subconscious. Our subconscious plays a big role in our health and energy. Just as people’s libidos can increase when they start going to the gym, believe it or not the same can happen when you declutter- you free up stagnant energy and become more available to yourself. For some of us, that quickly translates into arousal. For others, it translates into generosity. Or connection. Our emotions and our bodies are deeply connected, and though it seems odd to think about generating arousal through paying old bills, it really happens…all the time.”
She nodded, smiling.
“Gosh,” she said, “I can’t even imagine how I’d feel if I took care of all the old clutter I have everywhere…even my storage unit, whoa.”
“Well,” I said, “are you ready to find out?”
We high-fived.
“Let’s do this,” she said, fanning herself again and smiling.
Freedom, or freed stagnation, becomes expansive, magnetic and powerful. And it feels good on many levels. Some of us need classes and workshops to learn how to tap into ourselves and our bodies…and some of us just need to take care of old tasks and get places on time.
That in itself is exciting. Literally.