Читать книгу Clear your Clutter - Manifest your dreams - Birgit Medele - Страница 10

Chaos theory is not a theory, it manifests as everyday experience. Our things lead lives of their own, gallivanting all over the place, driving us mad with their unsettledness. Instead of staying put on the desk, paper starts trekking through the house to grow roots in the most ridiculous places. After a frantic game of hide and seek, we track the bill down: it had gone underground in a shoe box in the kitchen cupboard. Magazines, books and toys for all ages multiply over night. Getting the wardrobe doors to shut is a workout far superior to any gym session and by the time we successfully prise them open again, we do not fancy wearing any of the stuff crammed in there.

Organised clutter lovers take pride in arranging their unused belongings, whiling away the hours meticulously folding, filing, labelling, rearranging and folding some more. Kept busy with the administration of stuff they rummage through their days, limiting themselves to the relatively straightforward question of where do I store this? Hypnotised by the steady rhythm of constant shifting – up down, in out, down up, left right – there is no time for pausing or reflecting. We get sidetracked playing in our life-sized Wendy house full-time, plodding along in a comfy illusion of being busy and therefore important and needed. It is easy to mistake movement for achievement and get fooled by being forever busy – doing what? The most useful side effect of this mock activism in our hamster-wheel home is that we never have to sit down and face an empty moment. We avoid unoccupied time and the confrontation with questions lingering right underneath those boxes, ready to jump at us. “Why are you here, what are your dreams? How can you fulfil your potential? Where to from here?” Clutter is a protective device, a skilfully constructed obstacle course that keeps out the intruders that we cannot simply file away. Clutter is a wall that we erect between us and the scarier topics. It keeps them at bay, we take the foot off the accelerator and grind to a halt in our bagged up comfort zone. Diligently beavering away, we set up a dam to stem the floods of feelings: the longing for a partner or the career change we never embarked on. Grief for the children we never had, loved ones we lost, opportunities missed. Sadness that the children we did have stopped being children and have moved out, moved on and left us. We try to fill an inner void with stuff, plaster over the hurt with yet another purchase.

The root cause for a passion for collecting can be hidden in the past. Perhaps our ancestors lost their belongings when they had to suddenly leave a city or country. Wander back in time: when did the hoarding start? Was it after a separation, divorce or bereavement, a traumatic childhood experience? One day you might have come home from school to find that a favourite soft toy – the rocking horse or train set – had disappeared. Your guardians had decided that, “You didn’t need that anymore.” You had been ignored and hurt. Deeply. Ever since, you have been trying to fill the gap caused by this wound; never letting go of anything; holding on to a boxed-up, past out of sight but not out of mind. At some point it became impossible to pluck up the courage to wake the sleeping memories. As long as the cartons are dozing, sealed and untouched, we do not have to deal with our stuff. We create a protective shell, an additional layer between us and the world out there or the worlds inside ourselves. Clutter is a cocoon. It tones down life; holds it at bay, shoved into some sort of receptacle. Stick on the label, fasten the lid; sorted. Those shielding mechanisms temporarily make sense, but after a while the disadvantages become obvious.

In a cocoon you cannot see very far. Only once we break free, can we emerge as the iridescent butterfly that we really are and set off, gently tumbling towards our dreams.