I was sitting here on this cold, freezing cold Sunday morning…..did I mention it was cold?! I need a vacation…anyways.
And I was thinking about a blog I had read by one of my favorite writers Jennifer Pastiloff the other day discussing mental hoarding. I love her writing, because it immediately makes me start thinking, and It always applies directly to something, I think, 99% of us deal with on a conscious, or unconscious level daily.
You know what I mean, those nagging, silly feelings that creep up when you’re alone doing laundry, or doing the dishes, or straightening the furniture, or answering emails, of ……, “why doesn’t that friend talk to me anymore?”, “I hate myself for doing that stupid thing last weekend”, or “Why did I sleep with that girl/guy that one year in college?!”, or in my case “Why was I such a prick to some people in high school?!” etc. the list can go on and on and on, well; you get the point……We’ve all done it, we’ve all felt this way.
I’m 33 years old; holding on to what we’ve done in Junior High, High School, College, or last weekend isn’t going to change it, or help us now, or in the future.
Thoughts like this create a type of mental log jam in our heads, clutter if you will, like hoarding. We fall into a rut of viewing ourselves, and holding ourselves accountable to actions that have already passed. Ok, so bare with me on this……think how ridiculous that thought process is…..
Because I’ve heard it all from people in my past, and former friends. “Robinson you were an asshole” “Just the drunk guy” “shallow prick”……Now while some of these things were probably unfortunately true at the time lol! I’m not 21 or 25 any longer, and at 33 I’m sure as hell not changing what happened at 21, unless Doc Brown, and Marty come shootin into my living room.
When you were a child you actually shit in your pants….DAILY! Do you look at yourself in the mirror everyday, now, and shake your head and beat yourself up for using your undergarments as your primary vessel for bodily release at the age of 6 months? Is my relationship with my parents strained because for quite some time they wiped my ass, bathed me, and drove me to school? (only until I was 16…..jokes!) OF COURSE NOT!
All kidding aside, so then why? Why do we hold on to so many other trivial things in our minds, and constantly be unkind to ourselves about what has already occurred, the ex girlfriend/boyfriend, the people that you had to shed that you once called “friends”, the fight you got into with your parents two years ago, the social gathering you couldn’t make because you were sick, the job that you left, the weight you gained, the day you missed at the gym, the “shoulds” placed on you by a religion or a family, etc. Love yourself NOW.
We all have them, have lived it, have felt it, have cried over it…….stop hoarding, they’re like shitty diapers……
Throw them out.
-Love
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