From clutter to clarity
I love a decorated home but finding the motivation to get the Christmas decorations out was overwhelming for me this year. During the months of being homebound to honor COVID restrictions, my family, like many others, cleaned out their rooms. Things that were deemed too special to part with but not special enough to keep accessible ended up in the attic. Nobody thought to figure out an organized way to place them in there. Nobody thought it might be a good idea to keep a walkway clear. It was an overwhelming mess of stuff that made sense when it was in someone’s room, but now just looked like clutter and junk. Getting to the Christmas decorations meant pulling all of that stuff out, organizing it, and even throwing a few things away.
This process is like therapy. To get to the things stored up inside us that bring joy and beauty to our world, sometimes we have to sort through the odds and ends that clutter up our brains and hearts. Sometimes we ourselves stash things in the attic and let them accumulate, like emotions we push down instead of express. Sometimes others give us stuff in traumatic ways and we keep them locked away because we don’t know what else to do with them. We feel overwhelmed at the thought of opening the attic door.
The mess seems monumental when we look at it all at once. The process of taking out the things that block our path to peace is manageable little by little. When we take each thing out, we evaluate it and decide, “Is this something I want to keep? Is it something I need to keep?” We might need to throw it away. We might need to just find an appropriate way to store it. We might need to grieve. When we put each thing back in the attic, we do so with intentionality. We organize them in a way that makes sense and no longer impedes us from full access to other things in our attic. Without the chaotic clutter, we can be more fully present in our lives.
What are you storing up in your personal attic? What is your mental clutter blocking? Do you need help sorting it out? Do you need support in throwing some of it away? The beautiful thing about therapy is that you do not have to clean out your attic alone. Therapists at Sanctuary Christian Counseling are very familiar with this process and would love to come alongside you in your search for peace. Give us a call.
For more information about me, check out my page on the Sanctuary website.
Sanctuary Christian Counseling
9974 Molly Pitcher Highway, Suite 4, and Online
Shippensburg, PA 17257
717-200-3158
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