Get rid of the clutter

This morning, I decided to pause from the week and read something inspirational. I remembered having received a specific email weeks ago that I did not yet have time to read. As I searched in my mailbox, I could not find it, but rather bumped into another one that made me curious. It was an e-book that talked about the importance of getting rid of physical clutter. I regularly do that practice, but as I was reading the text, I remembered that, just a week ago, I resisted throwing away two written cards that I had received from my ex-partner and his mother.

I now gathered my courage together to sort them out. Then I went on with getting rid of clutter and opened a CD box I have been carrying around for years. After have sorted the first 2, 3 CDs, and as I was progressing in my search in the row, a heavy emotion of sadness started to rise in me. Because I did not want to confront this feeling, I skipped those CDs and went on sorting out other ones. However, as I reached the second row, I saw another CD that had been offered to me by my ex-partner. They had been in a single present together with the CDs I had skipped in the first row. The heavy sadness appeared.

This time, I gathered my courage, picked it out and let the sadness come out. I wept heavy teardrops, and this lasted for a while. And then I was to give the CD away.

The whole story is, I had been carrying along a deep sadness during the last years, and I wondered how I would be able to cast it out of my body. As impossible as this had seemed to be, today I found another confirmation for this: The negative feelings that we carry in us are partly stored in physical belongings.

I had a similar experience a year ago. As I went around in my living room, and looked at my keyboard, I suddenly wondered why it was still in my possession. My ex-partner had given it to me 6-7 years before...Of course, as a musician, a piano is helpful to compose music, to teach etc. And although I valued this present very much, it was clear that the time had come to separate from it. I was ready. Since the friend I wanted to give it to was hesitating, I had my word solution. Because the casting out had to happen now: I would put it on the side of the street with a post-it that it can be taken away, as we do here in Switzerland.

As I first moved the heavy instrument out of the living room into the corridor, a strange thing happened. A heavy amount of energy, felt as a few kilograms litterally dropped from my head to toe, then left me. I had been liberated from a huge weight that no longer belonged to me. The change was tremendous. I understood that I had actually been holding on to a relationship that had finished so many years ago.

Only a few weeks later I had get rid of the piano, and after many years of being single, I met my new partner.