THE CLOSET THAT IS OUR MIND

Several years ago my husband built me a closet in the basement for my house redecorating supplies.  It is great.  Has lots of room and shelves.  Was so nice to have somewhere I could organize everything.  Started out putting things away neatly but of course as years went by it became messy through me just tossing stuff in and instead of being somewhere to keep all my supplies organized it turned into a place that just hid the mess.

I am about to paint my dining room.  There were  a few spots on the walls that needed filling so off I go to brave my closet to look for my filler.  I couldn't find it.  I'm moving stuff all around looking and looking and finally got fed up and made up my mind I was going to pull everything out and get it organized again.  Half way through I look at the mess I'd created and started thinking "What the hell did I get myself in too!"  At that point I had a choice of giving up and just chucking everything back in there or keep going.  I chose to keep going and I'm glad I did.  Now I have this great, organized closet where I can find everything relatively easy.  Got rid of a bunch of stuff that needed throwing out; found a bunch of stuff that I forgot I had that is very handy; and have everything where it should be.

What a great metaphor for our minds!  We start out with this "clean" innocent mind but gradually over the years we pick up stuff that gets stored in there.  It happens with all of us.  Thoughts and beliefs.  They get jammed in and we don't give it much thought for the most part until something happens and we get "triggered" - ie we "see" the mess in there.  Something happens to upset us.  A lot of the time we just slam the door shut and do our best to move on and ignore it but time and again we end up having to "look in that closet" whether we like it or not.  We have the choice to continue doing that, ignoring the mess, or we can finally start to pull things out and see whats what.  Guaranteed that once we make that decision to start looking it will feel like we are creating an even bigger mess but in the end ...... it is well worth it!

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