I'm exhausted. I have been going full-steam ahead for about five days now and I am seriously, bone-weary tired. I want nothing more than to just stop, climb in bed and read until I fall asleep. I'm looking around and it's just all too much. Yes, I'm clearing out and cleaning up but then I have to take out the garbage and get the donation piles out of the house. It just doesn't stop and there's always something that needs to be done. I'm feeling overwhelmed again.
I look around and realize I need the two boxes and two giant garbage bags full of donations out of the house now so I loaded them up in my car to be taken to Goodwill tomorrow. I came back in and grabbed the first thing that caught my attention - more stupid bags. There is no end to my stockpile and I know I will continue to unearth more. I'm tired of all the decision making and confronting my stuff. While the last few days, I have been feeling proud of my accomplishments and liberated by the releases I've made, today I feel shame. I'm ashamed that I live in such clutter and mess. I'm ashamed that I have accumulated so much stuff. I'm ashamed by the consumerism and waste. It's disgustingly excessive, just like the flab on my body.
I have a choice to make. I can give into the dark feelings, let them drag me down into the mire. I can choose to drown them with food or avoid them while I bury my nose in a book/tv show/internet surfing. It would be so easy to let the feelings take over like have too many times before. I look around and this time, instead of giving in to the despair, I keep going. I pick-up the purse and take it to the drawer that's almost completely full of bags I've chosen to keep already and I place it inside. As I walk back down the hall, I decide to just tackle whatever I see that annoys me. This is clearly not the same focused approach I had been following the past few days and that's okay. I don't feel the same way tonight and I need to honor that while still getting something done. I also didn't follow the one touch rule tonight; instead, I worked on gathering some like things together in boxes. These boxes of things will have to be gone through eventually but I am not in a decision making mood tonight so this is the best I can do. My release total may be low for the day but I still made progress. I emptied some small shoebox size bins, consolidated some art supplies and got rid of some junk.
I definitely paused to acknowledge the things I was feeling. I think that's an important part of the work I am doing. So much so that I am not using the TV or music while I work. That's right, I've been spending all this time going through my belongings and cleaning up the mess with only my own thoughts for company. That was a purposeful decision on my part as I think mindfulness, being present, maintaining focus and really thinking about my life as it is and how I want it to be is a vital key to making this project a success. If I don't deal with the feelings, I will end up right back in this same place and I don't ever want to be here again. So I keep going because I can't get out of the mess I am in if I stop and wallow in the feelings. I've been indulging my feelings for years and years and all it's gotten me is fat, unhappy and drowning in stuff. So I can't afford not to keep going. Besides, I am really only obligated to spend 15 minutes per day decluttering. That's such a ridiculously small amount of time that I have to do it. I would feel like a complete loser if I didn't do at least that much and the time for self-punishment is over, so I just do it. (There's that Nike motto again!)
Did I get as much done tonight as I have the past few days? No. Did I work on the zone I had planned to? No. Did I get something done? Yes. Did I get more than the minimum 15 minutes? Yes. I also got 20 minutes of cleaning done and made dinner for the 4th day in a row. All of that was after attending a 2-hour PFLAG meeting tonight. I also walked two miles and climbed 18.25 flights of stairs today.
So today's lesson is about feeling like you want to quit and give up while continuing to move forward anyway. As Dr. Phil is fond of saying, "If you always do what you've always done, then you'll always get what you always got." Well, I want something more and better so that's just not even an option.
| TODAY | OVERALL | ||
| DONATED: | 10 | 118 | |
| TRASHED: | 4 | 45 | |
| TOTAL: | 14 | 163 |
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