What’s cluttering your garage (you)?

We’ve been cleaning out our garage so we can park a vehicle in it for the first time in 24 years.  Truth be told, I’m not so much cleaning out the garage as I’m clearing out my past.  If you’ve ever cleaned out a closet, a basement or an attic (we had these in Ohio where I grew up), you know what I’m talking about.

Why do we have to go through this letting go process anyway?  Because we humans are hoarders.  Perhaps not the hoarder who might stack the last 20 years of newspapers in the living room or 72 cases of white sox in the bedroom.  We hoard thoughts and feelings.  While the could-a/should-a/would-a and if-only thoughts don’t take up physical space, they do crowd out new possibilities.

And what if we let this (situation, relationship, job, opportunity, title, dream) go and nothing better shows up?  This unexamined belief may be the mother-lode for why we work for people who don’t value us and why we stay in relationships that aren’t nurturing.

So I’m sorting items into toss, Goodwill, garage sale or keep, items like high school yearbooks, term papers from 1970 and my business cards from past employers. What was I thinking would happen by holding on to the stuff? That by saving the yearbook, I’d reincarnate the body I had as the most athletic girl of our senior class? By saving old business cards Nokia would beg me to come back and offer a bonus to do so?  That by storing the A+ college papers (didn’t have enough boxes for the C’s), I’d have proof of my IQ?

I even had a stack of love-denied letters (I kept the love-desired, too!). Did I really think that the ones who broke my heart would someday come running, saying, “I was wrong, you are my soul mate!”   Crazy, right?  Yet the evidence was in my hand and the thoughts were in my head.

It was easy to toss the year books and the business cards (because they’d make me new ones, right). The love-notes went in and out of the “save” pile a few times. Why? Because some part of me was still in the relationship. When that truth emerged, they were tossed and the phantom relationship ended.

Letting go isn’t about the object or memory it brings back, it’s about letting go of the meaning that keeps us anchored in the past with regret and limits who we are now.  Our attachment to the past, whether we deemed it a failure or a success, limits our performance today.

Letting go takes courage — courage to put the past in the past and be present.  Consciously tossing out the objects doesn’t negate the past, it makes room for the present and that makes room for the future.

• What am I holding onto that might be holding me back? It doesn’t matter if you’re holding onto a huge mistake (why didn’t I take that other job!) or a huge success (I was chosen out of 300 candidates), either can keep us stuck in a certain view of ourselves.  Lexus commercial makes the same point with all the trophy received.
• What might show up if I let go of what I think it means about me? What if I let go of being right about being wronged or that this is the only job I can get or the only relationship I can have?
• Who might I be if I let go of who I have always considered myself to be?
• What is it costing me today to stay attached to the past?

Clear out a closet or one corner of the garage or one box you haven’t looked at for 10 years and see what thoughts about yourself you’re ready to put in the past.

BTW: The vehicle we’re readying the garage for? A restored 1950 F1 Ford truck.  It’ll be interesting to see what it feels like to intentionally ride around in the past. I’ll let you know.