If you live in one of what we coastal big city elitists call the flyover states, then you are probably intimately familiar with the 4H Clubs. All I know about them is what I’ve seen in movies having something to do with young people raising farm animals and leading a wholesome, countrified outdoorsy kinda life. These movies are usually musicals. This is not the 4H to which I am referring.
One of the Oprah Show repeats recently was her Clean Up Your Messy House Tour with de-clutter expert, Peter Walsh. The tour visited super messy homes and dorm rooms. Oprah even brought one couple’s minivan onto the show. When she opened the back hatch, there was an archeological dig of layers of trash, snacks, papers, clothes, toys and sporting equipment dating back years.
Gasp! Shock! How could they let that happen? They can’t even fit all their kids in the car! Hmmm, just like I can’t see the baseboard in my bedroom for all the short stacks of books, magazines and papers I can’t seem to get rid of because I just know I’ll need one day. Yes, this show hit home, pun intended.
See, I go through spurts. Every so often I take a day and go on a rampage of folding, hanging, shelving and tossing. Then I breathe deeply the air of sanity and space in my home which lasts for days or weeks…until I start cluttering again. So I was paying close attention to the show to see what words of wisdom Peter had for the audience and for me.
Then he uttered them, his 4Hs – head, heart, home, hips. He‘s even written a book called Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat? Oh lord, you mean they really are connected? No wonder when the mail piles up I’m eating more bread and rice. So that’s why I’m waking up at 3 a.m., the perpetually postponed items on my to-do list drilling holes in my sleep? I’m feeling stuck and guilty for procrastinating, holding on to the physical reminders of what are really old unfulfilled dreams. Watching myself avoid the things I need to do, and even worse, not saying things I need to say.
The clutter is the distance I feel from being in control of my life and present to the woman I really am now. I don’t mean control in the she-who-must-be-obeyed kind of way. But from the sense of being centered, like the calm eye of a storm; being the hub of the wheel of my life with all the spokes – relationships, commitments, responsibilities, hopes, dreams and plans – connected to and radiating out from me. That image alone fills me with bliss.
So I am starting again, this time with awareness, working on the outside AND the inside. While I go through the closets and drawers and fill up bags for the trash, the Goodwill and the swap, I am making note of what I really see that I’ve been pretending not to see in my relationships, commitments, responsibilities, hopes, dreams and plans. Then speaking on it and acting on it, right in the moment… healing head, heart, home and hips.
