For some time I’ve been aware that we can clutter our minds, but it caught me off guard to realize that my soul can also be full of clutter. I was reading from Francis Weller’s The Wild Edge of Sorrow that we carry grief for the places within us that have not known love. Hmmm. I thought about that. We feel shame and embarrassment about those places and often shove them into some dark corner. Then we pile on other hurts and rejections to further cover up what we begin to think of as our deficit. We erroneously think that something is wrong with us.

Then this clutter fills a corner of our soul, growing every day until it’s a huge mound of regret and sorrow. It’s unnamed because we’ve long forgotten why we put it there, but its very presence pulls us into a feeling of nothingness. We feel overwhelmed. We feel loss.

So now what?

Quoting David Whyte, Weller writes that we must “. . . approach the fragments of our life with curiosity and humility, . . . because every part of us longs to reveal its voice to the world. We must welcome back all we have sent away and, in so doing, become a new annunciation.”

Just as we declutter our closets, — pulling out garments that we forgot we owned and some that we never wore, looking at and rejecting those that just aren’t us and keeping others that do reflect who we are – we go about decluttering our souls. Not leaving one piece hidden on the floor, but giving stage to each idea, wound, hurt, experience, every grief that was denied. Listening to its voice without fear or indictment; knowing simply that it was felt and held space within you, and now it is free. What a proud announcement it becomes of who we are!

What a wonderful feeling it is to not feel need to hide anything. Just think of the possibilities ahead of us as we can breathe more easily. Grief will still come, but we don’t have to hide it away. Let it flow, give it voice and let us learn from it because it is part of us. It can teach us. It only has negative power when we ignore it, kick it to the side or deny its presence. I’d rather embrace it and wring all the learning I can from it.

So is that all a little too heavy? Then the short version is this: When grief or adversity comes to you, don’t deny it, curse it and shove it into a corner. At the very least, put it on a shelf where it remains visible and you can easily retrieve it when you’re ready.