^{Author: Brandy Metz, MSN, APRN, AGNP-C}

Purge

“Purge, emerge, and flourish. It’s natural.” ~ Tim Johnson

I love the show Hoarders. It is absolutely fascinating to me how people can live in such abhorrent conditions, completely unaware of how out of control their behavior has become. They live in complete chaos, and place deep sentimental attachments to incredible amounts of rotting broken things. Hoarders will literally not be able to access entire sections of their homes due to the tremendous accumulation of unusable items. Anything that could be of any possible value is buried and inaccessible under mountains of rubbish. Their living quarters are overtaken and they become enclosed by floor to ceiling trash. They cannot function. Inch by inch their lives are overtaken. Years of hoarding and decay leads to structural damage and dilapidation. All of their clutter becomes the breeding ground for rampant infestation. And there they reside. Comfortable in the insanity they created. This is home to them. It makes sense to them. They cannot see it correctly for the mayhem that it is. 

“People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

When the show’s cleaning team is assigned to a hoarder’s home, they arrive with dumpsters. The first order of business is to purge. And the drama begins! Hoarders are traumatized by the removal process. They fight to keep all of the bizarre, unusable, irreparable, and obvious trash. It is theirs. It’s been theirs. They cannot part with it. It is valuable to them. They are in complete denial of the damage their hoarding has cost them. The hoarder is tasked to go through and logically analyze each item. They attempt to defend the importance and significance of each broken item, but in the light of honest scrutiny, their thought processes and justifications are slowly unraveled. They begin to loosen their grip and let the cleaning process begin. They learn to let go of what does not serve them and what has been destructive in their lives.  

“When I let go of who I am, I become what I might be.” ~ Lao Tzu

We all share a little bit of that insanity. We all hold on to past hurts and past traumas. We are all a product of our past and the sum of our experiences. We are who we are dependent on how we process those experiences. Sometimes, people get stuck in them. They hoard their pain, guilt, regret, anger, and resentment. They ruminate on the past and justify their suffering. No matter how much time has passed, their pain is as fresh as the day they met it. Their anger is seething just beneath the surface. Their regret is crushing. Their guilt is palpable. Their resentments build and never lessen. They do not forgive. They do not forget. They do not move on. A part of them remains stuck in a time capsule, and they continue to relive their traumas and hoard their hurts. 

“The past is dead except for the life you give it.” ~ Myles Monroe

The pain of the past becomes the house they live in. Every traumatic experience is important and significant, and they hold them dear. Their experiences were impactful and real. They were hurt. They were violated, abused, abandoned, neglected, victimized, betrayed, defeated, misunderstood, rejected, robbed. They suffered. And they suffer still. They feel justified in their suffering, so they carry it. They want their experiences recognized and validated.  

“Letting go of our suffering is the hardest work we will ever do.” ~ Guatama Buddha 

When people perpetually relive their traumas, they don’t even realize how much real estate is being taken up in their lives. Ruminating in the past becomes a prison sentence. It becomes a state of normalcy. Familiarity. Home. Their feelings remain unhealed and unprocessed. Rotting in time. The past is gone, but they keep their pain ever present. 

“These mountains you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.” ~Najwa Zebian

Pain is a signal that we need healing. We need to process our experiences and allow our wounds to heal. To choose to release the past does not mean that we are not justified in our feelings. It does not discredit our experiences. It does not mean what happened didn’t happen. But that it is not happening still. The past is only alive in our minds. We are not meant to live there. There is nothing to be gained ruminating and re-opening old wounds. Yes we were hurt. Yes things happened. Yes we would have preferred they not to have happened. But it is our job to heal. To evolve. To move forward with time. To do the work we need to do to process the past, reconcile it, learn from it, and release it.

“If you focus on the hurt, you will continue to suffer. If you focus on the lesson, you will continue to grow.” ~ Unknown

The past is our teacher. Our job is to learn the lessons we were meant to learn from our experiences. We need to sort through them. We need to analyze them and reflect on them. When we process our experiences and our emotions, and gain all that we can from the past, there is no need to revisit it again. There is only suffering there. We do not need to relive it. We do not reside there anymore. The past is passed. We release our attachment to it and we move forward. Let the past lie and the lessons live.

“I can choose to let it define me, confine me, refine me, or outshine me, or I can choose to move on and leave it behind me.” ~ Unknown

The past is a story you tell yourself. Choose to no longer recite the same narrative that only imprisons you. In everything you do, you make a choice. Choose to reframe it. Choose to find the meaning in it and release the rest. Choose not to let it overtake your life. Choose to heal. Choose to let go. Choose to be free. Choose to purge, clean house, and let new life in your life. 

“When you have learnt to let go, you will be joyful and as you start being joyful, more will be given to you.” ~ Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar 

If you are living in the past, you cannot be fully in the present. Two things cannot occupy the same space at the same time, especially if they are in opposition to each other. You cannot have a clean inviting home and a hoard at the same time. Likewise, hoarding guilt, regret, anger, and resentment, prevents new life from entering into your life. Anger disrupts your peace. Guilt invades your self-love. Regret suffocates your ability to be present. Pain crowds your joy. The weight of your past barricades you from freedom.

 “If you want to fly, you have to give up what weighs you down.” ~ Toni Morrison. 

Purging the past creates an open expanse in your heart and your mind. Release what does not serve you any longer. Learn to let go. Goodness always fills a void once you choose to remove what is counterproductive and self-destructive. Just as light dispels darkness. It’s the way of things. You only need to clear space to make room for new life and new possibilities. 

“Nature abhors a vacuum, and if I can only walk with sufficient carelessness I am sure to be filled.” – Thoreau

Doing the work of unhoarding and releasing is the hard part. But as soon as you remove what is blocking the light, light floods in effortlessly. It’s the way of nature. Pure and simple. If you want a plant to thrive, you prune what is dead. Your only job is to remove the damaged and diseased parts that have been siphoning resources away from what could be fruitful. It will then be free to grow to its full potential. Remove what is bad and goodness will naturally take its place and flourish. Every breath you take abides by this law. Your drive to breathe is not driven by your need for oxygen, as you might think. Your drive to breathe is driven by your need to release carbon dioxide. Once you expel the toxic gas you’ve accumulated, a pressure gradient is created that draws in your next breath of fresh air. So don’t hoard your breath. Exhale so that you may inhale. Release that which is holding you back, weighing you down, and does not serve you anymore. Allow new life to flow into your life, naturally. All you have to do is purge.