Last year I was on the road to burnout after three years of hospice chaplaincy.  Something had to change. Fortunately, I knew where to begin - more retreat time and a new spiritual director. During my years as a parish minister and then as a hospital chaplain I always had a spiritual director as part of my own support network. It helped me focus on my own spiritual life, which can get lost in tending those of others.

When my husband and I bought our house it was far away from my former spiritual director and I had not found a new one.  My spiritual life was languishing. So in the summer of 2018 I booked a retreat at a center very near my home and that retreat included an hour with a spiritual director.  I hoped she would become my new director and she did. She has helped me remember to renew myself spiritually.

This year my work with her has dovetailed with my Tidying Project in ways that have led to a great deal of internal growth.  For example, she's always suggesting books for me to read, and I had discovered one way to renew myself is to listen to audiobooks as I'm driving around between visits.  The news is too depressing. This past spring she suggested Dodging Energy Vampires: An Empath's Guide to Evading Relationships that Drain You and Restoring Your Health by Christiane Northrup. 

Previously I had dismissed her as too New Age-y.  However, I trust my spiritual director so found the audiobook and listened to it. Twice.   A lot of what Northrup made sense to me so I started doing some of the meditations in her book.  One of these, a Garden Meditation, helps you deal with early trauma when it is triggered.  

You know something has been triggered when your reaction is out of proportion to whatever has happened. The practice is to ask yourself to think of a number whenever this triggering happens. This often turns out to be the age you were when whatever was triggered happened.  This is where the garden meditation part starts.

You imagine a garden that is totally safe and staffed by angels who help keep it that way.  You imagine going into the garden where you find the child you were at that age.  You imagine interacting with the child, inviting them to come to you if they will.  You assure them they are safe and that you will return every day for 40 days to be with them.  And then you take three deep breaths and bring yourself out of your imagination into the present world.

Remember when I said that going through papers brought up a time when my past was triggered? I asked for a number related to that traumatic event and "fifteen" came up.  There were a few traumatic events that happened to me at that age that related to what was triggered for me at that time.  So I did the garden meditation for forty days, showing up for my fifteen year old self in an imaginary place that could hold her fear, anger, sadness, and pain.  

For the first couple of weeks she was sleeping every time I entered the garden - worn out from the stress of that time and also the relief of finally being in a safe place.  Later she expressed strong emotions - raging, weeping, trembling with fear. Over time she/I felt better.  

By the end of the forty days "we" had a moment of integration where I (in my imagination) embraced her and she entered and became a part of me.  In other words, I accepted that these things had happened to me in the past and released myself of their power over me in the present.  I became more whole. It was a very powerful experience.  I'm not triggered around those issues as often or as strongly.  This  means less stress for me and those close to me.  

As part of a larger effort at spiritual growth and sustainability in my work, Tidying Up has been about much more than just creating a more orderly house.  It has been about laying painful memories to rest in ways that keep them from intruding on my present life.  It has helped me to sustain myself for me work and for those I love.

Was the yard sale a bust? Well, we didn't sell a single thing. Not. A single. Thing.  It was discouraging.  At noon we put the furniture on the curb, loaded everything else up, and donated it.  We'll be able to take a tax write-off so it wasn't a total failure financially.

Even so, it feels like a success for at least three reasons.
1. All the stuff we didn't want or need will go to people who want and/or need it.
2. Proceeds from the sale of our donated items will go to charity.
3. It's gone!  I feel lighter. The house feels lighter and it is definitely tidier. Those are three reasons right there.

The biggest gift of this Tidying Project for me is the feeling of freedom.  Our house is so much less cluttered, so much more orderly.  Less mess for me means less stress.  The things we have are the things that bring us joy and that we want to have.  

Plus lots of unfinished projects are off the list either because I accepted I wouldn't finish them and let them go, or because I did complete them.  All that remains of my tidying project is going through sentimental items, then spending some time  reflecting on what Tidying Up has changed in me.  

As a child I was always scared of the basement. It was dark and musty and there were mice down there.  We went down there only during bad storms or to store or retrieve canned and frozen goods.  Quickly.  Darting in and out. That's it.  

Until recently I found my current basement scary mostly because of all the stuff I put down there intending to sell at a yard sale.  I procrastinated and didn't have the yard sale.   Part of the dread was the dread of facing an unfinished project.  Besides it is a little musty and there are mice down there.  

​Again, I am determined to tidy the whole house, a project I started in January of this year.  So I girded my loins and...  actually, I didn't.  Girding lions sounds like it would hurt.  Let's say I put on some grubby clothes, took a deep breath and went down into the Dreaded Basement.  Here's what I saw.

I have tidied it in the past but last year our foundation was leaking badly.  My husband pulled all the shelves away from the walls so a contractor could look at them.  This messed up the organization I had tried to impose but to be honest, a lot of the mess came from having too much stuff down there.  

The mess was overwhelming.  One thing I've learned to do when overwhelmed is to find a place to start.  Because I wanted to clean the basement as well as tidy it, the shelves had to come even further from the walls. That way I could clean behind and under them before putting them back.  This meant I needed space in the middle of the floor. This meant getting rid of unwanted stuff.

So I started carrying sellable things up stairs into my recently tidied dining room, as incentive to have the danged yard sale this year.  Before the holidays.  So we can fit people in our dining room. Unsellable things I threw out.  Now having space in the middle of the floor I pulled out all the shelves on one side and cleaned behind them. I cleaned the shelves and was selective about what I put back on them.  One side done.

The other side had no shelves, just a cluttered mess.  I have found that it helps to have designated places for things to land.  Everyone is more likely to put them back there if it's clear where they should go.  So I drug a pallet from the garden down into the basement to hold bags of pellets for our stove.

Then I used scrap wood to make another pallet to hold all the outdoor recreational items like beach chairs, sleds, boogie boards, golf clubs, fishing rods and tackle.  I swept the floor and looked around.  It hardly looks like the same place.  My husband later went down and sorted through some of his things, adding more to the yard sale stuff in the dining room and freeing up room on the shelves. 

​If I had sold all those extraneous items last year, the past twelve months would have been less stressful.  The Dreaded Basement would not have been so dreadful. This weekend we will have a yard sale for all that stuff. All that does not sell will be donated to charity so our basement can remain tidy, no longer a source of stress.

The deep lesson that comes from the basement is about the stress procrastination brings. Setting things aside to deal with Another Day means those things are there causing guilt and stress.  It's better to deal with them in the moment.  This is another lesson of Marie Kondo's.  Deal with it now.  Don't put it off.  Dealing with things as they come up leads to a less stressful, more joyful life.