I have a confession to make: I’m a hoarder. Not the stacks-of-old-magazines-in-the-garage kind of hoarder. I’m an emotional hoarder. I cling to past conversations, arguments, breakups, heartaches, you name it. Sometimes when I’m brushing my teeth, I find myself drifting off, face full of toothpaste and consternation, begrudgingly reminiscing about the time I got fired from a babysitting job, or didn’t respond quickly enough to a mean-girl drive-by insult, or sent a text message that got misconstrued to the point of disaster. I’m actually doing it right now, while I type this. Whoops.
When I found out the theme was saucha (cleanliness and purity), I honestly thought, “Wait, you must be mistaken. I am fundamentally the wrong person to write this article.” I practically play goalie for the opposing team. My backpack is my diaper bag, and my car is littered with bath toys and cheesy dino crackers. I have only one of every pair of socks I own. I don’t even qualify on the food front: I don’t cleanse, I don’t juice, I like whiskey and cheese, preferably together, and on top of all that, my mouth is big and I curse with great gusto. What could I possibly have to say about saucha?
A little mess is OK
I actually embrace a little messiness. I’ve spent enough of my life being obsessed with everything being perfect to appreciate a little untidiness now and again. I wear pants I can wipe my hands on, and it’s OK by me if the dishes sit in the sink during the day.
But I realize there is a kind of mess I’m trying to work on: the hoarding. The mess of past mistakes, conversations and imperfections my mind clings to. My emotional hoarding is the mess I’m trying really hard to clean up, and wow, does it take discipline. It’s hidden in every corner, and it crops up when I least expect it. Cleaning up my mind, letting go of the stuff that isn’t helping me grow, learn or move forward anymore: that is the saucha practice I need.
Putting things away
In the moment we experience things, they are useful to us. When we use a coffee maker, a saw, a ladder or a game, we experience joy or frustration or excitement while we use it. When we’re done, we put it away, because it isn’t useful anymore. Sometimes we leave things out after we use them, and the stuff that was useful becomes mess. It gets in our way and keeps us from experiencing other things.
That’s what happens with our emotional mess, too. It’s stuff we once experienced, good, bad or somewhere in the gray zone, that is no longer useful to us.
So I’ve resolved to practice saucha in a new way: to clear out the mess that’s getting in my way, to stop hoarding, to make space for new experiences. I’ll probably keep forgetting to take the lip balm out of my pants pockets, and I don’t use a napkin as often as I should. But I want the home I live in every day, my mind, to be free, clear and clean of the mess I sometimes leave behind.
