Clutter

A few nights ago I dreamed I was on the last day of my vacation at the beach. The day we were going to leave I was looking forward to one last day in the sun. However, before I was able to go out and enjoy my last day of fun, I needed to go to the doctor (this was a subtle sub-message from my Higher Self about taking care of a medical issue I was trying to ignore), and then I had to pack the car. It seems on this particular vacation, Clay and I had brought along a lot of people whom I did not recognize. We had to make sure they were all taken care of and then it seems that we had to pack a lot of stuff into our car. I don't mean regular vacation stuff. We were packing furniture, the shower curtain, large crates of some sort, things that you would not normally take on vacation with you. By the time we had taken care of all the details, you guessed it, it was too late to enjoy the last day of our vacation.

Normally I wake up from these dreams and I quickly forget them. Many times I wake up exhausted just from having so many details to take care of in my dreams. Later I casually commented to my husband Clay that I seem to dream a lot about clutter and he just gave me one of those...OH REALLY... looks...and the light went on.

Recently I have been contemplating how I can juggle my job at the Post Office with the stuff I really like to do, that is, helping people heal their emotional lives, giving messages, doing shamanic journeying, and also enjoy my favorite season, summer. The dream I just described is a recurrent one with different scenarios, but always there is a lot of things I am trying to pack into a car that seem unnecessary for the trip. Why would I need to pack up the shower curtain to go home? And the furniture?

The reason I share this is because I believe that many of us try to pack more into our lives than is necessary. I, for one, try to take care of more things than is my responsibility to take care of. My current focus is on eliminating what is not necessary for now and doing what brings me joy. Yes, I still have to go to work and pay the bills. Sure I would like to lay at the beach all summer and just come back in the fall, but that is not realistic at this time. However, I can eliminate the need to take everyone along on my journey (all the people we took along with us to the beach in my dream). By everyone I mean trying to take responsibility for everyone else's  life.......   The key to this dream was that I was already where I wanted to be (the beach) but I was so busy with details that I was not enjoying the trip. Most of us can relate to always thinking there is some point in the future when we will have reached our goals and will be able to say.. I have arrived. I have some news. You have already arrived. But sometimes the devil is in the details. There is stuff to pack, people to take care of, doctor visits, and before you know it, the vacation is over.


What I have decided is that I need to decide what it is that brings me joy and put the rest on the back shelf for now. No I am not quitting my job at the Post Office. I will just find ways to find joy in it. I will focus on the joy of having a steady job and a steady income. I will lay aside the need to fill up my time with stuff that is not joyful to me. I will find the feeeellling of joy and focus on that. Anything that is not giving me joy is clutter.  And yes, I cleaned out some drawers today and threw some stuff away. And as I did, I declared that I was decluttering my life....

The doctor visit is done, I have returned the furniture to the house and stopped trying to stuff it in my car and I am headed to the beach, so to speak. Time to enjoy life......