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We have a contract with every item in our home. Every person, every thing, every action we encounter, all of these may be linked to our contracts.
When we bring something into our home we deepen the possibilities in which we have a contract, big or small, with this item.
Dana from a Minimal Mom talks about the silent todo list, which to me is another version of the silent contracts. We buy things to serve a purpose, but if we don’t allow them to fulfill the purpose we are letting down our side of the contract.
No one is buying clutter to fill their house with stuff so that they can't breathe and are consumed by the weight of all they own, and yet, so many of us are. We tell ourselves we need it, it’s a bargain, we justify it through our identity, that it doesn’t take up much space, that it might be useful one day, and yet, the moment it enters our house we take on an obligation, we form a contract to care for and use or enjoy the said item.
When we declutter we are letting go, dissolving the contractual obligations we created. We are no longer tied psychically to the item. While we hold onto the items we allow them to keep a psychological hold over us. So why is it so hard for so many of us to let go? We know that an item no longer services or supports us, and yet we just don't seem to be able to trash or donate it. It stays in our home sucking the life out of us, weighing us down with guilt or shame, silently mocking us from the corner. We feel anxious, but don't know why. The smallest choices seem impossible to make. We start to snap at our family. We seek help and doctors prescribe medication and they don't help uys get to the core issue, and more and more stuff piles up More stuff comes in, little leaves. We know we cant sustain it, we beat ourselves up, and the spiral downward continues. Why? Well, if we look at this through the work of Caroline Myss and her Archetypes we discover the core four, the survivals, are generally the drivers of this. The child not wanting to take responsibility, the saboteur wanting to avoid the truth, the prostitute sacrificing spiritual fulfillment for material gains, and the victim playing the woe is me and it’s all too hard cards.
Decluttering and changing our household habits is hard because we need to navigate our core companions, the ones that have helped us survive so long, and who we rely on in so many ways, and often they have possessed us and they are now in control, not us. We can reclaim control. We can take charge of our lives. We can do it by building our decisive muscle. The child collects things for the magic they hold, but they need guidelines and rules. The victim wants to blame someone else, but the truth is we did this, and we can step in, take back our power, and make our own choice. The prostitute falls into scarcity and is gathering to protect, if we have enough stuff we can survive, and yet we sell our soul to give up the space to the things, no more, we can identify our values, we can protect our soul and not give into the material world claims. The saboteur, the saboteur is subtle and sneaky, hidden in justifications and excuses that are so elegant it takes a wisened soul to see through them. The saboteur is designed to test us to see if we truly know what matters, to see what we will fight for. And a house that is transformed from chaos to calm, from life-sucking to a sanctuary is worth fighting for.
Navigating our survival archetypes and how they influence what we hold onto in our homes is simple enough, though not always easy.
1. Bring awareness to how they operate and play out.
2. Learn to negotiate with and navigate them from dark to light.
3. Rewrite the contracts with your stuff - allowing you to let go and move forward.
There is so much I could say about this, and I will be saying so much more in next week's Q & A Call in the Household management course as well as in my upcoming archetype course. If you want to learn more about how you can get onto either of these then book a “Let’s Chat” Call here: https://www.wisteriaenterprises.com.au/service-page/letschat