Chaos As Comfort: A Case Study in the Meaning of Clutter
What if you have been hanging on to your mess and your chaos in your home because it feels like comfort?What if your messy home is a result of something much deeper? Right now during lockdown many of us are discovering hidden things about ourselves and our homes. This is a time to connect with yourself, to go within and to discover who we are and why we do what we do.
One of my long distance organizing clients had a big realization the other day that she shared with me. I have been working with her on several projects in her home. My client has given me permission to share with all of you what she has discovered about herself in this process and how what she has learned will help her movin forward.
We worked together last fall on two areas in her home, and now we will be working together again on another area. What she shared with me really made me think more about our relationship to our spaces and our things. Especially in a time where we are all here at home, this is an important topic to delve into and to discover what is behind the mess.
Mess and Relationships:
She has shared with me that she has had a difficult relationship with her mother for a long time. She feels that part of the reason that she keeps messes around is because it is a rebellion against her parents. She told me that they other day when she was doing dishes, she had a realization about what all of that meant:
This was when I had the thunderbolt! I realized that Id’ known that my messiness was always a reaction against my parents because they were so obsessive, I mean like obsessed with organization and stuff like this, and they’d never be more than 2 minutes late…..What I realized, standing there was that you know what- in my mind, in my “still rebelling against my mother mind” that mess means to me: Mess Means Love. I thought, if my house is never anywhere as tidy as my mother’s, that means I love my boys. And, to be as tidy as I fantasize about it being, that would mean I would be like my mother and that means I wouldn’t love my boys.And, I would have to buy into being her. I just realized that thinking has been completely invisible to me all these years.
The main theme that my client realized was that in her mind: “Mess is Love.” That is the formula that she had been following in her life. This is a pattern that takes some time to unravel and something we will work together on. This is something that I love about my work. It’s never actually about the mess, but the feelings and the work behind it all. The enivronment that we grew up in has some bearing on how we keep our own homes. It is a pattern that is sometimes so deeply ingrained in us that we don’t realize it until we start doing some work on it. We al have automatic thoughts and patterns that keep us doing certain things until we have a realization about them.
I love what my client says about decluttering and organizing:
The thing is, when I do a big tidy-up I feel amazing! It’s great to have a break from the really stressful effects of this stupid way of thinking (my mess is love).
Mess and the Subconscious:
She expressed to me the other day that she had some more deep revelations that have come out especially from spending all of her time at home during the lockdown going on right now. Many times, unless we confronted with something in a situation like a lockdown our true feelings about something may not surface for some time. This has become an opportunity for her to feel through this situation and discover the “why” behind it all.
“…This program or this toxic truth or whatever that had been running in my mind all these years that I only realized the last couple of days is that in my mind a tidy house and things being organized and being on time was more important than me, because that’s the think is that my parents could never give me that unconditional positive regard. And that’s the thing is that I know that my dad loved me and I know that my mom loves me. But it’s like I’ve walked around going like “it’s no use to me.” That kind of love where she will you know go into a passive agressive rage with me and then say I had a terrible childhood I can’t be a reasonable person, you know it’s not my fault sort of thing. That is no use to me. What I need is somebody who’ll say I’m really sorry. “
Often when we are dealing with our things, we are dealing with deep emotions. Until we start to really confront the mess in our homes or the overwhelm all around us, we may not know how ingrained something is from our past. I believe that there is always emotion behind everything that we do. This is something that my client is exploring with her relationship to her home.
My client also expressed to me that she felt her mom’s tidy house was more important than her. That can be so very painful to endure. That can be something that can be buried in your life for many years without you knowing about it.
When you don’t get that unconditional positive regard as a child…children are very good observers and very poor interpreters. so whereas my mom has been sitting there saying “I’m so damaged, I feel scared by everything.” and I’m going to lash out to defend myself, I’m a wounded animal. As a child I was like, mommy loves a tidy house more than me. And so I fell in and I’ve expressed that all these years. with the mess. It’s all been rebelling against my mom, like saying yeah, you are crap! It’s really, really painful to see that.
This House Does Not Align with Who I am:
Realizing that your environment doesn’t reflect who you truly are deep in your core is a very deep concept. When we are aligned with our selves and our environment we can feel more at ease with life and we can begin to heal our lives. My client realized that these feelings and realizations hadn’t surfaced before, and now that she’s aware of it, she is truly ready and “all-in” for the changes to come to her home.
When something comes up from your subconscious where it’s been hidden to your conscious, no one has ever told me this, I’ve just observed it but because it has surfaced, automatically its weaker. It’s like your subconscious will let you see it because it’s not so dangerous for you to know that. And I think that’s the thing now, it feels really painful to understand that that’s what I’ve been thinking, that that’s how low my opinion has been of myself. That’s how much that child-thinking has still been in there. That I’ve thought that mess, like me is not as important as tidiness.
Today I looked around my room with all the bits of mess that have just been piled up for weeks and I looked at it and I thought “this house does not align with who I am.”
So I think that’s amazing, because obviously I think it has been aligning with who I was and I haven’t admitted that because it was too powerful. I had to keep that fact in my subconscious, but now it’s ready to surface because I’m ready to do something about it. I’ve just been going, oh I hate all this.
The major question she is asking now is: How can I change the meaning of mess? How can I change the meaning of tidiness? I love these questions. This is something that we will explore together.
Internal vs. External:
Wrestling with external and internal controls is a very interesting process. My client expressed to me that at first she wasn’t sure where to begin. We will be working on some specific plans for certain areas of her home together, but working on her home a certain amount of time a day has become a solution for her:
The external locus of control in regards to my house is”this is too much for me, like, I can’t do anything about it. Where do I begin?” And internal is: This house no longer aligns with who I am. I’m going to put aside 42 minutes a day to do clearing. I quite like that, 42 minutes a day, just to do the clearing. At the moment, I’ve got more time, to say look, I am aligning with who I want to be. So I think that’s an amazing revelation.
I truly believe that now that she has discovered that her mind believes that mess equals love, she can learn to give herself grace and live in the happy place of the fact that there will be messes, but having a generally tidier more orderly home can also mean love to her and it create a more relaxing environment for her and her children.
I believe that there is some deep work to be done here, however putting in place some daily practices, working to create routines around tidying up and creating positive rewards for these practices will be some of the ways we will explore how my client can reclaim her home as a place of joy for her and her kids.
Do you see yourself in my client? How does your environment feel to you? What does your mess mean?
Wishing you love and light always,
Trista
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