Cleaning House.

I admit it: I am absolutely obsessed with the show Hoarders on A&E. Have you seen it? It is incredible. And for a type-A, organized, keep-it-neat girl like myself it is especially captivating. I watch, my mouth agape, as each story turns out to be more shocking than the last. All I can wonder is where did they find these people? And how did these individuals let their hoarding get so out of control?

Each episode chronicles the story of an individual who is a hoarder. You see, firsthand, their living spaces (if they can still call them that) that are now full of everything you can possibly imagine. Trash. Clothing. Animals. Baby items. School supplies. Handbags. You name it, it's there. Years of life, in objects, crammed into little and big spaces and in some areas, all the way up to the ceiling. Literally.

Far from being exploitative, the life coaches and psychiatrists and professional organizers who are a part of the show help the hoarder try to figure out what caused them to start hoarding. And in each case, there is always an initial trauma that pushes them into this behavior. It could be a death. Or the loss of a job. A divorce. Or an illness. Whatever it is, something happens, this knocks the person off their feet and their coping skill, of sorts, is to hoard. Once the trauma is defined, the staff of the show then work with the person to move past that trauma. The main way of doing this is to sort through the house, piece by piece, to physically clear out the past and move on. It is a painstaking process, filled with stops and starts and tears and anger, but in most cases they are able to help the person sort through their things and, in turn, sort through their issues in an attempt to have a normal living area.

Talk about cathartic! Each time I watch an episode it makes me want to clean out my closet three times in a row just to show solidarity with their efforts! But because I'm not a hoarder, I (quite thankfully) don't have much to sort through. I have always liked my surroundings to be clean and orderly. Something about the cleanness and spareness of my space has always been comforting. I like what I have and I have what I need, thus making it easy to keep it simple and keep it clean. My house is not pristine by any case and I still have a "junk drawer" or two. But my attempts to keep my rooms organized and free from clutter sometimes help to keep my mind and life relatively organized and free from clutter, too. If I have a bad day or a particularly stressful encounter, coming home to an organized space calms me and helps me exhale. So to see the people on Hoarders struggle not only with their past trauma but also with not having a space of their own to rest and relax and escape from their stress is especially poignant.

What is especially remarkable to me is that in every episode, no matter their initial trauma, the hoarder has fashioned a physical wall of objects between themselves and the world outside their door. This barrier is their visual shield between them and whatever issue they might be avoiding. A small piece of protection. Having that wall up as a barrier and holding onto their belongings and, in turn, their past is much less daunting than facing whatever it is head on, or so they believe. Imagine what that sort of fear is like--they are so afraid that being physically surrounded and crowded in until there is absolutely no room to move or live, literally being stuck in the mire of their past, is actually more manageable than figuring out why they do this in the first place. They'd rather be physically restricted, literally trapped, than get to the root of their problem.

But, truly, who are we to judge these people? And are we really that much different?

We are all hoarders in one way or another. We all struggle and hold onto issues from our past. Literally and figuratively, we all hold on to things, past relationships, behaviors and times in our lives. We all hold on to ideas of what we hoped to accomplish or who we hoped to be like or be with, letting this limit our movement in the present. We hoard old photos of past loves that ended badly. We hoard past conversations that hurt us, letting them run unchecked on a loop in our heads. We hoard the unattractive behaviors that we let continue in ourselves and those around us. Whether we can see it or not, we all fashion our own wall or shield between ourselves and whatever past trial we may be running from, little or big. We craft that wall, put up that shield and just hold on.

So, I wonder, what are you holding onto? What person, issue or idea is forming a wall between the life you are living and the life you want to lead? What is trapping you where you are? Whatever it is, whatever the issue, it is time to clean house. Clean out your mental and physical space. Give yourself room to move. And get rid of the things, people and beliefs that are blocking you from the life you want. If we hold onto the past with both hands, there is no hand free to receive what is here in the present. And there is really so much to receive.