(starts @ 15:37)
Karate Chop: Even though I’m clinging to my stuff…
…and I can’t let go…
…because they made me let go before… …when I wasn’t ready…
…I deeply and completely… …accept myself anyway.
Even though I’m clinging to my stuff… …and I don’t want to let go…
…don’t make me!...
…I accept who I am and how I feel.
Even though I have this clinging feeling… …I feel a little desperate…
…I accept who I am… …no matter what.
Eyebrow: This clinging feeling…
Side of the eye: I need to cling to my stuff! Under the eye: I’m clinging to my clutter. Under the nose: What if I didn’t need to? Chin: What if I felt confident and relaxed? Collarbone: But I’m clinging to my stuff. Under the arm: What if I let go?
Top of the head: I wonder how I’d feel. Carol: Deep breath.
Rick: Ahhhhh… (deep breath)
Carol: The energy of that word is really powerful. Thanks for bringing it up. Rick: It’s very childlike when we think of clinging, but it’s also one that…
As human beings, we cling to life, even in our agedness. (laughing) We will cling to a job that isn’t right for us. We’ll cling to a lot of old memory stuff.
Carol: And hurt and abandonment and rejection - you think that people
would want to forget them, but nooooo…
Rick: Nooooo…
Carol: Are you kidding? They hold them in a very special place, a very
special file, and they go check on them once in a while.
Rick: We say that with respect… Carol: Absolutely.
Rick: …because there’s a deep part of us that wants to resolve it. You and
I have been looking at how the brain responds to trauma. There’s a part of us that gets ‘frozen in time’ at that moment of abandonment - the things
that are connected to it are like the “bread crumbs” that I think take us back to that. So until we process that old trauma, we need some way back. That makes sense to me. Why would I not get rid of something that has a bad memory attached to it? Well, there’s a part of me that’s still back there, and as soon as I relieve that, I’ve noticed that people say, “Oh, yeah, I can let go of this.” That, to me, is a sign that there is a deeper intelligence working in the letting go process. We don’t let go. We cling to something for as long as we need to, especially if there’s something that’s unresolved.
Carol: Right, and sometimes out of habit. If you were taught that you
weren’t any good, then you have new experiences of that every year of your life, and you cling to those because it feels like they’re truths.
Rick: That’s right. This is my evidence.
Carol: Yes. “I can prove to you why I should be rejected.”
Rick: If somebody is rejected, what is an emotion that comes up?
Carol: Hurt is number one. I have also found that confusion is there. “I
don’t get it. Why me?” I’ve said that. I’ve felt that. I’ve had clients that said, “Huh? What do you mean, you rejected me?” There’s a shock to being rejected - depending, of course, if the person is quite aggressive about it, if they say something that’s really mean or nasty, or it’s a really big
disappointment. Let’s say you get rejected for a job position, or you don’t get into the school that you applied to, or something like that. It depends on what meaning you put to it, but it’s the initial hit going right to your gut, and then hurt, and then confusion. I think confusion is a big deal with some of these. People don’t get why that happened, and that’s hard.
Rick: Lets tap on that. Tapping on Confusion
(starts @ 19:24)
Karate Chop: Even though I don’t know why that happened…
…and maybe I never will…
…I deeply and completely accept my feelings… …and I’m ready to move on.
Eyebrow: I’ll never understand it.
Side of the eye: Maybe it’s not understandable. Under the eye: Is that okay?
Chin: I’ve decided that’s okay.
Collarbone: I’ll never understand it.
Under the arm: I never will understand them.
Top of the head: And I have decided to move forward. Rick: Deep breath… Ahhhhh…
Carol: How many people have come to us in sessions over the years and
said, “He or she broke up with me” or “He or she left” and they’re still looking for closure. They want the answer: “Why?” The “why is often impossible to explain, especially to the person that has been left.
Rick: Do we sometimes get stuck in anger? Carol: Yes. Absolutely.
Rick: So how does anger play into clutter?
Carol: Well, I ask my clients, if they come in and clutter is a problem, “Is
collecting and having clutter an angry act on your part?”
Rick: A-ha.
Carol: “Is there some way that you get back at someone this way? Do you
get angry at yourself, or does holding onto clutter help you hold onto anger?”
Rick: There’s two aspects there. One is the revenge aspect. “He hates the
fact that I collect this stuff, so I’m going to do it anyway because it’s my way of…” what? Getting even, showing that, “You can’t control me.”
Carol: They’re saying, “Ha, ha! Watch this!” I’ve got people saying they
won’t be successful to get back at their parents. Again, it can be totally illogical as far as the behavior, but it works. It’s scratching some itch. So holding onto clutter - as you say, the two pieces of ‘holding on’ are, “You can’t control me” and “I’m going to do this…” It works, but totally
temporarily, right?
Rick: Yes. And the aspect I think also is that people have an attitude that
they’re told by other people that they need to clean up, that they need to be more organized, whether it’s a boss, or a roommate, or your mother and father, still after you about how messy your room is, and now it’s your whole house. There’s a part of us that wants to object to being dictated to.
Carol: Right.
Rick: It’s very human. I think that we’re freedom-seeking beings when
people try to disempower us, especially if our parents did, you know? If you like a messy room, why should I have to clean it up?
Carol: I never understood that. Like, who cares? I was the mess out of all
the kids, and my parents weren’t terribly upset about it - it wasn’t a huge deal or anything, but I was a mess. So what?
Rick: Do you notice that it plays in for you at all? Did you ever get that
feeling of, “Fine. I’ll just keep it the way I want it.”?
Carol: What I notice is that, over the years, tapping on so much emotional
baggage, basically, and just releasing and releasing and releasing, it’s curious to me that I was a mess and my siblings weren’t. You know what I mean? I’m thinking, “Huh. I really came by this naturally. I really started out that way!” You know? I don’t know what it did for me. I would do things as a kid, and I would play the guitar, and I would have wonderful time periods of being lost in music or something like that. I didn’t want to clean up! It was boring!
Rick: Yeah!
Carol: It was totally boring.
Rick: Do you want to lead us in one, for those people who feel that it’s
boring and ridiculous to have to keep things that clean?
Carol: It was never a high value for me. It was a value for my siblings and
my parents, but it doesn’t have a charge for me. Now, as I’m older, I want neat, tidy, and clean. Well, it was always clean, but it was just stuff.
Rick: Right. So those are choices. Let’s imagine that somebody is still in a
place, right now, where anger is coming up. There’s a contrast between how
they want to keep it and how other people in their life are looking at them.
Carol: Mmm-hmm.
Rick: They’re angry about the judgment. I looked at it the other way. I
was the clean one, and my brother was the slob. When you were talking, I’m finding, “You know, there’s a part of me that’s still needing to be a little cleaner than maybe I would want to be…” Sometimes when I’m busy, out of the sense of “See? I’m the clean one!” (laughing)
Carol: Right! Watch this! (laughing) Rick: So do you want to do a round there?
Carol: Yes, but it’s interesting - I’m still trying to get to those feelings. I
have much more feelings as an adult about it, but back then, was it
frustrating to be told to clean up my room? Sure. It was never successful. I never could keep it without clothes piled on the chair.
Rick: Yes.
Carol: So it’s interesting, and it doesn’t feel like it was connected to anger
as much as I can’t quite get back to that. I know that, as an adult - as I’ve been tapping on issues and conflicts and feelings - that whole clutter issue is changing for me at a deep level. I didn’t look at a pile and say, “Even
though I have this clutter pile in front of me…” I have been working on anger, fear, hurt, guilt, abandonment, grief, loss…fear. As a result, I am cleaning the deep inside, metaphorically and literally, of closets and cabinets.
Rick: Well, we notice that, not only in clutter, but in weight… Carol: Absolutely.
Rick: … in every issue. If you are addressing these emotions, I believe you
come into a very natural, authentic balance that’s right for you. That may be on the clean side, it may be on the messy side.
Carol: Right.
Rick: It may be very thin and athletic; it may be soft and sensual.
Whatever your natural balance is, if you’re out of that balance, it’s probably the kind of distressed feeling that brought you to this program.
Carol: So, for someone listening: Do you get back at anyone, now, by
being cluttered and having a lot of stuff and holding - we’re back to holding on versus releasing.
Rick: That’s right. Holding onto the power of being able to “do it my way”
Carol: All of the feelings we’ve worked on - the overwhelm, fear, scarcity,
abandonment, and anger - they’ve all come back to that, ultimately. Do you want to lead me through?
Rick: I’m feeling like I want you to. Carol: Okay.