Hoarders

There's a show called Hoarders: Buried Alive that I catch sometimes; the people who are on it live in houses that are filled to the brim with stuff.  Most of the stuff is crap, there was even a person who had a flattened dead cat in between some stuff in their house!  SCARY!  I hate to say it, but the grotesqueness of this sickness (hoarding) fascinates me and invokes a deep sense of pity, it's sobering.  The people who hoard, more times than not, started because of some hurt in their past; something like a divorce or the death a loved one triggered this unhealthy coping mechanism.  While I admit to being a former pack-rat, I cringe at the thought of my home being incredibly cluttered to the point of endangerment of my person, house, and those that come in contact with my hoarding; my pride, alone, would prevent me from getting that far.

I think about how ridiculous/silly it is to accumulate such an overwhelming amount of stuff and I say that me and others are not like that and that people who are 'hoarders' are not the norm of society...but let's look deeper.  Sure, we may not accumulate clutter, useful or not, but our hearts do.  We accumulate these hurts and bad things we've done and bury them deep in our hearts where 'no one' can find them.  But no matter how deep and secretive, God sees all things.  On the show, they bring in a psychologist and professional organizer along with a close relative or friend all to help the healing processes.  They survey the house (and sometimes houses) and decide where and how to start and then take action.  On a recent episode (like most) the lady (hoarder) cleared her kitchen outside first.  When she first did this and started the de-cluttering process she had a good number of breakdowns, she was ashamed, panicky, and scared that she would lose control of this whole process.  She was ashamed because her lifestyle was being exposed, not just to her daughters, psychologist, and organizer, but to her neighbors and the nation; I think most of us can understand why she feels that way, I know I would feel humiliated.  She's panicky because this is something new and challenging, it's going to somewhat force her to make changes to her inner and outer life, this is the unknown for her.  As she was sorting through her stuff to decide what she was going to keep, trash, and donate to something like Goodwill, she felt like she was losing control because she was having to let go of these things that have inadvertently become part of her life.  As she sorted, she learned more about herself by talking about the memories/emotions/dreams that she had attached to each item.  It became a cathartic process for her, not just a deep spring cleaning.  Just like any healing process, there was some encountered pain, but that's to be expected and is not a bad thing.

When we allow God to be the Psychologist-Organizer-Family in our lives, we go through the same process  as people who hoard.  We often feel ashamed, because we've been convinced that we're freaks, like we're the only one who is like this with these problems.  We feel panicky because it feels like our equilibrium has been compromised, we are now trying to be different, to live differently.  And we feel like we're losing control because all those familiar feelings of pain and negativity are being brought out and are being sorted through.  Which feelings are we gonna keep, which will we move on from, and which will we resolve?  Just like the show, we have to allow our hearts to be gutted out, bring things out into the light.  It'll be a slew of overwhelming, confusing emotions, but in the end our hearts will be usable again.  People who hoard are not able to use the rooms in the house to their full capacity because there's all this junk in the way, as such with our hearts when we hold onto the hurts that others have caused us, and that we have caused ourselves and others.

This is hard, scary, and uncomfortable...but it's worth it.  I'd say my heart is territory that I'd like to have back.