There is a common piece of advice: “Just get it out of your head.” But is there an effective way to actually do that? Entire articles have been written recommending that people get rid of old and unnecessary belongings in order to start a new life and, in doing so, encourage personal change.
In some countries there are even rituals—especially New Year’s traditions—of throwing unwanted things out the window. Renovations or moving to a new home often become an occasion to get rid of possessions accumulated over many years.
The connection between discarding unnecessary things and starting a new life is actually an example of magical thinking, something very characteristic of children. But does throwing things away truly open the door to a new life?
To begin with, it is worth understanding how the external world and the inner world are connected, and what it actually means to “get rid” of something—what exactly a person can and cannot get rid of.
People may want to free themselves from suffering, pain, intrusive thoughts, an exhausting job, certain people, excess weight, an unbearable burden, and so on. The desire to get rid of something usually arises when there is something that interferes with our lives. Sometimes this is easy when the irritant is external and not connected to our inner world. For example, if flies are annoying you, you can close the window, use repellents or sticky traps. In such situations, few people feel sorry for the flies. Flies are not part of the inner world—they come from outside and simply irritate us.
But what should we do with things that have already become part of our self, part of our emotional experience and inner world?
Sometimes a person comes across an object in a closet, storage room, photo album, or box that emotionally connects them to pleasant events or dear people. It is not always easy to separate the value of the object itself from the value of the memories or relationships associated with it. In fact, we often preserve not the things themselves, but our relationship to them.
For example, a sweater may gather dust in a closet for years simply because it was the one a woman wore on her first date with her future husband. Yet in the event of a divorce, that same sweater may be the first thing thrown into the trash, absorbing the anger and resentment directed toward the former partner. Or, conversely, it may be kept as an unconscious hope that the relationship might return, that the object might revive romantic dreams of past love. After the death of a beloved spouse, his belongings—or items he once bought—may remain as a connection to him, sometimes even turning into a kind of fetish.
In addition to the emotional connection between objects and experiences, each of us has a particular relationship with the space in which we live. Some people cannot tolerate empty space, while others feel a strong need for openness and spaciousness. It becomes more complicated when a person simultaneously fears both open and closed spaces. In such cases, clearing out living space quickly leads to the urge to fill it again, and this cycle may repeat many times.
Sometimes scattering one’s belongings around can symbolize a desire to occupy as much space as possible—to “stake a claim” to it. This desire may arise from a lack of personal space, either in current relationships where space must be shared, or from childhood experiences when the child had little or no personal space and had to share it with siblings or other family members.
The desire to fill space with personal belongings may also stem from psychological difficulties related to awareness and establishment of personal boundaries. The same underlying issues may even unconsciously contribute to weight gain.
For people experiencing emotional deprivation, possessions may replace relationships and feelings, and buying extra clothes or items may provide temporary pleasure.
In this sense, any attempt to get rid of something—whether it is a possession, excess weight, a person, or intrusive thoughts—without understanding why it exists in our life will not resolve the inner conflict. Something similar will unconsciously and sometimes automatically take its place.
For instance, when a woman throws away everything that reminds her of a former partner after a betrayal or divorce, she is trying to free herself from the emotional connection and the painful feelings associated with him. Yet those same objects may also carry good memories. It is healthier if the woman recognizes the link between the object and her feelings toward her husband, and discards the sweater simply because its style is outdated—while consciously processing the memories and emotions connected to the relationship.
Sorting through belongings and cleaning out closets can therefore become an opportunity to reflect, reconsider, and analyze one’s feelings and emotional responses toward these objects. Only after such reflection does an object become merely an object rather than the result of our projections—that is, a carrier of feelings that originated in the inner world and became attached to an external thing.
It is precisely this work of awareness, analysis, and reconsideration of the connection between objects and feelings that leads to a change in our relationship with them.
Getting rid of unpleasant feelings and experiences rooted in the past requires psychological processing. Simply discarding objects associated with pleasant memories can lead to discomfort, guilt, or a sense of loss—until the emotional connection is reexamined and the emotional investment is separated from the object itself, especially when the object belonged to someone dear who has died or disappeared from our lives for some other reason.