It felt dreadful

and then....

I have found this decluttering month to be quite profound.

It’s been great to pare back my possessions but it’s taken me back to a truth I discovered at the Zenways retreat with Julian Daizan Skinner, the first Englishman to go to Japan and become a Zen master.

In his search for happiness, he gave up his career as a scientist, sold his house, gave all his money away and entered a monastery 30 years ago.

I didn’t want to enter a monastery but I did sign up to go on his zen retreat three years ago – which was more of a decluttering process for the mind - it was called The Breakthrough to Zen retreat.

It consisted of sitting opposite a fellow retreat participant for 16 hours for 3 whole days and listening and talking to a different person every half an hour. You simply had to answer the one question ‘Who Am I?’

So in the first 10 minutes, you get through your job title, your relationship status etc and then what do you say for the rest of the 15 hours and 50 minutes every day for 3 days?

What are the stories you tell yourself?

Who knew that you could have this much to say? You talk for about 20 minutes, a bell rings and then you listen to everyone else’s stories – active listening with love and compassion.

I’m a bit deaf so sometimes I couldn’t quite catch the words but I could the person’s face contorted in pain as they told me about past trauma, pain,  grief.

I sat and beamed out as much love as I could.

And for anyone who has had therapy – you will know how healing this can be.

All this happened in a very lovely house on a beautiful coastal path in Wales. It had  incredible views of the sea, a house in its own grounds, a comfortable bed, healthy vegetarian food. We had everything we needed but there I was sitting there still tortured by my past baggage.

But with yoga and meditation between sessions Daizan would continually bring us back to the present, inviting us to be aware, to watch and listen versus be in the story. You find yourself fading in and out, grabbed and shaken by memories until you zoom out again and you’re sitting in a room with your back aching, noticing your breathing, being in the now versus the past or the future.

It was like a bootcamp training to be in the now.

You are simply invited to sit and observe your own thoughts and notice dramas unfold in your mind minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day.

To be honest, at times it felt dreadful. We got up at 5.30am and didn’t finish ‘til gone 10pm. At mealtimes you weren’t allowed to speak, you weren’t allowed to use your phones. No distractions. I found it difficult to let go and found myself stewing in my own stories and memories.

At the end of day 2, I tried to escape but someone had accidentally blocked my car in so I couldn’t high tail out it out of there.

So I stayed and listened and talked and felt miserable.

Until I wasn’t.

 A million stories had been said, a million stories had been heard and I was totally knackered.

And I had nothing more left to say and I was exhausted and then…

Photo by Stefano Zocca on Unsplash

Peace, the final frontier.

A kind of peace descended.

Yes, all of that shit (and success and joy and love) had happened in my life. But right now, right here, I was just here.

No story, just being present to the ‘what is’.

It created a huge seismic shift for me.

Stories have been incredibly important to me in my life. Creating stories  - both personally and professionally (as a coach and a journalist) has been the route of healing for me but also the foundation of my career.

But on this retreat, I had the realisation how our stories can keep us stuck in old eddies of misery, of an old identity.

‘Zen meditation is about seeing things clearly,’ says Daizan. ‘To see the world for the optical illusion that it is. I always give the example of how we go to the movies and watch the story on the big screen and get caught up in the drama – of the car chase, or the spaceship invasion or the explosion. But at any minute we can turn around and look over our shoulders and see the truth. A film is not reality, it’s just a pattern of dancing light coming from the projector.

‘Zen meditation helps you stop being distracted by the stories you play in your head about the past and future and instead invites you to put the attention on being present right here, right now.’

For me, the past month of decluttering has been a physical playing out of this truth.

In the last month, we have sifted through a huge pack of possessions and thoughts and beliefs that ‘possess’ us.

We have been invited to question what’s really important in our lives, the old beliefs we have seen rearing up, all the old stuff that can keep us stuck.

The Minimalists Game has encouraged us to let go of our ‘stuff’ and then see what happens.

I have felt similar emotions to the emotions I felt on the Zen retreat and at the end of this month – feel similar to the way I felt at the end of the retreat.

I feel more able to notice the noise in my head, to be able to step back from the stories I’m telling myself, to be more present to what’s actually happening.

Past traumas can keep us stuck, for sure. But there is a way out. When I was editor at Psychologies, that’s the message I was always so passionate about and would beam out from the page for 8 years straight.

We don’t need to stay stuck in our old stories, our pasts.

There is no one way to heal – there are a million.

You don’t have to go on a zen retreat, or declutter for a month.

There are a million ways, people, podcasts, books, methodologies that can inspire and give you the ‘how’ of letting go.

Find your way.

But with gentle awareness, make a commitment and decision every day to let go of a few more ‘possessions’ (and by that I don’t mean just physical possessions but also the thoughts that ‘possess’ us – the beliefs, grief and pain that nail us to a place in our history that keeps us circling round and round forever.)

Let’s choose, instead, to create a daily practice of letting go, to create space to simply feel the soft wind on our face, or the ache of our bodies as we sit still or the joy of looking at a familiar loving face or the comfort of that furry fuzz of your dog’s cold nose in the morning.

And allow ourselves to just be present.

But we’re not finished yet. 27 things to get rid of today on the decluttering challenge.

Keep going.

Keep clearing.

Let’s create a clean slate.

Let’s get ready to start again.

(P.S I was going to start the Artist’s Way this November but after month’s rollercoaster, I am going to press pause on another big self-development journey and start The Artist’s Way May 2025.

In November, I’m going to suggest a revolutionary approach to our Heart Leap experiment of the month. Watch this space. All will be revealed on 1^st November)

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash