Little boxes, Malvina Reynolds sings about them, and most of have at least one among our possessions. We like boxes because they are a nice safe place to store those things we wish to keep. We keep all sorts of knick knacks, books, small items, and memorabilia in little boxes. And as Malvina Reynolds sings about somewhat irreverently, we live in them, one type or another.
What about those other little boxes though? Those little boxes inside us that we store things in? Some of us store memories that we do not want to lose. Some of us store memories in little boxes that we do not want to remember. Sometimes those little boxes fall out of their storage space, and then what do we do? We have whatever we were storing in that particular little box overlayed on what is going on in the present.
These little boxes in our memories fall open on the floor of our minds at the worst posible times. We are deep into conversation with someone important to us, something is said, and just like magic, a little box falls out on the floor spilling its contents all over the floor. Suddenly our past comes rushing in to remind us what happened once upon a time. Hopefully it is a good memory, but sometimes it is not. The contents in that box, we thought we put away where we would never see it again, and in an instant it is out on the floor. Poisoning our thoughts with something that happened before, that we thought we had boxed up and put away.
What makes these situations hard, is we are no longer acting in the present, but we are acting in the present on past memories. Past memories that happened when we were probably a different person than we are now or we viewed the world differently than we do now. It is hard to be objective in times like these because those past memories show up and feel just like they happened yesterday.
If you have never cleared out your stash of little boxes, there is never a better time than right now to go through them all and let those little boxes of bad memories go. They can not do you any good, and they fall off the shelf at the worst possible times. Make some time in your day today and start cleaning up your stash of little boxes. This will make some room for a few big boxes you can fill with happy thoughts and memories, and you won’t have to hide them in the closets of your mind!
Technorati Tags: baggage, emotion, personal growth, self help
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