
The drawer is now vacuumed, scrubbed and exquisitely tidy with just a handful of things, which I can see at a glance. It's a nice feeling. Funny isn’t it than getting rid of stuff can actually make you feel a little lighter and brighter.
Whether it's cluttered bench tops or desks, outgrown shirts or jeans languishing in wardrobe corners, out of date spices on pantry shelves or that fast accumulating stuff filling valuable space in the garage, shedding makes room for the fresh and new.
Shedding stuff, whether physical or emotional, opens the door to so much more.
That’s something nature seems to know instinctively. So many of the great secrets of living well are written across the landscape if we have eyes to read them.
The whole process and what emerges from under the bark can be truly beautiful and one of the things I most love photographing.
But shedding what is holding back my growth never seems comfortable or beautiful. Whether it’s my expectations of others or myself that keep me stuck, or limiting beliefs about what I’m capable of, they become restrictions to me blossoming. We hold tight to false truths … that I’m less than adequate, that I need to be the perfect partner, parent or friend, that I’m not good enough, strong enough or clever enough.
And maybe comparison is the worst prison warden of all. Once I allow myself to compare myself to others, I will always find someone who looks better, does better or seems wiser than me. Comparison kills the joy of being me.
How easy it is to hinder our growth by holding on to beliefs shaped by our past or to march to the drumbeat of the opinion of others. Those things are like the bark that the tree is wise enough to discard.