Cleaning and Moving and Monkeying Around

I have been cleaning out things today. My email inbox being the most recent thing. I came across a lot of emails that I forgot I had kept. I had 708 messages. Now granted many of those were from email lists. But some of those emails were from times past and from people who were only in my life for a season. And some that surrounded painful times and times of extreme growth due to that pain.

I deleted a lot of emails today, there are only 37 left now.

Those were things I needed to let go of. Things I needed to clean out of my life. I know it sounds a little dramatic for email, but we are in a space where deleting emails is like throwing away old cards and letters. It's not always easy and it's not always fun. In fact it made me a little tired as it had me thinking back to events and people that I have parted ways with. Some I am glad to be free from and some that were harder to let go of. But there really is a freedom in hitting the "empty" button on my trash. Those ties to the past are gone and I am a little freer for it.

It has me thinking about other things that we tie ourselves to by keeping those things around. Maybe it's a trinket or a postcard. Many times it's photos or messages.

The question is: Are we tying ourselves to things that are adding to our life or weighing us down?

I'm not saying to throw all sentimentality out the door. I am definitely a sentimental person. But are we holding onto that "thing" that is keeping us from moving forward?

A friend of mine and I were talking once about moving on and he compared it to a monkey swinging on vines through the jungle. The monkey has to let go of the last vine in order to keep swinging and moving forward. If not, he'll just hang there between two vines, not going anywhere. Are you just hanging there?

Letting go of these things can lead us to let go of the emotional ties that bind as well. I know that cleaning out these things can be hard or, but it really is a step forward and into more growth. We need to keep growing and evolving. If not, we will die.

I'm off to clean more, to rid myself of more and make space for the better things to come. I hope you can get some cleaning done this week as well.