In With The New, Out With The Old
Happy New Year! At least that is always the hope, as we say goodbye to a passing year, heavy and overflowing with life lived, and hello to a new one that is empty and waiting for it’s turn to be filled.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the symbolism of empty vessels and it came full circle in a conversation I had with my son. He was recounting a visit he’d had to a friend’s apartment when he inquired about all the empty bottles sitting on shelves and on tabletops. They were all very beautifully shaped and colored and had originally been designed to hold other things like wine, perfume and pampering bath salts. Now they sat, without notice or purpose, as time passed them by. When my son asked what they were being saved for, his friend stammered a bit before producing a litany of ways they could be repurposed and projects they’d be perfect for. Yet there they sit, as yet another year comes and goes.
Most of us have some version of those empty vessels in our homes or in our lives. Perhaps it’s the antique chair that’s been waiting 14 years to be reupholstered and used again - one day. Perhaps it is the rusting car that will be a project with your son - one day. Perhaps it’s that friend you keep hoping will come through when you need them - one day.
In my work as The Interior Design Shrink, I see how these empty vessels accumulate and ultimately overwhelm us. As our “future projects”, “just in case I need a backup” and “maybe the kids will want it” piles continue to grow, so too does our sense of sadness and anxiety. Without realizing it, these things quietly sit there reminding us of unfulfilled dreams, happier times gone by, empty promises, regrets, and even the places we deceive ourselves. Why would we choose to live with all of that heavy energy when the answer is as simple as letting it go? While the physical act of letting things go is easy, it’s the emotional act of letting go that can causes one to panic and clench tighter.
Since early man’s first crude carvings, we human beings have had a need to overlay nearly all physical objects with emotional significance. It’s always been such a curious condition to me as I’ve seen people really struggle, and in some cases alter their lives, because of these beliefs. Why is it easy to discard an ugly set of dishes, but when we assign it the emotional baggage of having once sat in grandmother’s china cabinet, we can’t? Why is it easy to discard a dress that doesn’t fit or is out of style, yet we let it live in the dark recesses of the closet if we wore it to a special event a decade ago? Why is an old glass bottle so hard to part with?
I believe that when the connection between physical object and emotional significance is out of balance it crosses over into a skewed sense of obligation. Left unchecked, this behavior can evolve into hoarding. Obligation to things, people or ideals is energetically negative and heavy and can have dramatic effects on our moods, our actions and our perspectives. Imagine the collective weight of an attic, or a building, or a life, surrounded by things we’ll never get around to, or back to. An empty vessel can be so heavy.
As this New Year presents itself to us, empty and ready to receive, what will we fill it with? Will we laden it with our broken bits, our some day projects, our unrealistic expectations and fantasy wishes? Or will we use it to lighten our physical and metaphoric loads and restore ourselves to use and vitality once more?
