Clearing the Shed

Unfinished Business

“Life...is not simply a series of exciting new ventures. The future is not always a whole new ball game. There tends to be unfinished business. One trails all sorts of things around with one, things that simply won't be got rid of.”

Anita Brookner

Yesterday in Spirituality Group, we talked about living with one's heart open. About the difficulty of putting that into practice. We spoke about allowing unfinished business to come up, be processed, and pass out through the heart chakra. Living with an open heart doesn't happen all at once, because each of us is trailing around all sorts of things—broken relationships, angry words, terrifying experiences—some of which we have no conscious memory, either because they happened before we were old enough to be articulate, or because we have repressed them. Some of the unfinished business involves experiences that we are still too hurt or angry to allow into awareness. The good news is, those experiences will come up to consciousness of their own volition when we are spiritually and psychologically ready to deal with them.

Clearing the heart is, in my opinion, the work of a lifetime. It's something like clearing out an old shed that's been sitting for years, accumulating junk over several generations. You have to begin with what's closest to the door because that's what you can get to, and then work your way to the back. As you go, the stored “stuff” gets older and dirtier. Most of us can only do that work a little at a time and with help, not all in one go. Certainly, not by wishing it away, or simply saying it's gone. It takes a lot of hauling things out into the sunlight and unpacking them so as to decide what to keep and what to get rid of completely. Amazingly, now and then we find a little gem we want to wear on the outside of our skin.

Spiritual practice is just that—practice. As always, awareness is key. We work at keeping an open heart, and when we feel our hearts begin to close, we pay attention. Why is my heart closing? What just happened that triggered that close? And we walk it back to some unfinished business that is now ready to be processed and cleared. Don't be discouraged if it takes a while---like maybe the rest of your life. Just keep unpacking that shed.

                                             In the Spirit,

                                                 Jane