Dealing with big emotions in a compassionate way

Moving homes, changing places, starting new chapters, reflecting on the ‘stuff’ we carry…

I’ve moved homes approximately 25 times since I was seventeen (not including travelling of course).

What’s interesting is before that time I never moved. I lived in the same house with my family. A lot of people asked me if I moved when I was younger, but it just wasn’t the case. In geographical terms I had a stable family home.

Moving a lot was never a choice, it was just how life has led me. From my early days living on islands off the coast of Queensland Australia and my ranger and marine biology days to then leaving Australia at 25 and living in countless countries. 

I’ve left a trail of boxes in peoples lofts and garages behind me - and not all of them were there when I came to collect them either - I’ve had to do some serious non attachment work.

I think that started when my parents separated and sold the family home when I was living in London. They had a big garage sale and much of my most loved childhood and teenage possessions where in it. My charmkins doll house, my signed Red Hot Chili Peppers cd, and beloved albums that had ticket stubs from bands I went to see. Goodness knows what else because we can’t remember once we leave stuff behind. That is a lesson I’ve learned. So many times I’ve gone off on an adventure with a single bag and travelled for months or lived out of one suitcase for several years, and then I think “what do I even have stored at home, or at my mums house, how much more stuff do I own or need?”

So I think I’ve down pretty well on that front. Most of the things I own I truly adore and I’ve come to realise that for the most part the things that I loved 10 years ago in terms of clothes and technology has mostly been upgraded anyway… The things I clung to then have been cast aside as I’ve bought new things.

I still however feel uneasy every time I move despite doing it so often. A steady anxiety arises in the pit of my gut and an essence of melancholy. Even when I’m starting exciting new adventures like when I moved to Ibiza and met my husband and flew to Brasil for the biggest adventure of my life.

And even now as I’m moving into a lovely big home, in a great area with amazing community those feelings are there.

In the past I use to push them away but now I know better. 

These are the tender parts of me that have been wounded and by moving and packing.

The parts of me that felt sad when my Dad said when I first moved out that it I moved I’d never be welcomed back (a hollow threat as he really wanted me under his roof and done with love as he just parented in a very different way, but it hurt me none the less, and of course I was welcomed home).

The parts of me that moved so many times when a relationship broke up and returning to an empty flat and feeling the weight of the realisation that that love had faded dropping on me.

The parts of me that moved when I felt in danger and had to quickly pack all my belongings in 2 hours and flee.

The parts of me that feel sad about ‘going through stuff’ as it reminds me of going through my dad’s things when he passed.

I’ve been thinking about that often, we carry all the this around with us and often hoard, but one day we won’t be here, other people with go through out stuff and likely throw most of it out and keep a few things. 

There are are these parts that lost things that were precious to them during all these moves - lost possessions, lost people, closed doors and chapters and lost little parts of myself.

So all this floats through me as a pack, and rather than trying to push the anxiety and sadness away I try to meet it in brief moments and give them love and reassurance that all is safe and well and we just keep meeting life again in it’s fullness.