Drop the Leash

We will find a way, we will find our place,

Drop the leash, drop the leash.”

--Pearl Jam, Leash

When we stop taking an honesty inventory of what’s in our life, we get lost in things that no longer serve us. This clutter binds and restricts us. It becomes a leash that holds us back and keeps us from expanding, exploring and enjoying our lives.

It takes a conscious and bold look to see and be free…to drop clutter’s leash.

Recently I was working over Skype with a client who was feeling restricted in her life. We came across the textbooks she studied when she was in college. She’d been hanging on to them for twenty years. She was apprehensive about letting them go.

I asked her why and she wasn’t sure. I asked if she ever referred to them in the twenty years. She said, “No.” Still she didn’t want to let them go.

I told her she looked unhappy and tense talking about the textbooks. I said keeping those books would keep those side effects alive in her.

I said things that once served us, but no longer add to our life, can sometimes be hard to remove. A part of us is still invested in the memories of the rewards we once got from these things. There’s a feeling that if we let these things go, we will lose something valuable.

It helps to see that the presence of these things is now a hindrance.

It’s like you come to a deep and wide river and find a helpful canoe left by the riverside. You take the canoe successfully across the river. You’re happy. You then hang on to the canoe because of how it helped you. But now you’re dragging the canoe through the forest. It gets caught on trees. Its weight is exhausting. Your traveling is impeded by the canoe.

That’s why it’s helpful to be honest with yourself about the effects of the things in your life now.

My client realized these books had no useful place in her life. She also opened up about wanting to find new ways of making income. She felt letting these books go would help her find something new.