A Meditation on Moving Houses and Yoga Training

It's been a wild two weeks in my life.  I moved one four bedroom house with four people and a dog to another four bedroom house with four people and a dog--all of two miles away.  This involved all of the packing and organizing and cleaning and decluttering as if I were moving across the country.  As I watched the movers and myself lifting and relocating my earthly possessions, I started feeling weighted down by the load.  I am not a hoarder, and I like getting rid of stuff, yet I still have more than I want to deal with.

Immediately after I moved to my new house, I had no time to unpack because I was attending an intensive four-day yoga training for nine hours per day.  Unattachment is a big theme in yoga.  It is a an eastern point of view that says we can free ourselves from anxiety--being too consumed by what might happen.  We can free ourselves from regret over what happened that we have no control over. We can then be open to possibilities that we didn't even know exist.  (simplified definition)

At my training, we also talked about the physical body--the one that so many of us are not happy with.  This is the body that we are judgmental and critical of.  We talked about the "subtle body" that has energy centers and nerve bundles that create tension or ease.  It keeps going...to the point where we discussed that we are NOT OUR PHYSICAL BODIES.  We are not our feelings.  We are not our regrets.  This was freeing for me to hear.

Of course, all of this made me reflect on the weight loss/self improvement journey.   Are we burdened by the "stuff" of life that gets boxed up and relocated as we move from house to house?  Are we lightening the load as we go and learn that it isn't stuff that makes a good life?  Are we surrounding ourselves by what brings us joy and happiness?  That can actually lighten the load--physically and otherwise.  I also am thinking about how cumbersome and heavy it is to carry around things we don't need... like extra weight, judgment, criticism, expectation, comparisons, too much chocolate.

I will not be moving all of these boxes of stuff again.  I will be eliminating even more clutter from my house and my life so that I can be free of  what isn't helping me.  I am going to be consciously asking myself the question when I eat--IS THIS HELPING ME?  IS THIS NOURISHING?  IS THIS WORTH IT?