COMPULSIVE HOARDING (Of Negative Beliefs)

Today I noticed myself being annoyed at my dad when I started to clear our garage out of the junk that he has collected throughout the last couple of years. It seems that stuff keeps appearing in the garage, and sometimes I get amused at how such a small space can fit so much junk.

My dad has this thing - he collects junk which he picks up on the street when someone throws them out. He also buys stuff from second-hand goods auctions, where sometimes I have to admit you can buy a good item at a very good price. Sometimes, someone gives him stuff at work. God knows where else he gets these bits and pieces. I later found out from the Wikipedia that this pattern of behaviour is called Compulsive Hoarding. It is when someone has excessive acquisition or inability or unwillingness to get rid of large quantities of objects.

So as I was clearing out the garage, I noticed how the feeling of annoyance at my dad was growing larger and larger. Every time I picked some item, which I thought to myself 'why the hell on earth would you even keep it', I got annoyed even more. When I took some objects out of the garage to the front of it, I also noticed the feeling of shame. I was ashamed to even touch that junk. WHY? Because, I thought that my neighbours will see how cluttered our garage is, and they would judge me for that. Why did I think they would judge me for that? Maybe because I myself think that it is wrong to have such a mess in the place where you live. I imagine all the other successful people out there, would have their shit sorted and organized. In short, it is my own belief that makes me feel ashamed. How do I even know what my neighbours think of me, I never asked them? Funnily enough, I don't even know my neighbours.

Only later on, when I was journaling for the day, I realized why I was annoyed at my dad collecting junk. I thought to myself that I am exactly like him. Only, I don't have excessive acquisitions or inability or unwillingness to get rid of large quantities of objects to such extent. But what I have is an excessive acquisition of negative believes about myself - I am not good enough story, I don't deserve good things in life, she is way out of my league etc. It also seems that I have the inability to get rid of these negative believes as well.

I pick new negative beliefs pretty much the same way my dad picks up junk from the street. When someone throws out an old TV, my dad thinks that it is a good TV and there is plenty of life left in it, so he picks it up, and piles it on top of other things in the garage. When I assume that someone judges me in some way, I pick it up too and then pile on top of another negative belief I already have. My subconscious mind is like my dad's garage, it is cluttered with junk.

So, I am kind of thinking that, to get rid of the junk from my subconscious mind would require exactly the same process I used to clear out my dad's garage today. The first thing I did, I took pretty much everything out and placed it outside of the garage. Then I had a look at each item separately and made a decision if there is any use of it in the future. I ended up throwing out a large quantity of useless shit, like old cassette stereos. The remainder of bits and pieces, like tools and other things I considered to be useful in the future, I put back inside the garage. Only this time I made it tidy. For example, I put the tools on shelves, so they are easier to access.