Have you ever sat around and payed attention to what your surroundings are like? Have you ever connected those surroundings to your inner feelings? This was something that was brought to my attention several years back that helped me to figure out a lot of stuff about myself. I was able to do a lot of self reflection when I learned to put this practice into play. It amazed me how we could learn so much about ourselves, if we can humble ourselves to ourselves, enough to be able to see the truths that are hiding behind the stuff.

Our surroundings reflect our inner selves. We can hide some real good pains, failures, disappointments, rejections, shame, guilt, and etc. behind many things. We can use our surroundings to hide from many things as well. Maybe it is just me that God has used surroundings to teach me many things about myself and others as well. He used how I kept my house, how I cared for my car, my shopping, my closets, my flowerbeds, and many other things to help me realize and work through some of my emotional baggage and to heal some so that the peace and joy could be restored.

I have just recently had my surroundings help me to realize some stuff that I got going on inside that I need to work through. I had been feeling off for awhile. I’m talking like a year or so. I could never put my finger on it. I just knew that I had discontent in my heart and that my joy level was way down. I prayed and prayed, thought and thought, but nothing was made clear to me or changed. Just the other day I was sitting on my bed and looking off into space, as my eyes began to focus on my make up table I noticed all the stuff that was sitting up there. I immediately had the thought, “your outward choas is the reflection of your inner choas Mandie.” I sat up and started to think about all the things that had been going on. Then I went and looked into the living room, kitchen, and the bathroom and noticed the disarray. It was then that I realized just how chaotic I felt inside. If our surroundings are messy then we are a mess on the inside. The weight of what we are caring is making us move slower, having less motivation, so we start to let little things go that we would normally keep picked up and cleaned. Then the longer we have that weight, and the more that is added to it, the worse things get. Before we know it we have let many things get out of our norm and our surroundings are cluttered, messy, disorganized, or in disarray.

I was able to face some hidden truths that I had been running from. I thought that I was trying to just not live by my emotions and to continue to live out my daily life as if nothing was going on inside of me. But the reality was that I was not facing my disappointments and hurts. I was trying to ignore them and hoping that they would just go away. I had to realize that I had to face them and stop running from them. I had to face that I had been let down once again in a major way by someone that I cared deeply for. I had to face the fact that I was played for a fool and taken advantage of. I had to face the reality that I was hurt by their actions, even though they did not come as a surprise to me. I was trying to run because I did not want to feel like a dummy for even putting myself in the situation for it happen again. I was trying to hide the fact that I allowed myself to get hurt again. I had to face the fact that even though I did all that I could to help the relationship and the issues at hand, I had failed at it.

As I started to get things back organized and picked up I went through the emotions. I thought about the things that I was feeling on the inside and I talked to God about them. As I threw each item in the trash, I was releasing some of the baggage. With each thing that I cleaned I envisioned my heart being cleaned up and all the negative things being wiped away. I feel better and better as I get my surroundings back together and work through the emotional stuff as I go. Just having one room back in order has given me back much joy and contentment already.

I do not know if what I am explaining to you is making any kind of sense or not but I am praying that it does and that God can help you with things that you struggle with by using your surroundings as well. It is very therapeutic when we clean our homes, our cars, our yards, do design projects, freshen something up, and etc. We can use that time to work through many things. We can realize that we are covering up or trying to hide from emotional things by the amount of things that we have. We can realize a downward slope that we are on by the way that keep up with our daily house duties. We can use a gardening project to let go of some old pains and to bring in new hopes as we pull up weeds and plant new bulbs. If you ask God to come and be a part of the project and to teach you along the way He will do as such.

I pray that this entry has been of some encouragement and inspiration to you and that you may be able to let some things go that have been hindering you while you get your surroundings back in order or do a new project. May be peace, love, and joy be with you all!!