#440 – Why is the Ghost of Clinging to Useless Possessions so clingy?

If it were up to the Ghost of Clinging to Useless Possessions, you'd still have in your closet that dress you got in London in 1991, your baby's first sneakers, and every grudge collected along your life. Wait... Never mind!

In this interview at The Atlantic Festival, Monica Lewinsky talked about overcoming her public shaming. Seeing how people born after the scandal grappled with the facts, she said, helped her reframe her thinking.

How is it that the 24-year-old person with the least amount of power in this situation had the largest consequences for what happened?

Monica Lewinsky, at The Atlantic Festival

The quote made me think of my son's case, "How is it that a 19-year-old person with the least amount of power in this situation had the largest consequences for what happened?"

I then started to write the piece that would right this enormous wrong.

During the editing process, I became frustrated with ChatGPT because it wasn't telling me what I wanted to hear. I slammed it shut and went to do something else––fuming.

I went to declutter my closet. I realized how foreign some clothes felt and yet I'd kept wearing them.

Later, in a UA meeting, the speaker mentioned that they'd been doing a lot of that too, and had felt how much "stagnant energy" some old things bore. 

That resonated. I was clinging to the useless possession of anger––toward the man who'd caused my son to carry a criminal record for life; toward the "justice" system; toward the employers that reject people with convictions.

I've been praying to find mercy for all those people. And here was the Ghost, making me cling to my resentment. Now that I see how old and stagnant it is, I can throw it away with the items that no longer serve me.

What resentments are you ready to throw away, to make room for new energy in your life?

Love,

Carolina