I have been feeling pretty overwhelmed lately with both personal and work issues. Most times when I feel like I can’t take the pressure anymore, I shut down completely, turn off my phone and crawl into a hole where no one would find me. Now there are a ton of reasons this doesn’t work, apart from the obvious reason of having a boss to answer to, and putting my job on the line, there is also a string of concerned family and friends who get pretty mad whenever you decide to pop back out of that hole.
We all go through stress at some point or the other. Some people handle it the way I do, some look for the nearest shoulder to cry on, while others don’t let any living, breathing thing come within a two feet radius of them.
One way of coping with these mini meltdowns, is surprisingly doing something as mundane as cleaning out your closet. Some people are already pretty familiar with this method, but have you ever thought about why doing such an ordinary task is so therapeutic for you?
It’s simple. When we are stressed or anxious or just feeling generally overwhelmed, it literally feels like our lives are spiraling out of control, like we hopped on a roller coaster without fastening the seat belt and suddenly, you do not have any control over anything going on.
When this happens, something as simple as cleaning out our closet makes us feel like we are regaining some level of the control we lost. It feels like you finally grabbed at the handle bars of the roller coaster that is your life, so that at least you don’t fall out and maybe after some time everything else will finally fall into place.
The best part is that eventually, it always does and it’s not because your closet has any magical powers or there is a genie hidden at the back waiting to grant you three wishes. You just needed a jump start to get your life back in other, and cleaning out your closet as crazy as it might sound does that for you.