This post is dedicated to anyone whose ever been described as “messy.” Although I will speak more about this, if you’re more the “OCD” type, this post might not entirely resonate with you, and that’s okay. That doesn’t mean that you might not relate to some of this, or maybe you have a friend, sister, girlfriend, brother, uncle, mom, dad or cousin who might relate to this in some way. This post can help you to understand them better.

Ever since I was little, my parents described me as “messy”. I had a LOT of books. A LOT of toys.

I would often embark on hugely aggressive “room reorganizations” where I would take everything I had out, reorganize it in some very complicated way, and then lose steam about 3/4 of the way through. So sometimes it would end up looking messier than it did when I started!!

As ridiculous as this might sound, it took 36 years, many diagnoses and treatments for me to really figure out why I had so much trouble with this.

ADHD. Autism or ‘the spectrum’. cPTSD. Social anxiety. Depression.

Probably all of them, and all related, but what it really comes down to is dysfunction in my prefrontal cortex.

How did I finally started to make sense of my outwardly chaotic world / tendency to be “messy”?

1. Getting a late diagnosis for ADHD and taking regular medication for that helped me to “see the forest for the trees“. 🌲

Simply put, prior to taking medication, I would be so overwhelmed by my messy space that I wouldn’t be able to know even how to start. Once I started taking medication for my ADHD, it increases my dopamine and gives me the ability to push through and finish projects (one of my very biggest issues).

But ADHD medication wasn’t the full story. The next huge insight came for me after I discovered & corrected an imbalance I had in my brain called a prolactinoma (story for another day).

To make a long story very short, it was the beginnings of a non-cancerous brain tumor, and once I started taking medication to shrink those cells, I quickly felt healthier, began supplementing my low Vitamin D, and picked up a daily (guided) meditation practice.

2. Correcting my abnormally high prolactin and low vitamin D immediately made me feel healthier and led to my consistent meditation practice, which then led to Meditate To Clean

Meditate to Clean is a running title of the book I am working on.

Now, it’s NOT what you think.

After awhile of listening to guided meditations, I started to let myself keep my eyes open. And while I was actively practicing the art of detaching from thoughts, I would feel urges to move my arms and legs.

So I went with it.

What happened?

My hands would reach out and fold anything in its immediate vicinity. (This is BEFORE taking my ADHD medication). They would clean, sweep, tidy.

My legs would walk me to the kitchen and my arms would start washing my dishes in the sink.

Now, I never CONSCIOUSLY decided, I am going to let myself clean when I meditate. I purposefully cleared my mind of all conscious thought.

But I realized that while I had tons of trouble trying to FORCE myself to clean, likely an ADHD symptom, purely by listening to these soothing guided meditations (with music, mantras, nature sounds), I was de-activating my sympathetic nervous system which I was primarily operating in, that was stuck in “freeze” mode. I was allowing my parasympathetic nervous system to take over.

Furthermore, I realized that

My subconscious mind was listening carefully to these guided meditations – the mantras of “focus on what you CAN control, not what you can’t. And it was guiding me, showing me that I can control my space, my own personal universe. I can make it neat and tidy, and that helps prove to myself that I AM in charge of my life.

As someone with ADHD, I hate being told what to do, even by myself! So the best way to get myself clean is not by forcing myself. It is by reconnecting with myself, by using meditation to stimulate my vagus nerve and move from fight or flight to rest & digest mode.

Even though Meditate To Clean has been incredibly helpful, I still have to pick up tools and insights from my meditative cleaning sessions in order to rewrite my neural pathways, since it will take some time for organizing & cleaning habits to become deeply ingrained within me. But before I mention those, I want to touch on another deeply important insight that came to me as part of this process.

3. Generational poverty plays an important role in our reluctance to let go of items. *

For people who grew up very poor or out in the country, away from others, and perhaps with a distrust of others or who had been ostracized from their community–they will naturally have a stronger inclination to hold onto items, fearing it might be hard to come by the items again and they could need them.

Let’s say both your parents grew up extremely poor, but they managed to make good money. It takes a very long time, possibly even decades or more, for people’s subconscious brain to feel secure that they will always have money. Perhaps they overspend because they fear that they might lose their job or because they’re not used to having money. Having possessions might feel safer to them because if they needed to, they could sell these items if they ran out of money.

Even though studies show we get stressed out by seeing clutter, seeing items could be a way of safety for them, helping them visually see that they have a “safety net” of sorts.

If you ever look on Tik Tok and see some of the “rich girl aesthetic” apartments in the city, they are almost always a very “minimalist” look. This is what many people aspire to– a home and life where we are so secure with our financial position that we don’t need to see or hold onto a myriad of things for a rainy day.

* Therefore, I began to put less pressure on myself to keep de-purging because I realized that my subconscious is not quite ready to let go of my items until I have built more of a financial nest egg. It sees these items as my “net worth”. Once I build up more savings, I have a gut instinct that my subconscious will feel ready to let go of more things.

In my next post, I’ll share about the role of trauma plays in this and the three biggest tools I’ve learned to improve my messy tendencies.