Expiration Date

I am notoriously known in my family to keep perishable food items way beyond their expiration dates.  I'm talking years.

After getting out of a long term relationship, I was standing in front of my refrigerator (probably looking for some love in the form of sugar) and saw that it was full of tupperware containers with food that was so old that the only way I would eat it is if there was some kind of natural disaster and I was pinned by my fridge and that was the only food available.  I wondered why I kept these items for so long.  Why did I keep putting more food in there that I wasn't going to eat later?  And more importantly, why didn't I clean it?

The excuses flooded my head: "I don't have time," "It'll take too much time to empty everything and then clean it," "I'll do it later."  Well, later becomes months later or years.  And when I do remember, I don't want to do it!  Go figure.

But I had the realization that perhaps I keep other things - besides perishable food items - way longer than I really should, i.e. relationships, jobs, friendships and well, mainly relationships.

I'm not saying that every single food item represents every relationship I've ever had because frankly, that's not even possible - for 4 reasons: 1) I'm 32 years old, 2) I've only had a handful of serious relationships; 3) I've only had a handful of quasi-relationships and 4) My life is not like Sex and the City.  So I see my expired food more as an accumulation of expired relationships.

Do I hold onto my relationships just as long as I hold on to my food?  Which would be, remember? Years!

So if I'm holding on to these moldy, smelly and quite frankly don't want to touch (or even look at) the contents within the containers, where am I holding it within myself?  The answer is - everywhere.

My truth is that we are energetic sponges - we collect and absorb everything.  We like to hold on to things as if our life depended on it.  And our lives do depend on it.  Our lives would be easier if we would just let go of the things that we are done with.  That hold no nutritional value for us anymore.

Also think of it this way - if we ate the expired food, we probably wouldn't feel that great.  We would probably get nauseous and possibly feel it pretty quickly within our entire body (in case the smell didn't force us to throw it away immediately before ingesting it).

Even the food we do eat (that's not expired) can sit in our intestines and essentially rot.  (That sounds gross even as I'm writing it).  If that's the case, we're not digesting and processing what we're taking in.  Then all this gunk will accumulate and make it harder for us to assimilate and ultimately, let go of.  And all the while, we won't feel as good as we could because we're filled with substances that are decreasing our energy, our vibration.

I went to see a Naturopath (for the first time) to see if he could help me heal my post-surgical jaw.  There's an area in my lower jaw where the surgeon made a very deep cut in the bone and only about 50% is healed (it's been almost 1 1/2 years since the surgery).  He thought that I possibly wasn't absorbing the nutrients I should be from my diet but that I also may be absorbing things that I shouldn't be.

Great - not only am I nutrient deprived but possibly full of toxins that are circulating through my system. However, I can apply what's going on with my fridge and my body's inability to function optimally to my life in general.  I can surely think of things (events, relationships, friendships, etc) that have occurred in my life that might not have been the best for me at the time.  Yet, I also see those things as important lessons that I needed to learn.  So if any other non-nutritional element tries to enter my life, I hopefully (with wisdom gained from those previous events) will choose wisely and choose what's best for me - for my highest good.  And if not, well, that's just another lesson that I will complete in the workbook called Life.

Cleaning out the items in your fridge, closet, garage, basement, wherever that are past due is also a way to clean out your energetic space.  It represents letting go of the past.  Letting go of the things that we have out grown (or maybe they've out grown us).  It also means that we have the power to change what is no longer for our highest good.  That we can proactively create our lives the way we want them to be.