Now, the co-dependent caretaking Virgo in me went just about bananas. “Just about” being the operative phrase here because something inside me said, “WAAAAAAIIIT! Wait wait wait wait wait just a moment. Girlfriend, don’t you be diving into that dumpster heap. We know you want to but don’t don’t don’t don’t do it.”
Instead of taking the dive, I literally stood, STOOD, with my feet firmly planted in front of that garbage dumpster for a good ten to fifteen minutes, trying to make sense of what I was looking at, what it was triggering inside me, what I wanted to do, and knowing, for some reason that that was probably not a good idea. I fought every urge I had to take care of that garbage. I fought every urge to make phone calls, to pick up the fringe litter and organize the garbage. I fought every urge to be the Good Samaritan that would become the heavy resent-filled tenant I knew I would become if I touched an ounce of that garbage. Every fiber in me wanted to do that heavy lift.
But no. NO no no no no. Something else was telling me, “You go down that rabbit hole girlfriend, you are not coming out. That is NOT your heaping pile of garbage to take care of.” And so, I allowed myself photos of garbage and one text to the property management company asking about how THEY were going to handle the issue????!!!!
And I walked away.
Yes, I walked walked walked away.
Folks. I cannot tell you the earthquake that happened inside of me that early summer morning when I did that. It felt like a cage I’d been living inside exploded and the windows shattered, and the far corners of the Universe felt the ripple effect of me not carrying other people’s garbage up hill.
Of interest, what happened next? Lo. Over the next 24 hours, the dumpster was emptied and the extra garbage that got litter-dragged into the street by the dumpster truck was cleaned up by workers that management sent in to take care of business. When I looked out my window and saw it had all been cleaned up without me lifting a finger — save for the fingers I used to text — I felt a deep sense of satisfaction that I had been baptized by the Lords-of-Leaving-That-Garbage-Dumpster-to-Someone-Else.
And I’d love to tell you that the story ends here and I stayed in the waters of “You are healed, my child!” But it didn’t work out that way. It never works out that way with the Universe because old habits die hard and the Universe keeps asking, “Is this what you want? Is this what you want? Is this what you really want?”
For the next few months, I continued to live out some patterned version of what I just described to you MINUS any contact with the property management company. I realized that garbage dumpster was my kryptonite and the more I could stay present living beside its varying versions of the “Leaning Tower of Pisa” and “Litter in the Streets” and not touch it at all, the closer I was to breaking an entrenched emotional pattern of my entire life: co-dependently caretaking other people’s emotions for my own survival.
That’s right. My mother trained me uber-well in that department for me to survive on this planet. I had to make sure I was taking care of her emotional life so the two of us could survive. I learned all about this before I could speak or walk. It’s a pre-memory thing compounded by being a female, growing up in a Judeo-Christian culture compounded by the social commandments of guilt, blame and shame. Many of you women reading this have your own versions of what I just described. Mine is compounded by trauma and fear of being killed. So no touching that garbage was a huge breakthrough for me.
Garbage and death. Death and garbage. Yitch! What nasty nasty stuff.
As the garbage dumpster pulsed in its own cycles right beside my unit, I diligently worked my co-dependent caretaking Al-Anon recovery program by staying present, breathing, just being with myself, being aware of the situation and not touching a stitch of that garbage. As I did this, it became clear to me that I was very consciously in the act of walking away from toxic dumpster heaps of relationships.
And then I moved to the countryside with space, gloriously moving away from that Leaning Tower of Pisa of a dumpster. As I found my new space in my new home, I felt excellent about my emotional recovery efforts from caretaking garbage. Some part of me knew that I’d drawn a significant line in the sand and I’m much more aware of seeing the floating garbage dumpsters lit on fire floating down the river to me . . . and I am just letting them float on by.
Except in those first few weeks of living in my new space, the Universe sent me one more test. One more option. My new landlord did me the solid by mowing my lawn one more time before I took over lawn duties. And he filled a great big old black garbage bag with lawn trimming refuse. And lo, he dropped that bag right at the end of my driveway, nearly in the street and did not say a word.
For an entire week I looked at that bag out my picture window. I wanted to ask him about it. I wanted to move that bag and put it in my own dumpster. I worried about that bag melting into the tarmac in triple digit heat, leaving even more of mess. I even wanted to pester that bag and take care of it . . .
. . . but what did I learn? “DO NOT TOUCH THE GARBAGE.” So, no, girlfriend. Don’t lift a finger. Let it be. Don’t touch that garbage bag. Take a breath and give the Universe an opportunity to take care of it for you.
And lo, on that Friday morning, the Yakima Waste Management Service’s truck blew through and I watched, laughing out loud, as the garbage management services man picked up that heavy bag and threw it into the back of his truck. Easy peasy. No mess. Gone.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so tickled pink in my whole life letting go of other people’s garbage.
Click Here For
Embodied Boundaries
An E-Boutique Workshop
Dana Stovern is founder and coach of The Magic of Somatic Money, and author of the blog Along the Learning Curve of Life. Even though her profession is body-based money relationship coaching, her first love is words, writing and exploring the depths of the human conscious (or unconscious) condition in body and soul development.