Deep down our inner workings are good.

What’s not good is all the junk piled on top of the good.

The history, defensive mechanisms, trauma, judgmental thinking, biases, prejudices, and pain that blocks the good.

Life is not a process of “becoming” better, we are good as we are.

But we do have to commit to a consistent junk-removal process so we feel the good.

For some, junk-removal is light, for some it’s heavy and overwhelming. When it feels this way, it’s wise to ask for help.

We all have junk, none of us are alone.

There is nothing braver than noticing the junk and having the courage to question its usefulness.

People want to feel good, but to eliminate any discomfort, they decide to ignore the junk.

Instead, they recite quotes, resist any negative feeling, and tell others how great they are doing and why everyone else is doing it wrong.

Great quotes are awesome. But using them in place of junk removal is like wearing a band aid with an untreated infection underneath it. Without proper attention, what’s underneath gets worse and ends up hurting more.

And when crisis shows up, the junk underneath absorbs all the space. It becomes difficult to move or breathe.

The junk is the secret we keep from ourselves.

It’s the key to our anger and self harm, the reason why we struggle with relationships or feel the need to blame others for our pain.

Negative feelings are natural, and an occasional impulsive comment or tantrum is highly human. But consistently mean behavior or intellectually devised plans to hurt others are a sign.

A sign that there’s a lot of junk.

Junk doesn’t have to be labeled “bad”. It all had a time and place. It was an experience, a challenge, a lesson.

It was part of our life story.

But when we hold onto it or pretend it’s not there, we literally become our junk.

So we can lovingly let it go.

We don’t meet it with disdain or forget it existed, we just look through it, take the small pieces we need, and release the rest.

So we are lighter. So we have space for now and tomorrow.

Where we can feel and act from our good.

About the Author

Cathy Adams

Cathy Cassani Adams, LCSW, CPC, CYT is the author of three books including the multiple award-winning Living What You Want Your Kids to Learn: The Power of Self-Aware Parenting. She co-hosts the internationally popular Zen Parenting Radio, and she’s co-creator of the annual Zen Parenting Conference. She’s a sought-after speaker and she teaches in the Sociology/Criminology Department at Dominican University. Cathy and her husband Todd are raising three girls.

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