There is a disorder that is slowly eating at the core of our society. Even though no one wants to admit it, this disorder affects the rich, the poor, members of every political party, believers in Christ and non-believers.
The disorder of which I speak is a physical manifestation of some severe psychological problems. This is evidenced on a TV program on the A&E Network. The program title is “Hoarders.”
The physical manifestation referred to as ‘hoarding’ is always devastating to the individual displaying the disorder and to those who care about this person. If you have not had the opportunity to see this series, take a look. I do warn you that the images you will see are very disturbing.
Hoarding is defined in Wikipedia as: “Compulsive hoarding (or pathological hoarding or disposophobia or the Messie mindset) is a mental disorder marked by an obsessive need to acquire (and failure to use or discard) a significant amount of possessions, even if the items are worthless, hazardous, or unsanitary.” Compulsive hoarding causes significant clutter and impairment to basic living activities, including mobility, cooking, cleaning, showering, and sleeping. A person who engages in compulsive hoarding is commonly said to be a “pack rat”, in reference to that animal’s apparent fondness for material objects.
It is not clear whether compulsive hoarding is an isolated disorder, or rather a symptom of another condition, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder. Hoarding unnecessary possessions may be referred to as syllogomania.
Many lives have been affected by this disorder. Usually this is triggered by some traumatic event in a person’s life. Sufferers are usually very secretive about their habit and very protective of their possessions.
Family and friends try to reason with the hoarder but most often with no satisfactory results. As the volume of ‘things’ collected grows, health (mental and physical) often deteriorate. This can be a life threatening compulsion. Deep psychological problems develop and the individually loses control.
If we look at this disorder clinically, we can understand a great deal about ‘human nature.’ Not everyone displays the physical disorder of hoarding but many tend to suffer from ‘spiritual hoarding.’ Well then, what is spiritual hoarding?
Spiritual hoarding is just what the name implies. As we grow and develop into adults, we are conditioned by our environment, what we are taught and what we learn on our own. Our lives are filled daily with an entire spectrum of experiences, from the mundane to the severe. Each of these ‘life experiences’ affects us to some degree. We often internalize these experiences and store them away in our long term memory. Unconsciously we hoard these events. Often these life events do not manifest themselves physically but inevitably they affect our spiritual well being.
Through my many years of counseling individuals and couples, I have noticed that most of us are driven by ideas and concepts that have been formed by the many ‘life experiences’ that we encounter. Too often our view of the world around us is shaded by life experiences, events in our lives consciously forgotten but ever present in our subconscious.
Often we do things that we regret and we try to suppress the memory. We hide these events from others and from ourselves. We put them out of our minds. The ugly truth, however, is that these events lurk under the surface of our consciousness.
Some things that we hold hidden in our hearts can manifest themselves openly in an entirely unrecognizable fashion. Let me give you an example. In my life, before I accepted Christ as my Savior, I would easily fall into anger. My anger would all too often be sparked by simple events or actions of others. A friend would say something that I took offense to and the ‘friendship’ would be over immediately. I had a terrible temper. I could always find someone to blame for my behavior.
It took many years of soul searching for me to come to terms with my temper. I discovered something about myself that is also very common in others. When I made this discovery, I began to see the solution to many of my personal problems and my life was profoundly changed.
Because of some very traumatic events in my childhood, I lost the ability to forgive. My heart was filled with the cold darkness of unforgiveness. I discovered that I was angry at others who had done something to me when I was very young and, at that time, I could do absolutely nothing about it. I was too young to understand these thing and why these trusted friends would do these things too me. I was unable to express these emotions to anyone. All I could do was push these things deep within my subconscious, out of my minds sight, where they just grew darker and colder. In my case, at a very early age, I began to drink alcohol. I tried to change my destructive impulses with other destructive behavior. The only way that I knew to deal with the emotions that resulted was to lash out at others with little provocation. I was ‘hoarding’ emotions. I collected them and put them away where they grew in volume and began to fester and stink.
When I realized the true significance of what Christ did for me on the cross, I was forced to face my own demons. Without fail, Christ forgave those who tormented Him. He forgave those who had done unthinkably cruel things to Him. He forgave me of the lifetime of horrible sins that I had committed. He released me from the bondage of my sins.
I knew these facts. I understood the concept of forgiveness. I was (and still am) truly grateful for Christ’s forgiveness. But I was still suffering. I knew I was forgiven but those sins still bound me. The emotions that had ruled me still had considerable control over me and I was so confused. I truly believed that Christ had forgiven me but I was still suffering,
When I realized that I was still bound to the things, actions, the people of my past, I realized that the only way I could break that bondage was to forgive others who had hurt me, done horrible things to me, and, most importantly, I had to forgive myself. I had to allow Christ’s love to strengthen me enough to forgive. Even though, in my mind, these people had done horrible things to me, I had not suffered a fraction of the suffering that Christ had. He forgave without reservation.
When I began to forgive, the bondages began to be broken. When I put into practice what Christ taught us on the cross, I began to be free, truly free. The anger subsided. The guilt left. The darkness was turned to light.
How does spiritual hoarding affect us in our daily lives and our becoming successful? This topic will be covered in following posts. You need to see read this entire series.
