This week I let go of the last of my club-girl clothing, in particular this exquisite floor-length, black fitted dress that I loved beyond measure. I loved my life at the time I was wearing it. I loved who I was at that time too. And I love the feelings that  flood into me as this dress transports me back to my clubbing days, all those years ago.

We often hold onto items like this because they represent a part of ourselves. It’s almost as though we’ve taken a piece of our identity and magically infused it into the object. Perhaps this is why we protect the item so fiercely, why we simply will not let it go. It keeps an important part of us in safekeeping. We feel that if we let it go, we will lose that part of ourselves. So instead we keep that university textbook, that swimming badge, that cookbook, that club-girl dress.

But what if by letting it go of the object, we were able to release the energy and bring it back home?

What if instead of relegating my club-girl attitude to a dress at the back of my closet, I owned it again? I’m not talking about turning back the clock or living in the past. I’m talking about having that energy take shape in my life today, live in my body today, be alive in my psyche now!

Perhaps that dress is in a closet because I don’t believe that there is room for that part of myself in my life anymore and that is painful. In response, I mourn that part of me and build a shrine to it in my closet.

But that part of my identity is always available to me; it must be because it IS me.

It might not look the same now as it did in the past but let’s not get distracted by the details. It’s deeper than that. It’s about embodying the essence of who we are. So, while it’s true that I likely won’t be dancing at a nightclub into the wee hours, sweating, flinging my hair, hands up, hips moving*, I am still a dancer, still fierce, still sensual, still wildly alive.

I am the container for that energy, not the dress.

So the answer isn’t to take the dress out of the closet and start wearing it again. It isn’t about going clubbing or reliving my past. It’s about taking that locked up energy and giving it a home in my life now. It’s about answering the question, “What does that look like for me today?” I know it looked like me dancing in Luminato this year and that’s just the beginning.

No part of yourself needs to be relegated to the basement, the closet or the storage room. You get to be all of you at each stage of your life – wild, strong, fierce, gentle, introspective, curious, adventurous, solitary, playful, sexy, reverential, silly – everything.

This week, as I lovingly folded up that dress and put it in a bag for donation, I felt a deep sense of release but not in the way people talk about in books about decluttering. This release was not about letting go; it was about taking back. I released my club-girl energy from its beautiful black-dress cage so that it could roam through my life freely and with abandon once more.

Take It To Your Journal

Is there a part of you that’s been relegated to the past?
Is there an object that holds its energy?
How might you bring that energy back into your life today?

Let’s choose wholeness.
Bring your energy home.