It’s cold and rainy, and our clothes dryer has suddenly stopped working. I like having things in order and functioning properly — keeping everything as it should be. Control over my environment feels essential to my happiness — or is it really?

I catch myself on this supposed spiritual path, taking a deep breath to maintain my center, returning to my body, my equilibrium, my calm. My mind justifies the situation: “Luckily, I just washed and dried the sheets. Everything is still as it should be. No need for a dryer this very second.”
I pick up the phone and call the repairman. He says he’ll try to come tomorrow. Tomorrow comes and goes, and now he says he’ll check it only after the weekend. I begin to catastrophize, imagining worst-case scenarios: he’ll come, think he can fix it, say he fixed it, I’ll pay him, and it’ll break down again in a week. Maybe I should just buy a new dryer. But that’s another expense.

I’m not even sure if I’ll stay in this apartment or this city long enough to justify buying another dryer. This disruption has thrown a wrench into my sense of stability and equilibrium.

I take another deep breath. It’s still raining, and I try to hang my clothes on the balcony to dry. By morning, they’re still damp. Frustrated, I reach for a book and realize I’m clinging — oddly — to my clothes dryer.
Am I attached to a clothes dryer? Really? My mind insists I cannot be happy without it, especially in winter. Again, I catastrophize, imagining all the worst things that could happen.

But then I stop and ask myself: Is a dryer truly essential? Many people don’t have one, and they’re still living and breathing. My mind continues to nag, trying to prolong my discomfort, but I take another deep breath.
This is a test, I tell myself. I count my blessings. If this is my biggest problem, then life is perfect. That’s the truth.

We cling to people, places, circumstances, and things without realizing it — until something goes awry. When our environment is knocked off balance, we might experience a meltdown over something as insignificant as a clothes dryer.

What have you been clinging to lately that’s brought you stress or discomfort — and how might you begin to release it?

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Thank you for reading 🖤

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