Intrusive Thoughts, Ep. 11: The Spiritual Audit of Your Clutter (and the Audacity of Your Storage Boxes)

Photo by Kayla Maurais on Unsplash

The power went off precisely at 2:15 PM. In Lagos, this is not an event; it is a liturgical transition. The sudden silence of the standing fan was followed by the low, rumbling growl of a Mikano generator kicking to life three streets over, a mechanical beast singing the song of high diesel prices.

I was sitting on the floor of my bedroom in Surulere, surrounded by a mountain of things I had pulled out from the bottom of my wardrobe. I had been scrolling through X when a thread about physical objects carrying “the frequency of decay” caught my eye. The author, a digital philosopher with a flawless skin routine and an apparent hatred for cardboard boxes, had listed nine things you must remove from your house immediately because they attract bad energies.

I looked at the floor. If this thread were remotely accurate, my bedroom wasn’t an apartment; it was a demonic portal.

My brain, which usually treats domestic chores with absolute contempt, immediately activated its inner spiritual warrior.

“Look at that cardboard box in the corner,” the voice whispered, dripping with a sudden, profound dread. “The one containing the charging cables for a Nokia 3310, three broken extension cords, and a manual for a generator you sold in 2022. That is not storage, Kennedy. That is an altar to stagnation. The spirits of unresolved logistics are living in that box. If you do not burn it before sunset, your bank account will never see a credit alert again.”

I reached for a trash bag, my hands shaking slightly. We have entered an era where your house is either a sanctuary or a crime scene, and my wardrobe was definitely hiding some bodies.

The Museum of Personal Failure

Photo by Roberto Sorin on Unsplash

Let us dissect the absolute spiritual audacity of the things we keep in our homes under the guise of “sentimental value” or “future utility.” The thread layout was brutal because it didn’t attack our lack of cleanliness; it attacked our subconscious.

1. The Chemically Dead Pharmacy

The first item on the list was expired medicines and vitamins. I dug into my bedside drawer and pulled out a bottle of Vitamin C from 2021 and some paracetamol that looked like it had survived the military regime.

The thread notes that these things carry the frequency of decay, and every time you look at them, your brain registers that things here don’t work anymore.

In Nigeria, keeping expired medicine is practically a cultural tradition. We don’t see it as decay; we see it as an investment. Your mother will look at a bottle of cough syrup from 2018 and say, “Keep it, the active ingredient is still angry. It will still fight the catarrh.”

But the thread is right. It’s a monument to the times you were sick, a reminder of past malaria battles you’ve already won but refuse to leave behind. Keeping a bottle of melatonin from four years ago means you are literally archiving your old insomnia. Throw it away. Let the past sleep.

2. The “I Might Fix It Someday” Delusion

Next came the broken objects. The lamp that doesn’t turn on. The chair with the wobbly leg. The blender that smells like burning rubber every time you try to make smooth beans for moin-moin.

Every broken thing says, “I live in incompleteness.”

This one hit close to home. I have a standing fan in my parlour that requires a very specific, ritualistic slap on the side to start spinning. I’ve been meaning to call an electrician named Sunday to fix it since last Christmas. Every time I slap that fan, my brain internalises a lower standard of living. It says, You are a man who must abuse his electronics to get cold air.

It lowers your standards for what you accept in life. If you are tolerating a wobbly chair in your dining room, you will tolerate a wobbly relationship in your life. Fix it or fling it. There is no middle ground.

3. The Fashion Fantasy vs. The Reality

Then we have the clothes that don’t fit. The trousers from your university days when your metabolism was fast, and your pocket was empty. The shirt you bought online that requires you to hold your breath for forty-five seconds just to fasten the middle button.

The thread calls this a daily vote of no confidence in yourself. You open your closet and unconsciously feel that you are not enough as you are right now.

In Lagos, we call these “faith clothes.” You keep them because you believe that one day, after a seven-day dry fast or a sudden bout of stomach flu, you will magically shrink back into them. But until that miracle happens, those size 32 jeans is just sitting there, mocking your current size 36 reality every single morning. It’s a ghost in your closet, whispering, Look at how large you’ve become.

Wear what fits your body today, not your past and definitely not your fantasy.

The Ghosts of Relationships Past

The most emotional segment of the list dealt with the archives of heartbreak: photos, journals, and gifts from people who no longer honour you.

4. The Relics of Obligation

We all have that one hideous painting or strange souvenir given to us by an ex-partner or a friend who later stabbed us in the back. You keep it because throwing it away feels rude, even though the person who gave it to you hasn’t thought about your existence since 2024.

Keeping gifts from people who don’t respect you means you are honouring them more than yourself. Your space should be a sanctuary, not a museum of obligation.

My internal monologue was savage on this point.

“That wristwatch from your ex-girlfriend is not a timepiece,” the voice laughed. “It’s a tracking device for regret. Every time you check the time, you are checking how long it’s been since your heart was shattered on the Lekki-Ikoyi link bridge. Throw it into the lagoon. Let the fish tell the time.”

5. The Dark Archives

The thread suggests burning old journals from painful periods. Reading them doesn’t help you heal; it just puts you back in that low frequency.

This is where the Gen Z audacity meets traditional African pragmatism. Our parents didn’t keep journals because if you wrote down your darkest thoughts in a notebook in a Nigerian house, your mother would find it during a random search and call a deliverance service for you by 5:00 AM.

But for those of us who did write things down, those old diaries are just emotional landmines. You’re having a perfectly good Thursday, you open an old notebook to look for a phone number, and suddenly you’re reading a three-page essay you wrote in 2019 about how you will never find love again because someone named Cynthia changed her WhatsApp status. Why are you archiving your own misery? Some things deserve to be burned, not filed away.

The Bedroom Stage: The Mirror Madness

The list finished with a warning about mirrors in the bedroom. “One mirror is honest,” the thread stated. “Five mirrors is performance anxiety.” Multiple mirrors create an unconscious surveillance of yourself, turning a place of rest into a stage.

I looked at my wardrobe doors, which are completely mirrored from top to bottom. Every time I roll over in bed, I am forced to confront a reflection of myself looking like a confused caveman in boxers. It is an endless loop of self-judgment before sleep.

The intrusive thought arrived, heavy with the weight of the whole audit.

“Your house is an exact map of your mind,” the voice whispered, the satire fading into something far too real. “Look at the dead plant on the balcony. Look at the receipts from supermarkets you visited six months ago. Look at the mirrors reflecting your own exhaustion back at you. You are trying to build a future while surrounded by the dead bodies of your past.”

The Sanctuary Clear-Out

I spent the next two hours filling three massive black bin bags. The expired paracetamol went first. The wobbly extension cords followed. The clothes that belonged to a version of me that no longer existed were packed into a bag to be given to someone who can actually wear them today.

As I dragged the final bag out to the waste bin downstairs, the neighbourhood generator suddenly cut out, and the grid electricity returned with a bright, sudden flash. The fan in my room started to spin smoothly, without needing a slap.

It was a small change, a simple coincidence of the Lagos power grid, but the room felt lighter. The air felt cleaner.

Every object we keep is indeed a vote for a certain version of our future. If you clear the physical clutter but your mind is still heavy, it means the real work hasn’t even started yet. You can’t manifest a new season if your living room is still dressed for the old one.

If you opened your wardrobe right now, would you find a wardrobe full of clothes for the person you are today, or a graveyard of the person you used to be? What is the one object in your room right now that you know you need to throw away, but your pride won’t let you?

Let’s talk about it in the comments.