... and in an almost perfect example of our unconscious mind mulling over things that are not accessible to our conscious mind ... Last night I had a strong urge to pare down my possessions (mainly books). My place suddenly looked like I had way too many things in too small a space. So I started pulling out books I never read, clothes I never wore, random kitchen objects, and ended up with half a dozen big boxes and bags full of things to go to my church or to Goodwill.
My place is not really that cluttered, and I don't hang onto things, so this desire to get rid of stuff wasn't caused by some trigger in my immediate environment. It wasn't until now that I figured out - aha, this is some part of my mind fussing about all the stuff of ex's that I now have to do something with, and this decluttering is my way of attempting to exert some kind of (largely symbolic) control over the proliferation of stuff.