What the Vase Knew Before I Did

In the middle of packing for a move to a smaller space, Lisa opens a box that's been sealed for four years — and finds beautiful pottery she forgot she owned. When a vase shatters on the floor by accident, it cracks open a deeper question: why do we hold onto things long after they've stopped serving us? This episode is a meditation on the boxes we keep sealed — not just the physical ones, but the old credentials, the expired plans, the relationships that ended before they ended. Lisa explores the tension between letting go and honoring what was, and why attachment isn't always a problem to solve — sometimes it's just love looking for a place to live. If you're in the middle of any kind of transition, this one's for you.

Soul to Soul with Dr. Lisa Carter-Bawa is a podcast for anyone who is in the middle of becoming — doing the inner work, asking the harder questions, and learning to live from the inside out.

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Transcript

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You're listening to Soul to Soul with Lisa Carter Bawa, where science meets soul. I'm moving. And I don't mean that the way people usually mean it. The logistics, the boxes, the change of address forms. I mean I'm in the middle of deciding what comes with me into the next chapter of my life and what does not. And it turns out that's a much harder question than I thought it would be. A couple of days ago I was packing, or unpacking, or honestly, I'm not sure what to call it when you open a box that's been sealed since your last move and realize you are meeting objects you forgot you owned. This box had been packed for four years. Four years. It survived one move, sat in a closet, and was never opened, never missed, never thought about again. And when I unwrapped the paper, I found pottery, glass vases, beautiful things. Things I must have chosen at some point in some version of my life for some home I was building that does not exist anymore. And I stood there holding this vase, and the thought that came to me was not, oh, I love this. The thought was, what am I gonna do with this? Because the new place is smaller and I can't take everything. And more than that, more than the square footage, I'm not sure I'm supposed to take everything. I'm not sure everything is meant to come. So here's what happened. I set the vase down on the floor because I hadn't decided yet. I was gonna think about it, I was gonna weigh the options, keep it, donate it, find a shelf for it in a place that doesn't help a shelf for it yet. And then in the middle of moving around the room, I knocked it over accidentally. And it shattered. And my first thought, my honest first thought, was well, maybe that's the universe making the decision I couldn't. But my second thought was slower, and it's the one I've been sitting with since. The vase had been wrapped in paper for four years. It hadn't held flowers, it hadn't sat on a table somewhere someone else could see, it hadn't done the thing it was meant to do. It was just being kept. And I was the one keeping it. Not because I needed it, because I couldn't figure out how to let it go. And I thought, how much of my life looks like that right now? I want to talk about why we hold on to things, not just objects, but the things the objects represent. Because when I was standing in that room with glass on the floor and packing paper everywhere, I wasn't grieving a vase. I was grieving the version of me who chose it. The home I was building when I bought it, the life I thought I'd be living when I imagined where it would go. And that life isn't bad, it's just over. It's a past that no longer exists. And the vase was the last physical proof that it did. I think we do more of this than we realize. We keep things in boxes and closets in the back of our minds, not because they serve us, but because letting them go feels like admitting that a chapter is actually closed. And as long as the box stays sealed, we don't have to say that out loud. Opening the box is the hard part. Not because of what's inside, because of what it asks you to acknowledge. I'm not just talking about pottery. I'm talking about the credential you keep referencing from a career you left 10 years ago. I'm talking about the relationship you hold space for that ended long before it ended. I'm talking about the version of your five-year plan that you wrote in a season that no longer applies, but you haven't rewritten it because rewriting it means admitting that the ground has shifted. We all have boxes we haven't opened, and every move, every transition is an invitation to open them. Here's where it gets complicated, and I want to be honest about the complication because I think the easy version of this story is let it go, move forward. You're not your stuff. But that's not the whole truth. Some of these things do define me, or they did. And the difference between those two sentences is where all the grief lives. There are things in these boxes that are connected to people I've lost, places I'll never live again, seasons of my life where I was becoming someone, and the object is the only evidence that that becoming happened. Letting go of the object does not erase the becoming. I know that intellectually. But my hands don't know it. My hands want to hold on. And I think this is the tension that nobody talks about in all the advice we get about decluttering and minimalism and starting fresh. The advice assumes that attachment is a problem to solve. But sometimes attachment is just love looking for a place to live. And when the place it lived, the home, the relationship, the season, is gone, it moves into the objects. And letting go of the object feels like evicting the love. It's not, but it feels like it. And I think we're allowed to say that. I keep coming back to the vase on the floor because I didn't decide to break it. I didn't have a moment of clarity where I said, I don't need this anymore, and ceremoniously let it go. I knocked it over by accident, while I was busy doing something else. And I wonder if that's actually how most letting go happens. Not as a decision, not as a ceremony, but as a thing that breaks while you're in motion, while you're not looking, while you're already moving toward the next thing and the past just falls. Maybe we put too much pressure on ourselves to let go gracefully, to have a moment, to journal about it and process it and reach acceptance before we release our grip. Maybe sometimes the letting go is just the glass hitting the floor while you're halfway to the kitchen. And maybe that's mercy. Maybe the universe breaks the thing you couldn't put down because it knows you were never going to put it down on your own. Not because you're weak, because you loved it. And love doesn't set things down easily. I want to be careful here not to make this too tidy because it is not tidy. I'm still in the middle of it. There are boxes in my living room right now. Some of them I've opened and sorted, some of them I haven't touched yet because I know what's inside and I'm not ready. And I think that's okay. I think we're allowed to not be ready. I think we're allowed to let some boxes stay sealed for one more night and come back to them when we have more capacity. But I also know this. I'm moving into a smaller space on purpose, not because I couldn't find somewhere bigger, because I'm choosing to need less room. And that choice is asking me a question I didn't expect. It's not asking what do I want to keep? It's asking, who am I without all of it? Who am I without the pottery from a kitchen I don't cook in anymore? Who am I without the books I've been carrying since graduate school that I never reread? Who am I without the physical evidence of every life I've lived? The answer, I think, is I'm the person who lived all of those lives, and I don't need a box to prove it. If you're in the middle of a transition right now, a move, a career change, a relationship ending, a season shifting, and you're standing in a room surrounded by things you don't know what to do with, I want you to know that the ache you feel is not a weakness. It's proof that you lived fully in the chapter that's closing. You wouldn't grieve it if it didn't matter. And I want you to know that what comes with you into the next chapter is not the vase or the box or the object. It's what those things taught you about who you are. That comes with you. It comes with you always. No amount of downsizing can take it. You don't need reinvention. You need a return to the person underneath all the things you've been carrying. She's still there. She's been there the whole time. She's just been buried under a lot of packing paper. Set it down or let it fall. Either way, you're still you. I'll see you next week. This is Dr. Lisa Carter Bawa with Soul to Soul.