The Message of the Fridge

Most of us assume that everyday will be just like any other and things will go on and tasks will get done as they do every day, without a glitch. But sometimes things around you just decide to cave in and there, you suddenly feel you are at a loose end!

Yesterday our fridge of fifteen odd years just decided that it would call it a day (temporarily atleast!). Early morning I discovered that there was no ice forming in the freezer and that the fridge bootles were not as cool as they normally are. Thankfully the service centre responded fast and by afternoon I ws told that the no-frost part had just died and need to be replaced. Thank God I thought at least this can be done fast and I did not have to let the fridge go out of the house for a few days for it to get repaired. The technician said it would have to be kept switched off till the block of ice that had formed behind the freezer could melt and he could work. So there I was at wits end wondering what to do with the contents. Thankfully I have my sister-in-law staying in the neighbourhood and she readily and benevolently agreed to accomodate my stuff in her's till my fridge was repaired. And so by evening I was able to settle my stuff in her fridge and felt grateful about the presence of caring relatives around me.

I remembered the days when there were no refrigerators around. My Mom used to heat the milk several times a day to keep it fresh all through the day so that we as youngsters could get it when we came home from school. She would set the curds at night so that no extra milk ever got wasted. I did just that and felt good I did not have to dispose stuff into the drain.

The whole episode lead me to clean up and discard several things from the freezer which most of us just tend to accumulate, thinking they we will be handy when required at a later date. Unfortunately when we actually need such stuff our memories may have run dry and we have gone out and fetched the same stuff only to find some of it still in the freezer stored away for future use!

I realised how methaphorical this entire incident really was. It lead to me to think how we carry a baggage of our sour memories and negative emotions and 'store them away for future use' when we would have been better off and lighter without them. Sour memories as I see them are incidents when we have been hurt or angered by another and we tend to store them away 'waiting for the right moment to hit back'. But what earthly good does it do to us? The negative energy from them remains locked in our meridians and over time accumulates to make us ill. Meditation is one way to realease them and let them go. It helps the channels in our body to dispose of the unwanted, negative energies that have blocked the free-flowing 'prana' that is so vital for good, holistic health.

My friend who is a Feng Shui expert often reminds our 'Vibes' group to get rid of unwanted 'clutter'. Clutter can be at the material, physical level or at the energetic emotional or mental level. Wherever it be, regular spring cleaning helps both the home, hearth and the heart!

At the end of the day I was grateful that this indispensible household gadget caved in because it had a message: one of being vigilant and learning to stay healthy by discarding unwanted emotional baggage that was not required.