It began, as most spiritual crises do, with a stapler. Not just any stapler, mind you, but The Swingline I inherited from a past job and have kept ever since—not because it works well, but because I have unresolved abandonment issues tied to office supplies. There it sat, smug and slightly dusty, wedged between a dried-out glue stick, a half-used birthday candle shaped like a “4,” and a pen that only writes on receipts. I reached for it with hope. I pressed with intention. And, naturally, it jammed… again. In that moment, I did not just feel betrayed by plastic and springs, I felt spiritually blocked and energetically sabotaged. Metaphysically stapled to my own avoidance. Because nothing says “you still have work to do” like a broken Swingline reminding you that you have, in fact, shoved your shadow work into a drawer next to a Capri Sun straw and a single googly eye.

The Junk Drawer

It started innocently enough. A simple task, really. I needed to staple a few pages together—a to-do list, a grocery receipt, and a half-baked affirmation I scribbled on the back of a napkin: “I release all that no longer serves me.” It was a spiritual declaration, a new-leaf moment. I was ready. I had sage in one hand, my 17th attempt at life organization in the other. All I needed was the stapler.

Cue Dramatic Music. Enter The Swingline, Stage Left.

It was red once. Maybe. Now it’s the washed-out shade of regret. I found it half-buried in the drawer I never speak of. The Drawer–you know the one. The junk drawer. The cabinet of chaos. The energetic landfill where paperclips go to die and expired coupons, expiration dates long past, huddle together for warmth.

I should have taken it as a sign when The Swingline refused to open without a minor exorcism. I jiggled it. I whispered to it. I offered it peace. Nothing. It jammed, as it always does, right when I needed it most. And in that jam, I felt it. The tension… the tightness… the karmic weight of years of avoidance wrapped in a twisted metal coil. Shades of Winifred Sanderson: I was cursed. Again.

But of course, it is never just about the stapler.

Metaphysically speaking, everything holds energy. Not in some vague, incense-laced, Pinterest-board kind of way—but in a tangible, residue-of-your-soul kind of way. That Swingline is not “just” a stapler, it is a symbol. A physical manifestation of unresolved energy, stored emotion, and spiritual procrastination. It is shadow work dressed as office equipment, living in your drawer like it pays rent.

People think spiritual blockages show up as dramatic life events or lightning bolts of intuition. But more often than not, they show up in the little things—the broken zipper you refuse to fix, the to-do list that migrates from one notebook to another like a determined ghost, and yes, the cursed Swingline that keeps jamming because your subconscious is trying to tell you something. The universe does not always yell. Sometimes, it whispers in jammed staples.

The Drawer from Another Dimension

Everyone has one. Some people call it a utility drawer. Others call it the place where their dreams go to die. No one really opens it voluntarily. Me? That’s the one I hang the plastic trash back from. That should say a lot, right there. It is the drawer you crack open when you are looking for a pen but instead find old twist ties,  two unmatched screws, a fortune cookie fortune that reads “You will soon be tired,” and enough dried-up pens to build a shrine to sadness and unfulfilled dreams.

Energetically, it is where we store what we do not want to deal with. Emotionally, it is a vault of delay. Spiritually, it is a low-frequency time capsule, holding expired batteries, forgotten intentions, and buttons from shirts that were lost in 2009. And because energy loves to hide in the overlooked, this is where shadow work moves in, wears your old socks, and refuses to pay its half of the utility bill.

I have come to believe that the more things you have in your drawer that you cannot identify, the more psychically static you are. Every unclaimed key is a question. Did I live there? Can I walk back into that house? Did they change the locks? Every half-melted crayon is a forgotten creative urge. Every bent paperclip is a reminder that you, too, have been twisted by circumstances and left in a place you did not ask to be.

The Swingline, though—it takes it a step further. The Swingline does not just exist passively like the rest of the drawer detritus. It waits. It chooses its moment. It will staple one thing correctly and then jam for eternity, like a spiritual trickster daring you to examine your deeper resistance. The moment you try to get your life together—bam—it seizes up, as if to say, “Are you sure you’re ready to grow? Because your shadow says otherwise.”

For the love of all that is sacred, when was the last time you tested your stapler? Be honest. Has it been months? Years? Did you inherit it from a co-worker who left unexpectedly in 2014? Is it a relic, a shrine piece, a totem of procrastination disguised as practicality? Because let us tell the truth here—if that stapler were a relationship, it would be the kind your best friend begged you to dump. It barely works, it constantly jams, and it has definitely made you cry at least once.

Here’s the hard kicker: even though we know better, most of us will keep that broken stapler forever.

Why? Because we think we might need it. We might one day want to staple something, and then we’ll have nothing. We will be left alone with our pages flying free, and our inner Virgo will riot. So we keep it, moving it from one junk drawer to the next. Maybe I could use it as an emergency hammer. Hey, that could happen. We know it’s cursed. We use it anyway. Because that, friends, is how we often live—spiritually blocked, emotionally jammed, and clinging to tools we know do not work for us anymore.

Clearing out the drawer is not just about tidying up your house—it is about untangling your energy. It is about creating flow where stagnation has silently piled up, staple by staple. Shadow work is not always deep meditations and past-life regressions. Sometimes it is holding a broken stapler and admitting you keep it because you’re afraid to admit that part of you still resists letting go.

Sometimes it is cleaning out the drawer while muttering, “Why do I still have this?” and realizing you are not just talking about that nasty lint roller—you are talking about that grudge, that habit, that identity you outgrew three soul cycles ago.

So what do we do? How do we “un-jam”? De-jam? Dis-jam? Oh, fine, how do we fix it?

We sage the drawer. We bless The Swingline. We hold a tiny forgiveness ceremony for the pushpin that never pushed and the tape that never stuck, cut cords with the rubber bands that no longer have stretch to them. We reclaim our space as sacred. We make the mundane mystical by acknowledging that even in clutter, there is consciousness. Even in chaos, there is clarity—if you’re willing to get messy enough to find it.

And then, when we are ready, we let it go. We unjam the energy. We release the staple from its metal purgatory and whisper, “You are free now. Stay gold, Ponyboy.”

In that small, ridiculous, holy act of clearing out a drawer and facing our stapler curses head-on, we actually shift something profound. We stop circling avoidance and finally choose alignment. We claim the healing that lives in the small, in the stupid, in the sticky note corners of our lives. That is metaphysics. That is magic.

At some point in life—and maybe we are already there—we reach a spiritual crossroads that can best be summed up as: use it or lose it. That especially applies to the parts of your life that are important–your talents, your time, your trust in yourself. This is no longer about stationery; it’s about being stationary. It is about energetic boundaries. If something in your life is not helping you move forward, if it cannot hold things together when you need it most, if it groans under pressure or falls apart mid-job—why are you still holding onto it?

The Swingline is a metaphor, sure, but it is also a very real example of what so many of us do. We keep broken tools—physical and emotional—not because they work, but because we have grown too used to the frustration. We tell ourselves we will fix it, or maybe it is still technically usable, or we are weirdly loyal to its failure. But deep down we know: most of us would be a lot better off if we stopped clinging to the things—people, habits, mental narratives, expired office supplies—that hold us back from actually succeeding.

So I ask—what is in your drawer that no longer deserves to be there? What outdated tool, emotional or otherwise, have you kept because it was familiar, even though it never really worked? Goodness knows, I’ve had many “tools” in my life and I have now set them free, with all the love in my heart. What are you ready to release—even if it makes you laugh, cringe, or cry?

This is your nudge. Your permission slip. Your sacred sign from the Universe wrapped in red plastic and jammed metal: test your stapler. Test your tools. Test your life. And if it is not working, if it is not supporting you, if it is spiritually stapling you to the past—it is okay to let it go and embrace the new.

Tell me below—what has your junk drawer been hiding from you? What old item, when you finally tossed it, brought the biggest unexpected emotional relief? Who knows what treasures—or spiritual sabotage—you might find.