I was sitting at dinner with my husband and son the other day and my son asked for some salt. My husband brought over the delicious Celtic sea salt in a wooden salt container. My son asked, “Hey would it be okay if I had the Malden salt instead?” My husband then proceeded to bring over the gourmet Malden sea salt in an old box with no lid, placed in an old plastic bag. He chuckled audibly and said, “We have the most gourmet salt inside such a junky container.” Something about that hit me right in the gut. I could not figure out why. I kept repeating it over and over again, turning it around in my mind as it swirled in my gut.

What was it about this quippy phrase, said in jest, that moved me so?

I then realized that so much of the information we receive today seems to be aimed at fixing our junky containers. 

Commentary on containers

Our bodies that house our organs, systems, minds, thoughts, feelings, reactions, sensations, experiences, and souls are constantly under critique. We are constantly hearing messages about our bodies not being good enough in some way–constant fodder on how to fix your junky container. 

We receive information about other containers as well. Our homes are constantly being compared to others in size, price, location, and decor.

Our work spaces as well. Much commentary about location, neighborhood, distance from home, comfortability, and view.

Not to mention the clothes that cover our containers and create another one. Have we achieved quiet luxury? How much do these clothes cost? Are they too modest, sexual, boring, hip?

I could write a whole book on container commentary and it could come from so many angles. I could write about the importance of embracing all kinds of containers, the harms of commentary, the importance of seeing containers, but for the purpose of this piece, I want to talk about our almost obsessive focus with messages around commentary on containers. 

And I ask..

But what about the salt? The beautifully delicious, flakey, Malden sea salt. 

We have gotten so fixated on containers that we have started to make many of our internal struggles into containers to either identify, or judge. Our mood disorders and our attachment styles have become containers.

Many people are no longer expressing that they are experiencing symptoms of anxiety, but rather they are an anxious person and they are anxiously attached. Their container is now anxiety. 

People then want to sit and talk about their containers. 

But what is forgotten is the salt. 

The beautiful stuff inside. The insides that sometimes feel distress and threat, have experienced trauma, have been hurt, have rejoiced, have moods, have been influenced, troubled, boundaried and can heal.

The inside is what we need to focus on. Inside is where hope and transformation lie. 

Inside is where you find the salt.