TSH Writes About...
Impact
Emotional impact of clutter
and how to get started resolving it - PART TWO
Identifying your feelings
How do you begin to put your emotions into words? Writing them down with pen or pencil on paper, in your own handwriting is recommended. This may seem unnecessary when there are so many electronic options instead of writing things down.
You can find wellness apps that will allow you to check off boxes on lists of emotions, or even pick out a string of emojis to show your state of mind, but the act of writing out your thoughts on paper seems to have a remarkable impact. But I have found that these shortcuts are not as effective.
The time that you will spend turning a thought into a word and words into a sentence and sentences into a paragraph-your words and your paragraph, begins to remove some of their mystery. You may have found that when you wrote a note to yourself, you remembered the content without needing to refer back to the note. The act of using your hand to make the shape of the letter integrates into our being. Typing can do that, of course, any exercise that externalizes the internal brings insight, but crafting words with your own hands seems to have the biggest impact.
You will begin to feel a connection between the words and what’s happening with you. You will begin to own your feelings, which is the first step toward feeling more control over them.
Journaling or keeping a diary is just a great thing to do if you are so inclined. There’s an entire industry devoted to selling journals and blank books for writing. Bullet journals, workbooks with prompts (I feel angry when (fill in the blank)), date books, apps that remind you to write your thoughts of the day and reward you with a badge when you complete your day’s task. Maybe you recall receiving a special diary with a lock as a young pre-teen, the perfect thing to write down your secrets safely out of sight of your younger brother or sister.
If you are like me, you have not had much success with this type of assignment writing. Blank books look very inviting on store shelves, but maybe you haven’t been able to keep up your enthusiasm for writing for more than a few days. Be careful that purchasing blank journals does not become a substitute for doing the actual work. Just like purchasing a new weight loss supplement or a gym membership does not automatically buy you better health, buying a new journal and getting your thoughts down are not the same thing. I am never surprised to see a stack of beautiful journals in the home of a client each with a page or two filled and then abandoned.
But here is the good thing: putting your thoughts and feelings down on paper only needs to happen once to be effective. You don’t have to make a commitment to writing in a diary for the rest of your life. Maybe this will lead to a daily writing practice, but it may not. It didn’t for me. When I completed this exercise, I was appalled at how unreadable my writing was and how glad I was that I had electronic alternatives. I don’t write with a pen or pencil in my own hand unless I have no other choice, so my penmanship has deteriorated to a scrawl. That’s ok. Think about how you might not judge what works for you but give writing your thoughts down in your own hand just this once.
However, you decide to proceed with getting your thoughts down on paper, this is the first step of getting to your vision, which is your once time statement of your best life going forward. It’s the first step because to get to your vision of your best life, you’ll need to see where you are starting. Only then can you take a good look at what steps can be taken to get from where you are to where you are going.
To begin this writing project, you’ll just need to attach a word to a feeling and emotion you are having. It doesn’t have to be the perfect word. No single word can capture the depth and breadth of an emotion that you are experiencing, language will always fail to completely express an emotion. All you can do is just start somewhere.
Use whatever word seems to fit. Here are some categories that you can start with:
Anxious/nervous/apprehensive
Scared/afraid
Ashamed/Embarrassed/
Angry/Bitter/Hurt/Resentful
Discouraged/Hopeless/Frustrated
Sad/Distraught/Grief-stricken
Lonely/ignored
But also:
Content/Peaceful/Calm/Relaxed
Happy/Joyful/Excited/Elated
Safe/Secure/Protected
Hopeful/Optimistic/
Maybe you will start by writing each set of words at the top of the page and then further distilling those words into something more tangible. You will need something more specific to understand what is behind those terms for you.
You are not trying to rationalize them or justify them or even explain them at this point. In the past, you’ve probably told yourself that over and over again that you shouldn’t feel something, and it probably didn’t help much. If being told you shouldn’t feel something worked, you would not be reading this.
Maybe you’ve had people who love you tell you that you are wonderful and loved and worthy of feeling happy and content, but it didn’t stop you from being discouraged and lonely. So, this time, just write out what you are experiencing as if you were an interested observer.
Take your time, take short breaks if needed, but it’s better to just dump it all out in one sitting. How does your list look? Is it long? Do the feeling words fit into categories? Do you have more negative feelings or positive ones? When you wrote out the feeling words, did you find that you experienced the emotion or did you feel detached? Were you able to continue writing until you felt it was complete or was it too hard to continue all at once?
Now is a great time to take a break and just relaxed. If you are hungry, have a nice meal, or if you want to go for a walk or run, now is a great time.
Even a nice nap is a good idea. Do something that feels good to you, but try not to use this as a time to spend money or shop. For just this once, sit with these feelings.
Getting organized is not easy. It’s not fun. There is no good reason to do it unless staying disorganized for the rest of your life, and passing that mess on to your kids and family, is a future that is more bleak than doing the hard work of getting organized now. Need help getting started? Schedule a Complementary Serenity Call!
