Tag: emotional weight

Emotional Weight – What! Part 3

Last year, I wrote a powerful short story about the field I cleared and took care of for a few years.  Every time I go into the field to maintain the work that I have done I am reminded of the powerful lessons I learned when parenting and that was confirmed for me in the field. This morning I had another experience that is worth sharing, as some of you may be where I have been and find myself again.

The home we live in was built in 1960. At that time West Point was a small farming community and there were more fields than homes. I believe that our home and the neighbor’s home with the field were built on top of an old dumping ground. While working in our yard I have dug up old bags that at one time held garbage, some remaining. But the biggest clue is the cement that surfaces in the field.

For many years the field next to our home, which I currently keep in order, had decades of debris on the ground and forests of weeds, grass, and sapling trees. After I cut down all the saplings and removed the weeds and grass to bare ground you could see all the cement. I gathered a bucket a day and piled it by the fence. When I had gathered what I could see I thought, “I am glad that job is done.”

Guess what, it isn’t done. Each year more bits of the cement surface. There is no debris, plants, or saplings to hold it under the ground. So each year I have found myself gathering up a bucket a day for a few weeks and adding the contents to the cement pile. Now, if I didn’t understand that sometimes there are layers to the work we do, I would be discouraged. But I know that what was buried will eventually surface and then I can clear it away.

This is like personal healing. It takes work to heal from trauma, tragedy, or from the everyday hurts that we experience as children in school and in our families. We realize there is an issue, so we do the work to heal. We think we have it all taken care of. But down the road more feelings, or stories may show up. When I experienced that in the past I would feel like a failure. I mean didn’t I already do this work. Maybe I just didn’t do a good enough job.

This isn’t the case. Healing is like working in the field. You clear the bits of cement but down the road, more cement may appear, freed from the dirt and rising to the light. You haven’t failed you are just doing the work of healing and it takes time; it is a process.

A few months ago, I had another layer of an old wound resurface. I had worked on this wound a few decades ago and thought it was healed. But here it was again, a new layer to an old story that negatively impacted my life.

I can choose to carry the emotional weight of this wound, or I can take a step. I decided to take a step. I wasn’t sure how to clear what had surfaced so I prayed. I felt that I should buy a love seat for our very tiny living space so that my mom and I could sit next to each other rather than across the room from each other. I was to hug her more, touch her more. Hmmm. We are neither one very touchy-feely, so this was a big step.

Then last week I had another thought. I write three things daily in my gratitude journal. The new thought was that I should write three things about my parents that I am grateful for and do it for at least a month! Wow, a month. That is ninety things I am grateful to my parents for.

I have a wound that I thought was healed but there is another layer. I know I can heal the whole wound from my experience. I know better than to carry the emotional weight of letting it sit. I have decided to move, and the thoughts and resources are coming. It isn’t always easy but I am making progress.

When we find a place where we are not yet whole, we not only carry the pain of whatever the experience was, we carry the emotional weight until we move and do something to heal. That requires that we let go of victimhood. This is easier said than done. I have been on both sides of this fence so I know if we take a small step then resources come, and we can heal. We can let go of that emotional weight. We can STOP being victims of the past or the present.

You are responsible for yourself, your responses, and your happiness. You oversee your healing. Your job is to:

•Be consistent in your efforts
•Believe that you can heal
•Know the resources you need will come
•Understand that you are not a failure because there is still work to do
•That Heaven will support you
•Then take a step

Don’t put off healing. Don’t carry emotional weight that you can put down. Work on what comes up as long as needed, until you are fully free. CHOOSE not to carry the emotional weight of victimhood or old wounds and trauma.

If cement pieces surface in your clean field commit to picking up a bucket a day for as long as it takes. I have done this work. I am doing this work and you can too.

I have a worksheet that details one of the earliest tools I used to begin cleaning my personal, inner field.

If you would like a copy reply to me and I will send it to you. : )

Emotional Weight – What! Part 2

Can A Clean Bathroom Help You be Happier?

I LOVE to clean. I know, I know, that makes me a super nerd. But it’s true, I do love to clean. And frankly, I’m good at it. I see things other people don’t. I am efficient and I know how to do the job in far less time than most.

But there was a time when my bathroom would get very messy. Sometimes I would let it go for three months (yes, three months!) Every day when I had to go in there, I would tell myself, “I have to get this bathroom clean.” I do not mind cleaning bathrooms. I don’t have a squeamish bone in my body. The problem was distractions, and no one sees the bathroom.

At that time, most of my home was one large room. Today my home has a similar layout except there are two bedrooms that open into the main living area. When I decided to clean, I would begin in that main section because we spent most of our time there. Then I would clean our bedroom which opened into the main room. The door was always open and you could see right in.

My plan was always to do the bathroom after the main room and the bedroom because who doesn’t want a clean bathroom. But I would run out of energy. And if energy wasn’t an issue, I would be distracted helping my daughter in her part of our home, helping one of the kids, being called out to the yard for a job, cooking a meal, or having an errand that needed doing. Nothing has changed since then in the size of my living space or my business; except I get the bathroom cleaned.

Keep reading and I will tell you how I got to this place.

Back then the bathroom was a BIG emotional weight. We carry emotional weight in different areas of our lives. We take care of the parts that others see, keep putting off what can’t be seen, and then carry the emotional weight. Crazy, because it doesn’t have to be this way and it keeps us from living a happier life.

Let me share a secret with you that anyone who is good at cleaning knows. You don’t have to clean the whole room for it to appear, feel, and actually be cleaner. You don’t have to clean the whole room to lift the emotional weight. I have learned this through experience.

When I would take my shower I would think, “Man, you need to get this bathroom clean!” I would sit on the toilet and observe the piles of hair in the corners, the grunge on the sink, the stain around the toilet. This is a gross conversation, but I know you have been here and there is a point.

The Story Continues

One night when I was in the shower, I noticed that the bottom fourth of the shower curtain was grey-orange. You know exactly what I am talking about. You may think it’s age, body oil, or soap scum. Here is what it is, bacteria; those little guys that grow in moist, warm places. I had been watching this colony grow, as I said, for a few months and every time I took a shower, I’d say to myself, “You have got to clean this bathroom!” Then I would remember all the things I had to do, and what it was going to take to get it done, and a sense of overwhelm would descend. I would pick up that emotional weight I mentioned and leave the bathroom for other pressing things.

One night I did something different. That night I did what I know works, but I had just not done. I took a step; one step and it was enough to allow me to lay down that emotional weight and go to bed feeling happy with myself. I stepped out of the shower dripping wet, grabbed the bleach cleaner which sits behind the toilet, and I sprayed the heck out of the bottom fourth of the shower curtain.

This is what I knew I would find the next morning, a perfectly white, clean shower curtain. The colony was gone! I picked one small thing in my bathroom, and I took care of it. I stopped waiting until I had time to clean the whole BIG mess. I just picked one thing that I knew would make a difference and I did it.

Again, the KEY

This is a key to taking care of all the messy issues in life. It doesn’t matter if we are talking about our bathroom, relationships, money problems, a need for more education, learning to care for ourselves, getting control of our thoughts and emotions, overcoming an addiction…it doesn’t matter. The process works. You must choose something and then do it. It doesn’t have to be the biggest thing in your mess, just something that will make a difference, help you feel better, and give you hope, that yes, in time, you will have the whole thing cleaned up.

It’s easy to leave the back rooms of our lives in a mess because no one sees them but you will always carry emotional weight until you decide to begin working on the mess.

Think about what it is in your life that causes you to feel overwhelmed, less than, out of control, etc. Choose one small thing that you can do to make a difference in how you feel now; one small thing that will give you hope that you can clean this mess. Look, my whole bathroom really needed to be cleaned but I felt proud of that shower curtain, and it carried me through the day!

This experience happened eight years ago. Today I am very good at starting, most of the time. My bathroom is rarely a mess because when I notice the ring in the toilet, pee behind the toilet lid, grunge in the sink, whatever it is, I clean that one thing. Next week I will share how we can put down the emotional weight of a different sort.

Put down your emotional weight. Move. Take a step, even a small one. 

It can and does make all the difference in the amount of happiness
you will feel each day.

Emotional Weight – WHAT! Part 1

What is Emotional Weight?

A young lady confidently walked around the room while explaining stress management to an audience. With a raised glass of water everyone knew she was going to ask the ultimate question, ‘half empty or half full?’ She fooled them. “How heavy is this glass of water?”, she inquired with a smile. The answers called out ranged from 8 oz. to 20 oz.

The young woman replied, “The absolute weight doesn’t matter. It depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, that’s not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I’ll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you’ll have to call an ambulance. In each case it’s the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.”

That is what I have experienced with emotional weight. Emotional weight is generated when we have things, we know we should do but we put them off. Emotional weight is created when we are not in integrity with ourselves.

Let me give you an example.

I want to have my Saturday free. For that to happen I have to do a little writing every day. I decided to write for thirty minutes each day. It’s not enough time to complete an article, format it, put the newsletter together, and record the podcast. However, thirty minutes gets me going and then I usually write for a longer stretch. For me, it isn’t the writing that is the challenge, it is the starting! You can see that these thirty minutes would be pivotal in keeping on top of my writing deadlines. Even though I have told myself I will do this, and it is printed on my daily worksheet, I frequently do not comply with my own decision. When that happens, I pay a price. I find myself chained to the computer on Saturday when I want to be with my family or out in the garden. Sigh!

Like the glass of water, the burden of that emotional weight gets heavier and heavier. I know I am not in integrity with myself.

To free myself, I need to begin. I need to write each day for thirty minutes. The reality is that I will miss a day here and there but if I just pick it up again the next day, no weight. It is the promise to myself and then not keeping the promise that causes the weight. This happens to all of us.

The Key!

The key to removing the emotional weight is to move. Do one thing. If I wrote even three days a week to begin with, can you see how much better I would feel? I need to start and then practice with consistency keeping my promise to myself.

You know you can’t mentor what you don’t do so I have been keeping my word this week. It is Wednesday and I have made significant progress. I’m feeling pretty good about myself.

I am sure you have something that is causing you to feel emotional weight. Maybe you have promised yourself to do it. Maybe you have a plan for accomplishing it. But you haven’t moved. You haven’t done what you said you would. You know you are out of integrity, and it is heavy.

I encourage you to put that emotional weight down. Begin. You can’t fail, although you might have to make some adjustments. I assure you that the relief you will feel from beginning is wonderful. There will be a sense of satisfaction. Putting down emotional weight by taking that first small step feels really, really good!

Next week I am going to share a second, more universal example. I laugh to myself because I’ll bet 99.9 percent of you will be able to relate.