Let yourself relax. Think of a safe place that you can put your racing thoughts: The top of a mountain, far away? Under the sea? In a filing cabinet? A desk drawer? For me — for whatever reason — the first thing that comes to mind is a hotel safe. Maybe because we did so much traveling last year and I always think about how I have nothing to put in that funny object. So visualize the hotel safe. Wait until you can really see the rough beige metal. That heavy, short, wide door. Squishy keypad with the numbers wearing off. You can now start putting your thoughts in. The deadline you gave yourself on Thursday that's going to make Monday morning feel overwhelming. Put it in the safe. The Slack you forgot to send on Friday. In there too. After tasks and deadlines you can put feelings and physical sensations in the safe too. Stress. Desire to prove that you are capable of doing it. Clenching of the jaw. Do this for as long as you need, until you've put in everything that’s making your head spin. It won’t take as long as you think. When you're ready, use the squishy buttons to close and lock the safe. Use your bank pin so you don’t have to remember another code. You can even move your fingers here, because for some reason it feels really good to type numbers into air. Listen for the whirring to make sure that it has locked. Check-in with yourself. You might notice whether or not you are still spinning. (Somehow, you’re not!) You might notice yourself smiling. It sounds crazy but this is relief. *** Over the past few years there have been a lot of things I'm working on with almost all of my energy at times which don't really seem appropriate to consider a project. Relationships, for example. Or mental health. Of course there is that guy who does agile marriage sprints with his wife which is maybe not the worst way that a couple could communicate but also somehow appalling. And yeah, we'll just have to unpack that some other time. One non-project interest has become developing my vocabulary, awareness, and tools around managing ADHD and emotions. I always thought of “compartmentalization” as a bit of a dirty word. I'm not entirely sure why. Perhaps that people who compartmentalize are somehow inauthentic. What you see is not what you get or who you are, but some kind of targeted ad-like persona. Or perhaps I had thought that if you need to compartmentalize, it's a sign of something "off". Too much stress. Disharmonious life choices. I maybe still think that. But I‘ve come to appreciate compartmentalization — with thanks to my EF coach Sarah — as not just some kind of weird compulsion, but a skill or a tool that you can use to navigate tricky situations, like lying awake at night on a weekend thinking about work. I read somewhere (that I can’t remember) that writing down a task is as rewarding for your brain as actually completing it. But even better is not even writing it down. Just putting stress somewhere it can dissipate. By the time I remember to come back to the safe, which I rarely do, it’s empty again. *** When racing thoughts show up and I have nowhere to put them, they take hold. I’m not just “stressed”, I AM stress. Identification inspires action: I *need* to do this. I needed to have *already* done this yesterday. FUCK. I need to solve this intractable problem. Sitting with the impulse to act, it’s surprisingly emotional: more than anything I just need to get rid of these feelings. Trying to snuff out feelings, for me, has basically been a recipe for disaster. When I try to deny stress, it’s like I’m shooting myself in the foot. And I was already shot once by the experience of stress, so now I'm shot a second time by self-judgement: I hate that I’m feeling stressed! And inevitably a third time by the frustration that I can’t even get rid of my stress on demand. Compartmentalization doesn't seek to eliminate stress, it just wants to organize it a little bit. To separate thoughts and feelings — literally spatially, like “on a mountain” — away from and distinct from "me". Awareness makes slowness possible, inertness even. And inertia is no match for skilled inertness. In slowness it’s possible to intercept and delay even emotional reactions. To realize that the only way out is not through. So if you know a place where racing thoughts can go, where you’re absolutely not dealing with them right now, they’re kind of not that big of a deal. Of course, you need to remember that the safe exists, which is its own challenge. You need to be ready, willing, and able to go inert. So it doesn’t always work. But when it does it’s a: it’s really *that* easy? ![[IMG_3854.png]]