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Is it impossible to focus on everyday activities, and thoughts about the future cause anxiety? Put down your smartphone, take a piece of paper and a pen. And write: it will help to calm down and put your head in order. What exactly to write and how? Explains psychologist, teacher of psychology, narrative practitioner Daria Kutuzova.
If you have 5-10 minutes
Read tasks 1 and 2 and choose the one that feels more potential for you. If there is any doubt about what to choose, do the second (“letter about good”). If you feel that neither the first nor the second task is suitable, look at the third option.
Grab a piece of paper or open a diary app or note/document. Set a timer for 5-10 minutes. Take a few deep breaths. Is your body comfortable? Can you make it a little more comfortable? Now write.
Then reread and write a reflective response: “What is the most important thing about this? What questions do I need to answer?
Practice №1
Let’s try Gabrielle Rico’s writing practice for crisis situations.
Here you will need to drive a pen or pencil on paper.
Take a sheet and for 1-2 minutes just “scribble”, listening to the inner sensations of chaos. At some point, you will notice that you have succeeded in expressing something with a line and / or a spot that cannot be expressed in words. There is a sense of authenticity or conformity to something in what you have painted, however small it may be.
When you notice this feeling of alignment, listen and find one word that expresses it. Or a few words. Embed them right into the drawing.
Draw in one minute.
A cluster is several chains of associations that branch off from a central concept. We write down the word and circle it in a frame, and further from it we draw connection lines to other words, and we also circle them in a frame. The central concept may be one of the words caught in the previous stage, or another.
Sometimes we do not understand what to put in the center of the cluster, but we can draw chains of associations. In this case, Riko suggests drawing an empty “bubble” in the center of the page and lines from it to association words. Once they’re written down, ask yourself, «What’s in the center?»
Describe your findings in the form of a verbal sketch, in verse or prose, in 3-5 minutes.
Practice №2
Write (in a list or in solid text) what has helped you deal with crises and major life changes in the past.
If, after reading both tasks above, you feel that they do not suit you now, everything is “not right”, please set a timer for 5-10 minutes (as much as you have). Finish the sentence “Now the most important thing for me is to write about…” And expand on it a little more, as time permits.
Reread and answer in writing the questions: “What is the most important thing about this? What questions do I need to answer?
If you have 15-20 minutes
Practice 3
Set a timer for 10 minutes and write down whatever is troubling you right now. At the timer signal, stop writing.
Then imagine that you are on a train with a benevolent stranger who is genuinely interested in what is happening in your life and is ready to listen to you. At the next stop, he will get off and you will never see each other again. This person is completely unaware of the context of your life, which for you is a matter of course.
Set the timer for another 10 minutes and write, addressing this fellow traveler, what is happening in your life now, what led to this and what is the main difficulty and complexity.
Reread and write a reflective response: “What is the most important thing about this? What questions do I need to answer?
An exercise
Talk to yourself from the distant future
Imagine that you have a wise part — your inner old woman (old man). She (he) is much older than you, 30-40 years old. She survived, lives happily, and no one will take that away from her.
She hugs you, comforts and reminds you of what is important to pay attention to now in order to survive and cope. Write down what she tells you.
More exercises on the site