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Every day they spend time looking for documents, keys, mobile phone… Why do some of us fail to get along with our own things?
Their absent-mindedness might seem funny if it weren’t so much trouble. Without plane tickets, the vacation will not take place. Lost keys become a problem for the whole family. “Today, I don’t lose things so often, but I suffered a lot because of my absent-mindedness,” admits 37-year-old Olga. “The most embarrassing memory is related to school: I managed to fail the annual math test because I lost my keys the day before and couldn’t get home all day before my parents arrived.”
At first glance, it may seem that this is just disorganization. Relatives, friends and colleagues reproach such a person for being indifferent to the requirements of real life and do not trust him with important matters. But, if you look more closely, there may be psychological reasons behind absent-mindedness.
forget too much
Many people forget or lose things from time to time. And this is not surprising, because forgetting is a natural mental process.
“Our consciousness is constantly affected by a powerful stream of information, and because of the threat of glut, it leaves a lot of facts without attention,” explains the French psychoanalyst Gerard Pommier. “Therefore, we do most of the usual actions automatically – we put the keys in our pocket, put the mobile phone in the bag – and we don’t even realize it.” Yet some of us lose and forget things more often than others.
“I didn’t want to make a commitment”
Victoria, 29 years old, logistics
“At work, I constantly lost all sorts of little things: either I’ll leave the keys to the office or the safe at home, or I can’t find a notebook with business records, or I’ll forget my wallet in the dining room. At first, I treated this with irony, considered absent-mindedness as a cute feature, and told colleagues and friends about it with a laugh. But at some point I noticed that they didn’t seem to take me seriously: at work, an interesting project was given to a colleague, a friend once said that she wouldn’t trust me even for an hour with her child. And then I realized: absent-mindedness, all these losses and forgetting – just an unwillingness to take responsibility for my life, fear of any obligations. Realizing this, I became a more pedantic person, and now my things are with me. In addition, the attitude of colleagues and friends towards me has changed for the better.
Unravel unconscious messages
“My husband and I could not agree for a long time where to go on vacation. I wanted to go to the sea, and my husband – to the mountains. In the end, I relented, but the trip almost fell through: the day before I left, I lost my plane tickets,” says 32-year-old Anna.
“Often a lost thing can be considered as a symptom that reveals some kind of our problem, an internal conflict,” explains psychoanalytic psychotherapist Tatyana Drabkina. – This thing is most likely connected with that area of life (work, home, relationships with people), where we feel insecure, where something greatly worries us, does not satisfy us. For example, having lost her tickets, Anna unconsciously tried to inform her husband that the upcoming trip did not suit her, that her needs were not taken into account.
We are more likely to forget or lose things in a stressful situation or when we are preoccupied with what excites us. But as soon as we begin to realize what exactly worries us, absent-mindedness disappears.
What to do?
make friends with things
An easy way to become more mindful of things is to put emotion into them. Buy a funny keychain, a beautiful wallet. With things that we like, we tend to handle more carefully.
To take the responsibility
Thinking that we are losing things due to random circumstances (“I got pissed off at work”), we shift the responsibility to them and can’t influence the situation in any way. It is important to remember that the reason for our absent-mindedness is in ourselves, and a lost thing can symbolize some kind of our problem.
Ask yourself a question
It’s helpful to ask yourself, “If the loss meant something, what did it mean?” Listen to your emotions: somewhere on the periphery of irritation or confusion, you can find relief. It is this experience that can lead you to the correct answer.
What load would you like to get rid of? What worries you? Perhaps you internally reject this part of life, or, conversely, its value to you is so great that it causes anxiety that you cannot cope with.
Advice for those around you
Do not blame a loved one who is prone to losing things, but do not be condescending to him either. On the one hand, the more often you take part in the search for things, the more often you will be contacted with such a request. On the other hand, a loved one can in this way let you know that he feels confused, lonely.
If you pull away, then, in fact, you do not react in any way to the SOS signal that a person, albeit unconsciously, can afford. Be insightful and try to understand what is happening to him, what exactly he cannot tell you directly. And then already respond not to the symptom, but to the cause.