One of my subjects of interest is how busy we all constantly seem to be. I'm not sure if this is just perception, but when I compare notes with my father, who works in marketing as I do, it sounds like my daily to-do list is what he had a full week to accomplish.
Increased demand for efficiency, increased speed of informational input, increased opportunities for comparing ourselves to others. There is a lot going on in our world, and often this impacts how much is going on in our minds.
Starting the day with a loud alarm, checking emails and social media before even getting out of bed. Doing 5 things at once to try and get the kids ready, yourself ready, the dog happy, and everyone where they need to be on time, and all that just the first hour or two.
In the evening, in an attempt to not forget an essential matter for the next day, your brain will keep bringing it up, circling around it like a watchful anxiety vulture, trying to be helpful, but just causing you sleepless nights in the process.
Our minds are constantly sorting through information, prioritising, and warning us of potential dangers. All that work can make a lot of mental noise, leading to ruminating thoughts, doom cycles of worrying, and stress.
So how can we make it tune down the volume, so we can have some peace and quiet?
The Activity: Keep a brain dump journal
What you need: a notebook and a pen
Step 1: the morning
Take out your journal in the morning, before you start your day, and check your emails or social media, ideally when you're sitting down with your first cup of tea or coffee. Start writing, and write down whatever your brain brings up. You can start with what you need to do today, but then just let the words go wherever your mind takes you. It's called stream-of-consciousness writing, and our goal is to dump everything onto the page that our brain is consciously or subconsciously working on.
It might spit up to-do list items (you can take note of those separately to do later), worries, memories, things you might want to say to people, books you might want to read, and what you feel like eating for lunch. Whatever it is, write it down until there are no more words left.
Whenever I do this exercise, I come to a very natural stop when my mind goes quiet and there is nothing left to say.
Step 2: the evening
Right before going to bed, repeat this exercise. Write down everything that comes to mind, all the things that went well today, how you enjoyed your lunch or the things you have on your mind for tomorrow.
Write again, until your mind draws a blank. Then enjoy the mental serenity and a restful night's sleep.
Step 3: Apply daily
Repeat this process every day. On some days, you might only need to write down a sentence or two, on other days you might fill a few pages before you've unloaded everything. However much or little you write doesn't matter. What's important is to give yourself the time and space to do so.
Explore further
This prompt is based on Julia Cameron's Morning Pages from her book The Artists Way. She explains it in this video.
I can also recommend Mo Gawdat's book The Little Voice In Your Head which goes into full detail on why we are not our thoughts and the many constructive ways in which we can work with them.
My Example
Don't worry, I will spare you from the dreadful prose that is my stream-of-consciousness writing. Not least because I still brain dump in my native language German. But I'll give you a recent example of when this has made a huge difference for me.
As you know from the previous prompt, I went travelling with my daughter. We were gone 10 days in total, visiting work, friends, and family in three different cities. We had a fantastic time, but of course, there was also tons of stress involved.
Wherever we stayed was not as childproof as my own house is (baby gates and all), so there's a permanent level of extra vigilance required to make sure the little wonder of creation doesn't accidentally go kill herself. She was with me almost 24/7 even during some work meetings, as I didn't have daycare or my husband to take over. Plus the fatigue of travel in general, and of not sleeping in your own bed.
Stressful? Yes! Worth it? Definitely!
Also, during the entire time, I didn't have any of my usual stress management tools available. I was constantly seeing friends, family, or colleagues, so there was no time for drawing, writing, taking a bath, or going to the gym. So the stress slowly built up, without having a place to go.
The first day back home, with the kid back in preschool, I woke up with my mind going haywire with anxiety. I was worried about all the things that could (or not) have gone wrong at work while I was travelling (even though I was working for a good part of the trip), worrying about having gotten my grandmother sick, worrying about my sick mother, about the next travels, just on and on and on. My mind was spinning webs of worry while I was in the shower, in the car, and getting home after the dog walk. And with the worrying thoughts came tightness of breath and an increased heart rate, so now I was both mentally AND physically stressed.
That's when I realised that I needed to get my house in order before I could start solving other people's problems again (read go back to work the next day). So I cleaned up my actual house, and then sat down with a tea to clean up my thoughts. I started writing and didn't stop for over an hour. I filled about 6-8 pages until my mind went blank.
The before and after contrast was incredible. The image my mind was drawing of the world before was one of danger, mistakes, and anger. Afterwards, there was calm, serenity, joy and focus. The actual world had not changed, of course, but my perspective on it was now a lot more positive. It's really amazing how much impact our mental chatter has on how we see the world and ourselves in it.
I hope you enjoy dumping your brain out into your journal!