(Long addition for anyone else who struggles with this)

This concept was once totally foreign to me, especially when I was dealing with a combination of untreated mental illnesses (currently, they’re all being treated).

What changed? Well, meds for one. Hey, my brain is no longer trying to kill my body! Then came therapy. But, therapy didn’t click until I read Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Art of Tidying Up. No, I’m not joking.

Years of being in and out of therapy finally clicked because of two questions: Does this spark joy? Is this useful?

The second isn’t one Kondo asks in the book, but it’s one that I use in both mental and physical tidying so that, for example, I don’t throw out my power drill or the thought “I need to do the dishes.” In this context, “Is this useful?” is about whether the thought is useful for 1) getting to where you want to be as a person, 2) being productive in one way or another, or 3) making yourself happier (not happy, but closer to happy than you are right now). 

I use these questions to challenge the negative self-talk especially. Let’s go through the process with the thought “I’m an idiot,” which is one I know a lot of folks have.

“Does this spark joy?” No. It makes me feel awful. “Is this useful?” No. It doesn’t help me improve.

So, I throw the thought out and replace it with something that is either useful or sparks joy. My replacement thought for “I’m an idiot” is usually something more akin to “oops, I messed that up, but I learned X, Y, and Z in the process”.

If you follow these steps, at first it’ll be hard to throw out the thoughts and replace them, even when you challenge them. But now, a few years after I started doing this? I can get a replacement thought in without having to go through the questions. It’s a reflex. “I’m an idiot” is immediately followed with “no, I messed up, but I learned that I need to use this specific technique for this sewing project and there is no shortcut.”

Does this work 100% of the time? No. Does it make my head a better place for me to be? Absolutely.