Memory Jars and Milestones
Anyone who follows my Dark Dates blog (Darkdates.org) will know that, occasionally, it veers into the personal – how can a blog about writing not be? – and that the last few years have been very up and down for me. A lot of good things, yes, but some pretty spectacular lows. I’ve written about these before, and included what I hope were helpful coping strategies, so I thought I’d share another one, that I posted on Facebook this week and got a lot of response to.
One of the things about going through a bad patch – or even being more generally prone to anxiety, worry or stress – is you tend to focus more on what’s going wrong (or what could go wrong) and forget all the good things that have happened. So a while back, I read about the idea of a Memory Jar in some self-help post and, having voiced that it seemed like a good idea, one of my friends bought me a lovely, hand painted glass mason jar. The original idea was that whenever something good happens, you write it down and put it in the memory jar, and on New Year’s Eve, you empty the jar and read all the good things that happened during the year. I've since seen this mentioned by authors such as Pam Grout and Elizabeth Gilbert, both of whom suggest not waiting for something good to happen, but every day putting something in the jar - the best thing that happened to you today, even if it was tiny! (You can play around with how you do it to see what works best for you: as with anything like this, you need to find what feels right or you just won't stick with it).
Although I’ve altered that slightly (I have better things to do on NYE*, and the jar, happily, fills up so quickly it wouldn’t last a year), I’ve started doing this myself, and found it serves several purposes.
One, it makes you pay attention to the good things – you’re looking for something to write, even something as small as a free cup of coffee, or a fun night out with a friend – so that attunes you to be more grateful, and to focus on positives.
Two, reading them all out when you empty the jar really does give you a nice warm glow.
But what perhaps surprised me most was that the jar itself serves as an ongoing reminder that Not Everything is Shit. Even if I’ve had a bad week, I go into the kitchen and I see that there’s paper in the jar, and even if I can’t, at that moment, recall anything to be pleased or grateful about, I can see that, unarguably, there were things I was pleased about not that long ago. If you respond to visual prompts, it’s especially useful.
(Also, while I don’t have kids so wouldn’t presume to advise anyone on childcare, some of my friends, having seen my FB posts on this in the past, have got these jars for their kids – nothing fancy, often just old jam or sauce jars, that they let them decorate themselves – and say it’s a useful tool, particularly for anxious or worry-prone children.) So why not give it a go?
*I'm obviously lying about having anything better to do on New Year's Eve.
[This is an edited version of a post that originally featured on Darkdates.org]
One of the things about going through a bad patch – or even being more generally prone to anxiety, worry or stress – is you tend to focus more on what’s going wrong (or what could go wrong) and forget all the good things that have happened. So a while back, I read about the idea of a Memory Jar in some self-help post and, having voiced that it seemed like a good idea, one of my friends bought me a lovely, hand painted glass mason jar. The original idea was that whenever something good happens, you write it down and put it in the memory jar, and on New Year’s Eve, you empty the jar and read all the good things that happened during the year. I've since seen this mentioned by authors such as Pam Grout and Elizabeth Gilbert, both of whom suggest not waiting for something good to happen, but every day putting something in the jar - the best thing that happened to you today, even if it was tiny! (You can play around with how you do it to see what works best for you: as with anything like this, you need to find what feels right or you just won't stick with it).
Although I’ve altered that slightly (I have better things to do on NYE*, and the jar, happily, fills up so quickly it wouldn’t last a year), I’ve started doing this myself, and found it serves several purposes.
One, it makes you pay attention to the good things – you’re looking for something to write, even something as small as a free cup of coffee, or a fun night out with a friend – so that attunes you to be more grateful, and to focus on positives.
Two, reading them all out when you empty the jar really does give you a nice warm glow.
But what perhaps surprised me most was that the jar itself serves as an ongoing reminder that Not Everything is Shit. Even if I’ve had a bad week, I go into the kitchen and I see that there’s paper in the jar, and even if I can’t, at that moment, recall anything to be pleased or grateful about, I can see that, unarguably, there were things I was pleased about not that long ago. If you respond to visual prompts, it’s especially useful.
(Also, while I don’t have kids so wouldn’t presume to advise anyone on childcare, some of my friends, having seen my FB posts on this in the past, have got these jars for their kids – nothing fancy, often just old jam or sauce jars, that they let them decorate themselves – and say it’s a useful tool, particularly for anxious or worry-prone children.) So why not give it a go?
*I'm obviously lying about having anything better to do on New Year's Eve.
[This is an edited version of a post that originally featured on Darkdates.org]
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