How to compartmentalize emotions for mental wellbeing

If you begin life in a dysfunctional family or from a dysfunctional background it is easy to develop emotional difficulties and problems along the way. It is not unusual in these situations to miss out on the skills of emotional resilience and defense and success that others learn in their childhoods. And when you don’t learn these helpful tools, your brain compensates by developing defense mechanisms of its own designed to protect you.

Worrying about things, becoming perfectionistic, overworking yourself or even developing addictions to self medicate can all be examples of things our brain does when it doesn’t have the right information or tools. Add in the development of unhealthy relationships, financial troubles from overspending, promiscuity/boundary problems and constant rumination about past issues and you feel like you have quite a headful of issues at any given moment. They may keep you up at night, make you anxious, depressed and angry. They may feel insurmountable in fact and cause you to lose hope that you can ever develop a peaceful way of life.

Obviously if you have a difficult past it can’t be corrected in one blog post. I just would like to share a starting point, a point that will allow you some peace and help to get you started in your quest for emotional success.

I call it compartmentalizing and it goes like this:

You may feel like you have 10 or 15 problems. More than likely you don’t, it just feels like that. Ten or 15 takes up a lot of headspace. We are going to lump them together to make them easier to digest.

Here is an example: Let’s say you have anger at your mother for mistreating or neglecting you, and there are numerous examples over the years of her behavior, each of which you keep in your thoughts as evidence and justification for your anger. Maybe she favored a sibling. Maybe she neglected you for one man after another or criticized you painfully. Maybe she abandoned you.

Typically in these scenarios children develop attachment problems, anxiety, low self esteem, depression and/or poor coping skills. That feels like a lot! Wrongfully, you may wonder what is wrong with you and attribute these difficulties to something faulty in yourself. Let me reassure you that at the moment in time these developed it had nothing to do with anything faulty in yourself. These are the typical things that psychologists see every day stemming from dysfunctional backgrounds and the lack of skills having to do with emotional success.

The point of compartmentalizing is to make things easier to work with and on. Think of the paperwork you deal with routinely. It is a lot easier to deal with when it is organized and filed properly than when it is all over the place. You don’t file pieces of paper with the same words on it 10 different times, you put it away once and it goes under a heading.

So lets try it with emotional matters.

First, assume you have a good brain, you have the knowledge and mental resources to be looking up mental health issues on PsychCentral’s blogs so you have awareness that you would like some help. Thats good enough. You don’t need to internalize your problems as having something wrong with your brain.

Second, sticking with the example above, your mothers transgressions all fall under one umbrella of poor parenting skills, you do not need to keep the running number of them active in your mind. Lump them under that one category. Imagine the peace of now having one icon in your brain that represents her, not a lot of examples that come with many painful memories and thoughts. When and if the day comes that you want to explore things you can pull that file out. And don’t worry about forgetting things, once reminded or prodded you will be able to relocate all those other circumstances if you want.

Now lets say you are also anxious, a worrywart and perfectionistic. Maybe you drink too much to try and get things off your mind. Those things all go together. Start another file up there called Anxiety. If you are depressed also you can put that in there as well as depression and anxiety often go hand in hand and can be related. Learning one skill base often takes care of both.

Lastly you may be in a bad relationship and this may be just the most recent of many. You may have trouble keeping friends or let people run all over you. This indicates your boundaries are not well established and that you may have self esteem issues and even some attachment issues. Those all go together as well and you can file them under relationship problems. You can take each sub category out later as needed. Of course you would have relationship problems if your very first and most important relationship was faulty. That doesn’t mean you can’t learn how to have good relationships, you just haven’t learned how yet.

Hopefully what you now have is a reordered sense of the difficulties you are facing. Instead of thinking “I have so many problems I will never feel good”, you can think, “I have anxiety/depression and relationship problems stemming from my dysfunctional background and my mother’s lack of knowledge regarding parenting. I need to learn the skills and tools that I missed out on in order to feel better and I will do that when I am ready, I don’t need to focus on them all at once”. You have three organized files instead of many uncontrolled swirling thoughts and ideas that keep you awake at night and unable to focus your energies elsewhere.

To learn more about how dysfunctional thinking patterns arise, how they affect you and how to recover from them, see Psychskills.comand the book, Dysfunction Interrupted-How to Quickly Overcome Depression, Anxiety and Anger Starting Now.

Feel Good For Life!

Most psychological disciplines agree that an integrated personality structure is indicative of mental health, meaning of course that a fragmented personality structure is indicative of dysfunction. Take for example the greedy businessman who spends his week low balling, manipulating, conning, glorying in doing anything and everything under the sun necessary for material gain, who then attends church on Sunday where he sincerely believes he’s a Christian, where he listens with rapt attention to scripture readings and homilies that stress generosity and brotherhood and sisterhood and spiritual wealth as more important than material wealth.

This type of compartmentalization might help him function well in two disparate worlds but it’s also going to create conflict at the deeper level of his psyche, conflict that will bubble up and manifest in troubled personal relationships, nightmares, anxiety, depression, and other forms of mental illness. He’s not going to connect the dots, he’ll try to ignore the visible manifestations of that deeper conflict or rationalize them away, blaming a hectic work schedule or the demands of family life for his problems. But from the psychological perspective it’s quite clear that his symptoms are the result of holding simultaneous competing norms and values around how to think, feel, and be in the world. In the sense outlined above his compartmentalization is bad and only through integrating those disparate ways of thinking to decide upon a set of values that will guide behaviors regardless of change in environmental scenery will those symptoms of mental illness disappear.

But compartmentalization is not always a bad thing, it’s sometimes a useful and necessary thing, particularly when it’s consciously utilized as a way to protect oneself from hostile environmental conditions that are more or less inescapable. We’re thinking specifically here in terms of choosing emotional detachment as a solution to the problem of emotional abuse, threats of abandonment, and other forms of trauma at the hands of primary caregivers. Now, in the parent-child relationship, especially when the child is still under the parent’s roof and has little recourse to escape the situation, choosing to stop investing emotionally, to stop caring so much about those hurtful abusive words and actions, to stop exposing that soft emotionally underbelly, is a functional, healthy choice.

Where the choice becomes unhealthy is actually not compartmentalizing, it’s generalizing, deciding that since the primary relationship is hostile, that opening up emotionally in that specific relationship is dangerous, this means that all relationships are hostile, that opening up emotionally in all relationships is dangerous.

Obviously the ideal is getting outside help or escaping the situation when you feel helpless in the face of a hostile world but family situations are nuanced, abuse often occurs in ways that are hard to pin down, hard for outsiders to see or understand or change. The practical reality is that many relationships where there’s not an immediate physical danger are going to continue without much outside impediment despite the fact that one suffers abuse at the hands of the other. The situation will hopefully change for the better over time but the hope doesn’t help the individual being subjected to abuse in that moment.

Compartmentalization in these cases is a great decision, one that is about self-love and self-care. The important factor is that it be a consciously taken, purposeful decision. Deciding not to invest emotionally in an abusive but unavoidable relationship is a healthy choice as long as the choice is simultaneously taken to work for emotional connection in other relationships, to remember that not all relationships are hostile and dangerous just because one is.

Mental health contributes to your overall well-being in many ways. Because of this, it can also be affected by stress and is vulnerable to overwhelming feelings of anxiety and stress. There are ways in which you can address problems and issues that you have in order to prioritize your mental and emotional needs, and doing so will improve your overall emotions and well-being.

Meditation And Yoga

Taking time out of your day to practice certain activities that will prioritize your mental state and health are important. Everyone deals with different stresses during the daily routine, with some people dealing with more than others. If your day feels jam-packed and overwhelming, it can be of great significance and benefit to do some meditation or yoga to remind yourself to slow down and relax from time to time. Meditation doesn’t always have to take the same form either, as you can use other activities to get into a relaxed state of being such as journaling or writing, or prayer. Essentially, you want to separate yourself from the burdens and stresses of the day, and any activity that helps you do that can gradually improve your mental health.

Healthy Diet

Subscribing to a healthy and balanced diet is essential for your mental health. What you put into your body has a direct impact on how you feel and that translates to your thoughts and feelings as well, not just your physical body. It is important to prioritize eating healthy, as well as consider supplements to balance out your diets as well as add extra benefits when you aren’t able to meet all your dietary needs. The experts from My Village Green also praise the added benefit you can attain from supplements. These, in addition to your diet, can contribute positively to a boost in energy, health benefits, and personal care that all translate to your overall mental well-being and emotional feeling as well.

Seeking Professional Help

If you still feel like you have issues of significant anxiety and depression that contribute negatively to your mental health, one solution to take is to speak to a medical practitioner and mental health provider. If you are overwhelmed and feel as though you cannot handle such mental issues on your own, having someone who is well studied in this subject and has experience dealing with clients that are feeling these ways can provide significant help to improving your current situation and mental health status. Do not feel discouraged as the mind and brain require just as much attention as other parts of your body and other muscles. These professionals will be able to help provide you guidance and practices that you can do on your own to help with your well-being in the long term to maintain your mental health.

Do not be afraid to talk about your mental health. One issue that can cause further problems is the fact that people do not like to talk about such difficulties and struggles as there is still quite a lot of stigma towards those struggling with their mental well-being. It is okay, and the sooner you acknowledge these needs, the faster you can get to improve your mental health.

Compartmentalization is not denial.

Posted Sep 08, 2015

Some people find it easy to put their emotional issues into “compartments” within their heads and hearts and just deal with those feelings or issues when they need to. When people talk about living in the moment, this is one of the ways it can be accomplished.

But if the emotions have gotten to the point where you are thinking about them constantly, then finding a place to retreat within yourself may not be easy for you. However, it still can be done.

When you have more than one serious thing going on at a time, it can be very difficult to maintain your focus or serenity. I am not suggesting you put all your emotions on hold. What we all need to learn is the ability, even if just for a moment, to put away the things that hurt us, so we can gain some perspective on how to deal with them. This will also help us cope better.

There may be certain times of day when you have greater ability to do this. I like to write in the morning to get my feelings out, and afterward I can focus on important things. Others have different times and methods. One couple regularly comes to see me at 5 p.m. so they can deal with whatever going on, put it away, and go to dinner. The process has worked well for them, but they had to agree on the ground rules and only bring to the table topics that they are both ready to discuss. (You can always ask your partner for more time if you’re not ready to talk. Simply say, “This really isn’t a good time. Can we talk later please?” Just be sure to set a time to have the conversation you need to have.)

Compartmentalization is not about being in denial; it’s about putting things where they belong and not letting them get in the way of the rest of your life. You can’t just ignore your issues and expect them to go away, but obsessing on them won’t help either.

If you know you are going to talk once a week with your therapist, it makes it much easier to put your issues aside for the time being. If you aren’t seeing a therapist, or you just need a break from your thoughts, you can sing a song in your head until the feelings fade a bit. Watch a movie you’ve seen before while multitasking on the computer. Those actions together can make it difficult to think about the negativity in your life. Even doing the dishes is a way to give your thoughts a rest until they can return to the positive.

When something gets stuck in your brain and you find yourself obsessing, you need to clear a path for your mind and body to function properly. If you continue to ruminate, you may damage your physical and mental health. Regardless of your condition or situation, this is something you can do. Really.

We can’t always turn off our big feelings, but we can develop techniques to prevent them from running our life.

by Holly Lebowitz Rossi
Posted in Positive Living , Apr 26, 2019

When something is weighing heavily on me, it settles into front row seats in my mind, talking loudly, spilling popcorn and demanding I pull my attention away from anything else that might come up during my day. I literally wear this issue on my face—I often am asked, “wow, what’s wrong?” when I wasn’t aware I was projecting struggle or negativity.

Recently, I’ve been paying more attention to how much attention intense situations actually warrant in a given moment, especially when other things—mundane daily tasks and meaningful events alike—are asking for a seat up front. These techniques have helped me compartmentalize my emotions in a healthy way, so I am in better control of how to address serious issues in their own time and place.

1) Try “Extreme Focus”

When you feel the pull of a stressful situation, you might have the impulse to compartmentalize it by pushing it to the side. But sometimes it is more helpful to push everything else to the side and focus on your stressor in a technique entrepreneur Ryan Blair calls “extreme focus.” He recommends setting aside a short and well-defined period of time to go all-in on a given problem. When that time is up, though, it’s time to gently close that compartment and move on with your day.

2) Create Healthy Boundaries

If there’s a person in your life who reminds you of a painful topic every time you get together, you might want to politely decline the next invitation to have coffee with them. You can’t be expected to compartmentalize in a healthy way if you are feeling pressured by your surroundings to dive into the deep end of a negative emotional pool. When you are feeling more secure in your thinking about an issue, reach back out to your friend and see what they are doing this weekend.

3) Don’t Make False Connections

Not every emotion gets to have a compartment—not if you are going to move through each day with a balanced and positive mindset. Sometimes, there are problems, or small aspects of bigger-picture problems, that you can simply choose to let go of, disconnecting them from your most pressing challenges. You might be disappointed your sock drawer is still a mess, for example, but that doesn’t mean you should carry negative self-talk about your organizational skills to your office.

When a woman complains that her man is distant — he seems emotionally unavailable and closed off, or isn’t making a move toward commitment — it’s usually because he is compartmentalizing his relationship with her.

There’s a mental box inside his brain with her name on it. When he feels like opening the box and enjoying the contents, he does. But when he’s done, he puts the lid on the box and places it back onto its shelf. The emotions he associates with this particular woman — angry, aroused, loving, calm, sad, etc. — also get packed away into the mental container. Over time, if a true emotional bond forms, her presence in his life won’t be so neatly walled off. But in the beginning stages, limiting her influence prevents him from being overwhelmed by a new romance.

If you’ve read many self-help articles aimed at women, you may have the idea that the male tendency to compartmentalize feelings and experiences is unhealthy. While it’s true that narcissism and emotional detachment can look a lot like compartmentalization, these are extreme and clinically rare examples. For most men, some compartmentalization is part of a normal coping strategy. (continued below)

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To better understand these masculine boundaries — which women often mistake for emotional unavailability — I invite you to examine compartmentalization from both male and female perspectives.

Consider these 3 observations:

1. For men, compartmentalization can be a useful approach to managing the complexities of life.

It is reflexive — he’s often not aware that he’s doing it.

2. To a woman on the receiving end, it can feel cold and mechanical, as if we’re being rejected.

Because it feels uncomfortable for us, we have a hard time accepting that it can be part of a healthy strategy for managing strong emotions.

3. Instead of putting limits on a new man’s influence on her life, a woman is more likely to let him range freely across her heart and mind.

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If she’s not careful, she can quickly lose herself in the emotional rush of a new relationship. In fact, women who never learn to compartmentalize feelings at ALL are at risk of letting others free-range over them like a doormat; or wasting time on fantasy relationships; or becoming consumed with romantic obsessions.

Men automatically sort women into categories, all day long. Here are some boxes you might already occupy without even knowing it:

Cute girl in his Instagram feed

Mystery woman on the A train

Girl he’d love to have sex with on a regular basis until he meets The One

From a man’s perspective, it’s reasonable to keep you in that box, peeking inside only when he feels like it. You exist for him at work, but not when he’s at home. You intrigue him on Saturdays at the dog park, but not on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. You don’t permeate his brain and keep him up at night. (continued below)

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As most women have learned — often painfully — a man can avoid emotional intimacy through compartmentalization. For example, he might place you in the “attractive enough to flirt with (or sleep with)” category but NOT “future girlfriend or wife.”

If you’ve experienced the pain of a man holding you at arm’s length, and you never want to go there again, what can you do? Now that you understand a man’s highly compartmentalized psyche, use this expert tip in your next relationship:

Work with his need to compartmentalize, instead of fighting against it.

You aren’t threatened by his boundaries, because you understand this is how he copes with new emotions and experiences. At the beginning of a relationship, he’s not ready to let you free-range across his thoughts. So in between dates, you are going to disappear. Your actions will speak to him on a deep level, in a way that insisting on connection can’t.

You will continue to date others, because your time is valuable and what if he waits a long time before resurfacing? If he is okay with leaving you alone for days in between dates. (continued below)

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No one likes to be deceived. Whenever someone attempts to pull one over on us by misleading us or flat-out lying, we are rightly frustrated or offended.

But what if the deception comes from within? Is it possible to lie to ourselves and be guilty of self-deception? Psychologists and philosophers who study the human condition respond with a resounding, “Yes!”

Self-deception is incredibly common and occurs due to a combination of factors. It primarily involves two psychological components known as cognitive dissonance and compartmentalization.

What is Cognitive Dissonance?

Whenever you maintain contradictory or inconsistent thoughts, beliefs or attitudes, you will experience some degree of cognitive dissonance or a lack of inner harmony. In other words, cognitive dissonance is the uncomfortable mental tension you feel when holding two conflicting thoughts in your mind at the same time.

An individual dealing with cognitive dissonance will seek to use many justifications to explain their behavior and to rationalize contradictions between what they know and what they do.

What is Compartmentalization?

One way to resolve the tension is by isolating the inconsistent views or behaviors from each other. Compartmentalization is the mental process of keeping things separate in order to avoid unpleasant feelings. It is an unconscious psychological defense mechanism that our minds use to deal with conflicting internal viewpoints.

Mentally separating aspects of our lives can give the appearance of harmony, because it temporarily relieves the tension. But in reality our lives are still out of balance and the supposed consistency is often false or even harmful.

How Does This Affect Real Life?

Cognitive dissonance creates uneasy strain in your mind, and compartmentalization helps keep the two worlds from colliding. But cognitive dissonance ultimately forces a person to favor one view over a less comfortable one, even if the more comfortable belief is wrong or dangerous. That’s why these psychological components can play a huge role in many addictive behaviors.

If you or someone you know has experienced alcohol dependence or drug addiction, you are already familiar with the practical application of this. People struggling with addiction commonly entertain contradictory ideas and behaviors.

Someone may say, “I’m not abusing oxycodone, because I have a prescription for pain.” The conflict is created because the prescription may be legitimate, but they simultaneously know they are abusing the substance beyond the prescribed purpose. This results in a self-deceptive rationalization thatdenies the problem of substance abuse.

Someone struggling with addiction generally has a great deal of evidence for how alcohol or drugs are harming their life. However, they will still continue to view these substances as solutions to their problems, rather than the cause. These two beliefs are in direct contradiction, and the desire to alleviate the mental tension leads them to blame their problems on other factors not connected with the substance abuse.

Overcoming Cognitive Dissonance in a Positive Way

Cognitive dissonance and compartmentalization cause people to change behavior to fit their thinking, change thinking to fit their behavior or adopt new attitudes or beliefs altogether to alleviate the inner conflict they feel.

Among substance abusers, this process can lead to self-deception and persistence in dangerous habits. To avoid facing unpleasant mental conflict, they may:

• Remain trapped in denial about their problem
• Find ways to rationalize behavior
• Prevent taking responsibility for their actions
• Develop distrust in others
• Excuse ongoing addiction

There are healthy and productive ways to cope with these factors that don’t lead to self-deception. For those wrestling with cognitive dissonance, the following suggestions are a helpful place to start:

• Work regularly with a counselor or therapist who can help you see the reality of your situation.
• Learn to think critically, by carefully examining evidence and comparing it to the views you hold.
• Be willing to challenge your perceptions and resist the urge to dig in your heels about certain behaviors or attitudes.

Feeling sad about a situation is no fun, but the last thing you may want is for those negative feelings to stick around longer than you’d like them to. Getting upset is part of life, but if you don’t want to dwell or get into a funk, you can try out some mental tricks for how to be less sad when the feeling is sticking around. This doesn’t mean you should ignore your emotions or bury them deep. Instead, it means you can take the necessary, healthy steps to compartmentalize a situation and not allow it to make things more difficult.

“Most people have more control over feelings of sadness than they acknowledge,” Dr. Nikole Benders-Hadi, a psychiatrist with Doctor on Demand, tells Bustle. “By harnessing more control over your thoughts, feelings and actions, then acknowledging how all these are connected, you can make all the difference in the world in how you perceive difficult times. Choose to think positively, remember who you are and what your priorities are, and think about how external factors trigger you — both positively and negatively.”

However, if you notice that this sadness persists, and is affecting your daily life, it may be a good idea to talk with a loved one or possibly a professional about depression. These tips may help when sadness is situational, but if the feeling remains long past a situation is over, it may be time to talk to someone you trust about how to best help your mental health.

Unfortunately, we can’t wish wish away uncomfortable feelings, but we can learn to manage them so they can go away faster. Here are nine mental tricks experts say can help you move past something making you sad more quickly.

Allow yourself to acknowledge your emotions, feel them, and then consider what things will look like past this current moment. This way, you may not dwell on it. “Acknowledge that everyone gets sad sometimes, and this is a normal response to stressors,” says Benders-Hadi. “Tell yourself you have a reason to feel the way you do, and look at the bigger picture, including things you are grateful for.”

When a situation is continuously bothering you, sometimes getting your mind off of something can do wonders. “Don’t avoid larger issues, but short-term distraction techniques can go a long way towards helping you feel better faster,” says Benders-Hadi. “Do something you love, listen to music, look at pictures of happy memories, or spend time with friends you have fun with. Pretty soon you’ll forget all about the sadness you felt before.” This may be especially good for circumstances out of your control — when a future outcome is upsetting you, take a break from thinking about it, and find ways to enjoy yourself instead.

It might be hard to focus on what you’re happy about in a moment of sadness, but shifting your focus to what you are grateful for can help you cope emotionally. “It stimulates positive emotions and memories and helps us to have perspective on our loss and hurt,” clinical psychologist Dr. Charlynn Ruan, Ph.D. tells Bustle. “The trick is to honor and express the sadness, but not to let it dominate all aspects of your life. Gratitude will give you a safety net to protect you from rumination.” A good way to start? Make a list of the top 10 things you’re grateful for each day, and allow yourself to feel the joy it brings you. This pivot in thought can do a lot more than you may think.

Verbalizing how you feel — and getting support from others — can work wonders. “When we talk with others, it decreases the feeling of being alone in a difficult situation,” Dr. Jennifer Gentile, PsyD, a psychologist who treats patients via telehealth app, LiveHealth Online, tells Bustle. “You may also hear a friend’s story that may be similar or worse. Hearing this story will help to normalize the experience, and see that other people have gotten through a difficult time, and you may even learn a new strategy of how to cope.”

If you find that you’re bottling up your emotions around your friends or family, set aside a designated time to feel what you feel, maybe cry, and process. “This helps when you feel like sadness is overshadowing your entire life,” says Ruan. “If you are having difficulty holding back tears at work, knowing you have scheduled an hour of quiet time that evening to cry, journal, look at old pictures, or talk to a friend about it can help you function the rest of your day. Also, setting a time limit on your grief time gives a sense of safety in the boundaries around the time.”

Words can’t always capture and express our emotions adequately, so it can be useful to express ourselves through non-verbal means. “Sometimes drawing, painting, or even making a collage of images cut-out from a magazine can help us to express sadness,” says Ruan. “If you feel like you have a big ball of sadness inside that you can’t get out or express, you can try physical activity like dancing, running, or yoga. Even rocking back and forth or giving yourself a hug can help comfort you. Emotions and verbal communication aren’t processed in the same areas of the brain, so verbal expression might not be adequate to help you fully grieve.”

Make a point to include positive things into your day that will distract or uplift you. “Our memories are very mood dependent, which means when we feel sad, our brain accesses only sad memories, not the happy ones,” says Ruan. “This can lead to a feeling of despair and hopelessness. Seeing a funny movie, petting an animal, going for a run, or other activities that trigger emotions of joy or wellbeing can help our brain access happy memories and will help us keep a balanced perspective of our lives and our current emotional state.”

It’s OK to allow yourself to feel sad for a bit, but don’t let it last too long — start looking for some solutions to your problems instead. “Do you need to limit contact with someone in your life for a period? Indefinitely? Give yourself space to feel the way you do, then resolve to restart and move on,” says Benders-Hadi. Focus on self-care and what solutions can possibly make you feel better during this time.

It’s easy to get caught up on seeking happiness from things like success or relationships, but you might find that if you focus inward, you’ll feel better more quickly. “Look for ways to find happiness and joy from within,” says Benders-Hadi. “No matter what may be going on in your personal or work life, take control of how you choose to approach the world moment to moment and focus on that.”

Everyone copes with sadness differently, but try out these different mental tricks to find out which work best for you.

A tool for achieving balance between work and home

Posted Jul 13, 2013

As a psychotherapist, I often counsel high-level professionals who suffer from stress and overwork. It is less the exception and quite the rule for people to obsess about the day or bring their unfinished business home and continue doing work via iPhone and email. What’s worse is spending the evening thinking about what transpired during the work day and thinking about what needs to be done tomorrow and never experiencing a break.

Utilizing the tool of compartmentalizing can help establish a break from work. That is not to say that there are not professions and situations that warrant continued work and attention, but the following tool can help facilitate the ability to leave work behind when you struggle with setting limits around work and leisure time. To transition from work to home, the following might be helpful:

Even before you leave your workplace, you begin the process of leaving work at work and allowing yourself to decompress. And to do that, try completing emails and communications before leaving work and being mindful that postponing those tasks for later in the evening is a purposeful extension of the work day. Working excessively long work days might eventually lead to resentment, burnout and compromised health. Ideally, taking work home and unnecessarily long work days should be something you do on occasion rather than a way of life.

The process of transitioning begins as soon as you leave your physical work site. Rather than thinking about what you plan to do now that you finished work, you instead begin processing your work day. During your commute home, you specifically and purposefully think about what happened during your work day, keeping in mind that you have until you reach home to think about the day. And if there is something you really have to do before tomorrow, plan to do it within the first hour that you arrive home. The commute should provide the opportunity to make decisions about what needs to be done tomorrow by allowing yourself to freely think over the day’s events and whatever unfinished business might be following you home.

Walking at some point in your commute is a great way to process the day and clear your mind. Sometimes walking to the next subway stop, getting off the bus one stop earlier, or parking a distance from home gives you some precious time to transition. The goal is to walk into your home and leave the work day behind so that you give your brain the needed rest it deserves.

The minute you walk into your home, you remind yourself and give yourself permission to stop thinking about work and begin being present and mindful that you are home. And when your mind wanders back to work, you remind yourself that you can think about work tomorrow and not today anymore. If that is impossible, remind yourself that not setting boundaries and limits to how much you work compromises your mental and physical health.

We don’t get to do today more than once, so our choices to overwork have long-term consequences. The goal is to achieve a balance between work and play. And isn’t play more fun?

To compartmentalize is to separate something into smaller sections or categories in order to make it more manageable. When grieving, compartmentalizing can be a helpful tool to create space between your primary loss, (your loved one), and the innumerable and insurmountable secondary losses, (the loss of who that person was to you in your daily life and in the context of how you saw yourself: your parent, partner, friend, child…the person who oversaw the finances, the logistics of daily life, your emotional and/or financial security, the vision of your future dreams….). Loss can be overwhelming, complex, disorienting and at times paralyzing. There are so many intense emotions, thoughts, fears and tasks, still, to be taken care of. IT IS A LOT. Grieving is hard work. It consumes you, mind, body, and spirit…leaving you exhausted, depleted, and overwhelmed. There is little left over for the “have to’s”, yet, the “have to’s” remain.

To Compartmentalize:

Self Care: Just getting through the day feels like an accomplishment, and it is.

• Give yourself the time and space to grieve, to feel, to be.
• There is no timeline, no one way, no right way. Grieve as you must.
• Say yes to what, and to whom, brings comfort.
• Say no to what, and to whom, does not bring comfort.
• Nurture yourself. Be patient, kind, and compassionate in your self-talk and in your grief narrative.
• Engage your 5 senses in self care

Delegate : Give yourself permission to ask for and receive help, (not that knowing what you need in grief is always so clear or identifiable).

Friends and family:

• Ask for/say yes to: help with carpools and activities for your children.
• Ask for/say yes to: groceries and/or meals.
• Ask for/say yes to: help with yardwork, pets, household chores and upkeep.
• Ask for/say yes to: trusted people to serve as gatekeepers and point people for concerned family, friends, co workers.
• Ask for/say yes to: trusted family and friends who can offer informed guidance through the tasks of grief, (legal, financial, etc.).
• Ask for/say yes to: referrals to professionals who can help support you and your family in grief.

Professionals:

• Seek emotional support and connection through a support group, therapist, or clergy.
• Seek legal counsel from a trusts and estates attorney.
• Seek counsel from a tax accountant to help with any issues involving inherited assets, (property, retirement accounts, inheritance…).

When grieving compartmentalizing can be a helpful tool. There is so much, too much, all at once. Ask for, and say yes to, offers from trusted friends, family, and professionals to help support and guide you through the overwhelming and disorienting fog that is grief.