E is for Empty Out

  As a saver and a packrat, I have perhaps come more slowly to recognizing this need within myself than perhaps someone else might have done, has done.  About a year ago, at the prompting of my dear friend Anna, I started keeping a daily journal of stream of consciousness thoughts or "morning pages" as we worked through the book The Artist's Way by  Julia Cameron. Since then I have been keeping them for most days. At first I just thought they were an interesting idea, but the longer I have kept them, the more I have found them essential.  They are a space to throw all those random fragments of ideas or emotions or daily frustrations and let important things begin to bubble up and through.  Somehow that process of emptying out yesterday leaves me with more space in my life for filling up in the present moment- whether processing or creating.  A way of making time bigger Perhaps it is a bit like meditating, except more active. Making it more likely to be something I do.  I am paraphrasing slightly, as I can't remember his precise words, but MZ summed it up well when we were talking about it this morning-  You have to empty some of the water out of your bucket from yesterday, in order to have room to put some of the water from today into it.

It makes me curious about how others approach this, though.  Are there ways you empty the mental bucket in order to make more effective room in the present?