Led by Laurel Mellin

Most of us are aware that somewhere deep within us is a storehouse of leftover anger, fear, sadness, and guilt. We may notice it in echoes of the teasing we took as kids, scars from disappointments in work or love, losses of innocence, or longings for the path not taken. This emotional trash from the past is unavoidable, but it is not all bad. In limited quantities, it can provide fertile ground for the sprouting of compassion, empathy, and understanding. When someone at work talks of her sadness about her child's learning disability, those words tap into our own sadness about our own disappointments, and enable us to feel empathy that might otherwise elude us.

Retaining some leftover hurts may also encourage the deepening of our own faith. At some point in mid-adulthood, most of us recognize that some life wounds will never completely disappear and we consider the possibility that they may be part of a life design that is greater than our own personal intentions. We begin to accept life on its own terms and, by doing so, we may well open up to the will of something greater than ourselves.

Our challenge, then, is to take out those piles of emotional trash that either regularly overflow or constantly clutter our thinking -- the walls of garbage that isolate us from others or that drive us to overeat or overdrink, overwork or overspend. Many of us call upon prayer, psychotherapy, or meditation to heal these hurts -- and such practices do help. However, in my work at the University of California, San Francisco developing a weight loss program called The Solution, I discovered two simple tools that enable us to more quickly clear the trash from the past. These tools and The Solution program have been adopted by 150 hospitals nationwide because they bring balance within and turn off the drive to go to excess with food, weight, activity, and other issues. Our research at UCSF shows that the changes the program brings are lasting; people using it keep off the weight they lose, an outcome that even high-risk treatments such as fasts and surgery have never shown.

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Let me share these tools with you now so you can experiment for yourself.

A Garbage Disposal Primer

1. The Thinking Journal
When you become aware of a past hurt, loss, or change, take out a piece of paper or create a new file in your computer and write a very clear description of precisely what happened. Tell the story by stating the facts clearly and simply without any apparent emotion. You'll notice that by being absolutely factual and keeping at bay any expression of anger, sadness, fear, or guilt, those feelings mushroom inside. Then, when the cognitive part of this process is relatively complete, we can fully express the feelings.

2. The Feelings Letter
The next step after stating the facts is to express the feelings they arouse in a letter you don't intend to send. In Solution training, we've found that these feelings do not come randomly, but in a natural flow and order. It may help you to look for this progression: anger, sadness, fear, and guilt. What is important is that you reach inside yourself as you consider each feeling, wait for that feeling to appear red-hot within your physical being, then express it in the most raw, primitive, and uncensored fashion -- as if you were four years old. It sometimes helps to shout and cry each feeling verbally. Then pause and wait for the next feeling to appear, which it will. Again, feel it in your body, then throw it out the way a modern artist would throw paint on a canvas.

3. A Crowbar For The Deep Stuff
The letter should make you feel a lot better, but if they don't -- if you've got some deeply wedged trash that won't come out -- you may need to take a crowbar to it. What you do is to move from your heart to your head and, like an archeologist, examine the trash you've thrown so far. Chances are that what anchors the trash is an expectation. So write it down. Now ask yourself, is my expectation reasonable? If you're like many people, you'll look at your expectation, realize that is actually ridiculous or impossible, and you'll burst out laughing. Then write down some expectations that are reasonable, and the rewards you'll get from them. You'll be back in balance and on the path to joy.

Go ahead and try these tools the next time you're overwhelmed by your own emotional trash. A couple of letters will not empty a lifetime accumulation of emotional trash -- and you will probably need to learn some other Solution skills (see box) to fully benefit. But you will find that you can bring yourself back into balance. Even a few letters and a bit of prying can move a lot of trash.

Meredith: A Sample Exercise in Thoughts and Feelings

"If my boss criticizes me, if my husband corrects me, or if I'm late for lunch with my best friend, emotional trash from my relationship with my father flies right into my face," discovered Meredith, a vibrant, 38-year-old publicist with a weight problem. "I feel like I'm four years old and getting in trouble. Any imperfection seems like a threat to my very existence, as if I am going to be abandoned." Her typical response before her Solution training was to retreat into fury and to consume large quantities of chocolate.

Here's what she wrote in her Thinking Journal:

As I grew up my dad was very critical of me. He told me what I did wrong, and when I wasn't perfect according to his views, he told me I was stupid and a bad kid. My dad told me he expected that I do things perfectly and there was only one right way to do things, his way.

And her Feelings Letter:

I feel angry that you were so mean to me. I hate it that you judged me. I can't stand your rejection and your rigidity. I feel so angry that I had to take that as a little girl and couldn't defend myself from you.

I feel sad that you hurt me. I feel sad that you did not accept me. I feel sad that I did not get the love and tenderness I needed. I feel afraid that there is something wrong with me, that I am not lovable. I am afraid of not being perfect, not doing things right. I feel afraid that others will judge me like you have. I feel afraid I will never be comfortable with myself or with other people. That I will always be on edge.

I feel guilty for being so insecure. I feel guilty for letting you treat me that way. I feel guilty for not being more loving and accepting of myself.

Love,

Meredith

P.S. What I need from you is to stop judging me. What I need from myself is to stop being willing to take your criticism, and to be less harsh and rejecting of myself. I need to have a more nurturing voice, not my father's voice inside.

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