Boxes

Living our life can mean keeping parts of our life in different ‘boxes’ and we do certain things or are a certain way for each of these different boxes.

We might have our family, we might have our friends, household, and work, and maybe even more boxes within those.

Sometimes that is required by work, where we might act very much more professionally than we would in our private life. We might want to keep that separate ourselves, and that is fine.

But that can mean we live our lives with different parts of our lives in different boxes and things don’t mix. We do everything we can to maintain these boundaries.

The most obvious example is if someone is a member of the LGBT community and isn’t out with their family or at work, but might be with some friends (and perhaps not others). So imagine someone being a different person with different people and only some people getting to know the real you.

Years ago at a party I remember a friend telling me that if I lived my life maintaining all these different boxes, I would always feel alone, and that really stuck with me.

Think about that. Juggling all these boxes can work for a while, but what we’re missing out on is the opportunity to invite the people we love into all areas of our life that are important to us. There’s something incredibly liberating about being authentic and trusting the people that we love. Being able to be ourselves.

That’s not something that’s only applicable to the queer community. If you’re not able to be yourself and you’re putting on different masks, what are you missing out on?  What could you gain by getting rid of the boxes altogether? More support if you need it? Stronger relationships? Maybe even being kind to yourself?

Have a think about it. Are you doing this yourself? How could your life be changed by getting rid of these boxes, or even just a few of them?

If you would like to talk to me about issues with your mental health, you can complete the online submission form or contact me directly at: mckellarCBT@gmail.com