The Laundry Method: A Simple Journaling Practice for Emotional Overwhelm
There are days when I can tell you exactly what is wrong. Then there are days when the only word I have access to is everything.
Everything feels like too much. There are too many things I could be doing, too many things I should probably be doing, too many decisions I haven't made, and too many questions I don't have answers to.
Even when none of those things are urgent on their own, together they feel like one giant problem I need to solve before I can move forward.
This is usually when I write. Not because I know what I want to say, but because I don't.
For most of my life, writing to process emotions has been how I make sense of what is happening inside of me. Sometimes that means writing about something big and obvious. More often, it starts with dumping whatever happens to be taking up space in my head onto the page to see what emerges.
The Mental Load: Sorting Your Thoughts Like Laundry
I’ve started thinking about emotional overwhelm a little like sorting laundry.
When everything sits in one giant pile on the floor, it is hard to tell what you are actually dealing with. The shirt you need tomorrow is tangled underneath something you haven't worn in six months. The genuinely dirty clothes mix in with the things you tried on and couldn't be bothered to put away. There is probably a random sock in there that doesn't belong to anything.
Your thoughts feel a lot like that when you are overwhelmed.
The Urgent: Things that actually require your immediate attention.
The Uncontrollable: Situations you have zero control over.
The Postponed: Decisions that need to be made eventually, but not today.
The False Alarms: Fears masquerading as problems to solve.
The Ghosts: Old stories attaching themselves to new circumstances.
When I start writing for mental clarity, I don’t try to organize any of it first. I just put the pile on the page.
How to Journal When You Don't Know What You're Feeling
One reason people struggle with therapeutic writing is that we approach the page as though we are supposed to know our destination before we begin. I rarely do.
I usually start with whatever is easiest to access:
Where I am sitting right now.
What the weather is doing outside.
What happened earlier this morning.
The thought I keep avoiding.
Physical sensations, like a clenched jaw or a racing heart.
From there, I follow whatever has a little energy behind it.
Sometimes that means I end up writing about something completely different from where I started. A frustration turns out to have grief underneath it. A practical question turns out to be tangled up with fear. Something I thought I needed to decide turns out to be something I am simply uncomfortable not knowing yet.
The page doesn't necessarily give me a solution. It gives me enough distance from the noise to start seeing what is actually there.
Understanding Yourself vs. Fixing Yourself
Once I identify what is going on, I have a tendency to immediately want to fix it.
If I am tired, anxious, or unmotivated, I want to know why and how to change it. Do I need rest or do I need structure? Am I doing too much or not enough?
Those can be useful questions. However, curiosity easily becomes judgment when the underlying question is really: How do I get back to being the version of me I like better?
Expressive writing gives us an opportunity to ask something different:
Can I meet the version of myself who is actually here first?
Before deciding what she should do next, can I understand what she is carrying?
Can I notice what she is making this particular season mean about her?
Can I listen to the parts of her that want completely contradictory things without judging them?
This does not mean the answer is always to retreat or stay stuck indefinitely. Sometimes the most compassionate response is getting up and doing the hard thing we’ve been avoiding. But before the action comes the listening.
A Simple Journaling Practice for Overwhelm
If your thoughts feel like a giant pile of laundry right now, you don’t have to figure out what they mean. Start by getting them out.
Write down whatever is taking up space in your mind. Do not try to organize it, make it sound good, or decide whether it deserves your attention. Let yourself wander. Follow the tangents. Write down the petty things, the enormous things, and the mundane details sitting beside them.
Once the pile is on the page, step back and get curious. Ask yourself these reflective journaling prompts:
What keeps showing up here?
What seems to have the most energy behind it?
What am I actually feeling underneath all of these thoughts?
What am I trying to solve that may not be mine to solve today?
Am I trying to understand myself right now, or am I trying to fix myself?
Given what I can see now, what do I actually need?
Do not force an answer. The practice is simply noticing what changes when you give yourself a safe place to put down everything you have been carrying.
Restorative Writing: Healing Without the Pressure to Optimize
This is the core of restorative writing. I am not interested in journaling as another tool for optimizing ourselves into more productive, perfectly healed human beings.
I don't want every difficult feeling to become a lesson. I don't need every journal entry to end with a breakthrough.
Sometimes writing simply gives us somewhere to put what we're carrying long enough to see it clearly. Sometimes we close the journal without having figured anything out at all, but with a little more compassion for the person who opened it.
We don't always have to write our way out of wherever we are. Sometimes we write so we can learn how to be with ourselves while we're here.
Want to Follow the Thread a Little Further?
If this kind of writing helps you make a little more sense of what’s happening inside of you, Finding the Thread takes the practice deeper. It’s a guided restorative writing practice for noticing what’s asking for your attention, following where it leads, and getting curious about what becomes clearer along the way.
There’s nothing you need to figure out before you begin. Bring whatever is taking up space, put it on the page, and see where the thread takes you.