157

 Grounding and birch seeds

I've been seeing a psychologist to receive help for anxiety caused by a situation at work. While I decided to fight against unfair treatment, it takes much energy and negatively affects my mental health. There is one grounding technique that psychologists recommend often. It's called 54321. You are encouraged to identify and acknowledge 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste. At times it's difficult to find so many things to bring to my attention, and I'm happy when I can find one or two and I focus on them. Recently I've been in awe of the stars and the moon I can see before I fall asleep. Another thing is finding birch seeds in my hair after a walk on the island where I live. 

Oftentimes, autoethnography is seen as self-centred. In my contemplation of this method, I always come to a conclusion that it's actually very good at bringing our attention to co-presence. At times, it is about being in the world with fellow humans, at other times it is about being in the world with non-human beings such as the stars, the moon, and trees. 

156

 "Decluttering"

I've never felt comfortable with the word "decluttering" because I struggle to see the objects we live with, no matter how few or many, as clutter. Every object requires energy and materials to come into being. It embodies nature and beings (such as plants and even animals), human creativity and labour. Many of those fellow humans who declutter of course do not intend to throw things away. Rather, they strive to give away, donate or recycle. But the word decluttering is not gentle enough, and it obscures too much.

I live with a very small number of items. Yet, recently I put some objects in a cotton tote to give away to some friends. At some point my partner and I will move in together, so we don't need objects from both of our households. 

I've always seen my sufficiency list as something very personal. Now it's interesting to observe how it is becoming less so with some items being shared. Capturing these changes, both big and small, is a beautiful aspect of autoethnographic research.