little wooden box
In my bedroom, tucked nicely within my bookshelf, is a little wooden box. It’s a cheap thing, probably purchased from a generic hobby store. It was given to me many years ago by my former therapist. We spent a session collaging it with magazine clippings. She told me to use it as a “grounding tool.” I wasn’t sure exactly how I planned to use it, so I covered it with pictures that brought me joy: elements. Books. Vivid colors.
I spent a long time thinking about how I wanted to use the box — what I wanted it to mean. After a while, I realized that my worst dysregulation came from this insidious voice in my mind, telling me I was bad person. I was someone who hurt people. I was selfish. People’s lives were worst because they knew me.
Their origins are a story for another time, but suffice to say: those dark thoughts were the source of my worst spirals. They didn’t serve as any kind of helpful moral compass; they weren’t helpful at all. They were debilitating, devastating, and only served to turn me in on myself. I have vivid memories of lying in bed, feeling them circle me like hungry wolves in the darkness. They snarled and snapped at my heels. I’d tuck into such a tight ball, my muscled ached.
Eventually, the feeling would pass, but never because I told it to. I’d simply fall asleep, or some other biological need would peel me from my rigor doloris.
I needed a tool: something to help me exert agency over these episodes and to intentionally ground me when I was lost in the dark.
One day, I decided to start filling my box with little slips of paper, and written on each one was a reason I am a good person. I wrote everything from, “My work as a therapist saved lives” to “I pick up scooters that have been knocked over on the sidewalk.” I cried as I scribbled down word after word. Sobbed. I’d spent so long reliving every moment of pain I had ever caused anyone, I’d never made space for all the good I had done in the world. And suddenly, I had this big box of evidence — a physical artifact to prove to myself that I was a source of goodness and light. It was one of the most cathartic, grounding, and soul-affirming experiences of my life.
After that, whenever that insidious voice reappeared, I would pull out that box. I’d read those little slips of paper, and sometimes I’d write new ones. I’d remind myself that I wasn’t a bad person — that I was, in fact, a good person, who tried very hard to leave a positive impact on those around me.
I don’t reach for that box much anymore; I don’t have to. I haven’t seen the wolves in a very long time, and that little voice is drowned out by a much more resilient sense of self-love. But the box still stays in my bookshelf as a reminder:
I am a good person. I am more than the injuries I have caused. I deserve positive self-regard.
I am a good. Person.
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little wooden box
