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Samaritans
Here because some of these subjects reach further than a written exercise should.
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Tool 27 · Develop yourself
What am I holding that I need help putting down?
A guided 20 to 25 minutes conversation, here in TAIU. This exercise does not recommend forgiveness, does not push towards contact and does not treat carrying something as a failure to move on.
Whose is it?
A lot of what people carry was handed to them, often young, often by somebody who did not mean to.
Some things are carried for life, and carried well. Nothing needs to change is a legitimate result.
What you'll look at
- 01What it is
- 02How long you have had it
- 03Where it shows up in an ordinary week
- 04What you have already tried
A note from Mark
I have never found the advice to let it go useful. It describes a destination without describing a single step. It usually comes from somebody who has not carried the same thing.
What I have found useful is the question of ownership. A surprising amount of what people carry was handed to them by somebody else, often young, often without anybody intending it. Once you know that, the weight does not disappear. But you stop treating it as a verdict on you.
The second question I would ask is whether putting it down needs anybody else. Sometimes it does, and that person is dead, unwilling or dangerous. When that happens, the work is not release. It is learning to carry it in a way that does not take over the rest of your life. That is not defeat. I would not let anybody tell you it is.
Read my full view ↓
This exercise will not tell you to forgive anybody. That is not mine to recommend and it never has been.
What you'll get
This will not sort you into a personality type.It will give you answers about your own life that you can test.
01
What you are actually carrying
02
Whose it is
03
What it costs you
04
Whether release is available
+
Your TAIU handover: a summary of what the conversation found, written so you can take it with you.
See everything included ↓
- 01What you came here with
- 02What you are actually carrying
- 03How long
- 04Where it shows up
- 05What it asks of you
- 06Whose it is
- 07Does putting it down require another person
- 08The rival reading
- 09What you have already tried
- 10What deserves protecting
- 11The credible alternative
- 12What, if anything, should change
- 13What remains unresolved
- 14Where this goes next
When you finish
Bring it back to your tree.
Your tree is where TAIU keeps a picture of your whole life, in parts like work, money and health.
This session works on the whole of you, not one part of your life. Nothing is scored. At the end, you are asked once which part of your life this touched most. You can answer none.
The conversation writes this summary for you. Keep the sheet, print it or paste it into My Tree. Nothing from the conversation is stored by TAIU.
- Session
- Date
- The part of life this belongs to
- What we found
- The alternative we tested
- What deserves protecting
- What should change, if anything
- Next actions
- What to notice or find out
- What remains unresolved
What now?
01 · Save it
A precise name for what you are carrying.
02 · Test it
Say the precise sentence to one person who can hear it without needing you to feel better afterwards.
See more ↓
If this is heavier than a page
Bereavement, abuse and serious harm are not exercises. If what surfaced here is that heavy, speaking to your GP, to a bereavement service or to somebody qualified will do more than any amount of structured reflection.
If it involves somebody who is still able to harm you, your safety comes before any thinking about repair.
What I would do
- 01
Establish whose it is before anything else. A great deal of what people carry was given to them.
- 02
Ask whether release requires another person. If it does, and they are gone or unwilling, that changes the job entirely.
- 03
Do not aim at resolution. Aim at an accurate description. It does more than it sounds like it will.
- 04
Take seriously what you have already tried. Advice that repeats a failed attempt is worse than none.
- 05
Accept that some things are carried for life. Carried well is a real outcome.
Test it
- 01
Ask what would have to happen for it to be lighter. If the answer involves somebody who is gone, the question is different from the one you have been asking.
- 02
Work out what carrying it protects. Sometimes there is something.
- 03
Separate what happened from what it means about you. They usually arrived together and they are not the same.
The alternative
The obvious conclusion is that you need to process this and move on. Often that is not what is happening. Sometimes the weight was handed to you by somebody else and putting it down requires nothing from them at all. Sometimes release depends on an apology that will never arrive, and the honest work is carrying it differently rather than waiting. Sometimes what looks like resentment is grief with nowhere to go. And sometimes the carrying is doing something for you, protecting a boundary or keeping a person present, and removing it would take that too.
Think about this
- What it is, in whatever words come first.
- How long you have had it, and whether it has changed.
- Whether it was ever yours, or whether somebody handed it to you.
- Where it shows up in an ordinary week.
- Whether putting it down depends on somebody else doing something.
Take this to Ask Mark
You have done the exercise. Now look again at what it found.
This looks at what you found and helps you understand it. It is not another exercise to repeat.
Take this to Ask Mark →If something else would help
READ · BOOK
Forgiveness and Health
Loren Toussaint, Everett Worthington and David Williams
Best for the evidence on forgiveness, including its limits.
Read more ↗
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READ · BOOK
Grief Counselling and Grief Therapy
J. William Worden
Best for grief as tasks rather than stages.
Read more ↗
Was this useful?
Recommended by the TAIU community
What helped you?
If you've read, watched, listened to or tried something that helped you think about this differently, we'd like to hear about it.
We review recommendations before sharing them with the community.
Finished the exercise?
What did this uncover?
Tell us whether it helped and what you discovered. It takes less than a minute.
Next tool
What am I responsible for?
If what you are carrying turned out to be somebody else's
Further thinking
Grief Counselling and Grief Therapy
J. William Worden
The Other Side of Sadness
George Bonanno
Forgiveness and Health
Loren Toussaint, Everett Worthington and David Williams
See the thinking ↓
Book
Grief Counselling and Grief Therapy
J. William Worden
Worden replaced the idea that grief passes through stages with the idea that it involves tasks, including the work of accommodating a loss rather than completing it. That distinction matters if you are carrying something and have been told you should be finished by now. Accommodation has no deadline.
Book
The Other Side of Sadness
George Bonanno
Bonanno's data shows that resilience is the most common response to loss, and that prescribed emotional processing can sometimes make things worse. It is a corrective to the assumption that an unremarkable account of a difficult event must be avoidance, and it is the reason nobody should be pushed to describe the worst part.
Book
Forgiveness and Health
Loren Toussaint, Everett Worthington and David Williams
A serious survey of what forgiveness does and does not do, which includes the critique that forgiveness interventions can push people towards premature reconciliation. Worth reading precisely because it refuses to sell the idea. Whether to forgive anybody is your decision and this helps you make it with the evidence in front of you.