emotional hoarder.

When things get bad, and I'm talking really bad, so it doesn't happen often. But when it does, my first instinct is to shut down. I am better about it since I got married and legit have to share my life with someone. But I still struggle. Sometimes I just don't want to deal. I would rather play dead.

Clearing Emotional Clutter by Donald Altman is packed with valuable advice for those of you who are emotional. You're up. You're down. You have a hard time letting yourself just be. Yes, the idea of someone asking me to "cultivate a beautiful garden of thought" made me kind of want to punch them in the face. No offense, Donald. But people like me (and maybe you) need people like Donald Altman to remind us to stop allowing our emotions distract us from our real lives.

I am not clinically depressed. Or regular depressed. But I was still able to recognize some of my own emotional clutter. I took some time to do some mental spring cleaning, and it has been pretty liberating.