Several days ago, I read a story. That was a typical example of reducing our mental load. Today, I will talk about it through the structure of the story.
How to reduce our mental load
Sometimes, we want to reduce our mental load because that exhausts us. We might always be too busy to have a relaxing time. We might lie to ourselves and feel guilty. We might feel lonely because we feel no one understands our honest minds.
We can call such a mental load “mental garbage.” We can predict that unnecessary garbage in our minds affects us negatively, but we don’t know how to clear it.
In such a situation, the story structure I will explain below might provide us with ideas to clear our mental load. In addition, we would be able to learn an example of how to solve other people’s mental suffering.
A story structure of confessing a person’s mind
Let me explain the story structure. It was a story with high empathy and a kind of love story.
There was a hero boy and a heroine girl. They were high school students. Both are empathic people, so both are modest and gentle. That story was that the hero reduced the mental load on the heroine.
The hero boy was kind and gentle. He didn’t mind being alone, so he knew many places where he could relax where no one knew it.
The heroine girl was also soft and modest. She liked to help weak people, but she had a mental burden from her family. She had misfortune in childhood. That brought her the necessity to behave as an adult, even though she was a little child. Nobody helped her. She could not blame anyone for that because it was a misfortune.
Although she was freed from the harsh environment after she entered high school, she could not tell anyone about her past. That was a mental burden for her.
He and she were not friendly, but they often met and knew each other. She was his sister’s friend.
Going to the cafe
One day, he bumped into her on the street, and they came to spend time together due to each other’s reasons. He invited her to a comfortable place to spend time that many people didn’t know: a hidden cafe.
After they entered the cafe, she soon felt fantastic because she had not experienced such an environment: lovely tableware, adorable decorations on shelves, good smells, great views, and a quiet, comfortable atmosphere. She had had to only go back and forth between home and school until then. He didn’t expect that she would show such deep, moving emotion.
Then, he talked about his family in a casual conversation. He casually talked about the good and bad things about his family members.
The situation that allows her to confess
That new environment and his atmosphere allowed her to talk about her past. When she was told about her family, she naturally confessed about her past, although she didn’t know why she had come to feel like talking about it. It was the first time for her to feel like doing so.
She told him about her sad past. He had not known it. He listened to it quietly.
He apologized for letting her talk about it, but she thanked him. After her confession, she finally realized she just wanted someone to listen to it for a long time until then. She could not open her mind, not even to people close to her. The new environment and his atmosphere of feeling free to talk about the family allowed her to talk about it for the first time.
After that talk, she felt relaxed because she had let go of her mental load. That made her trust him and allowed her to behave according to her age. She finally came to feel many emotions that were suppressed for a long time: joy, fun, comfort, warmth, and love. In other words, she finally came to act as she was, especially when she was with him.
After leaving the cafe, he noticed she seemed to want to know more about his world, so he made an appointment to meet next time. Then, they have a happy ending.
Ideas to reduce our mental load
That is the story structure. That shows us several ideas to reduce our mental load.
First, our secret could be a heavier mental load than we thought. This may be because it is one of the lies. Secrets are lies that we pretend not to have. Perhaps that is why we want to tell someone about our experiences when we have a bad one.
In other words, opening our honest minds and reducing our secrets would reduce our mental load. We don’t have to confess it to anyone close to us. Talking about it with someone who doesn’t know us well may work. Writing it down would also work. Trying to open small secrets might lead us to let go of bigger secrets.
Next, a new environment often makes disclosing our minds easier. Perhaps you can understand this easily. When we went on a school trip, some people talked about their secrets, such as their favorite people or their dreams for the future.
Finally, we can find a way to reduce others’ mental loads, like the hero above. We have our world. That could be a new environment for others. If we can casually talk about something people often have trouble with, those troubled people can also confess their harsh past. That might heal their minds.
Conclusion
That story structure tells us a way to reduce our mental load. In addition, we can find an example of how to solve other people’s mental suffering.
That might help us reduce our mental loads and make others feel lighter.
Thank you for reading this article. I hope to see you in the next one.
