Alright, let me tell you about this little experiment I ran on myself recently. I started calling it “chasing butterflies into the medicine jar” in my head, and it kinda stuck. It wasn’t about actual butterflies, obviously, more about… well, let’s get into it.
Feeling Like a Dizzy Bug Collector
So, picture this: my brain felt like one of those glass domes filled with fake snow, but instead of snow, it was buzzing with thoughts. Millions of tiny, fast things flapping around. Ideas for stuff I wanted to do, things I was worried about, chores I forgot, bits of songs, you name it. All colorful and quick like butterflies, yeah? But impossible to hold onto. It was driving me nuts. Couldn’t focus on anything for more than five minutes. Felt like I was wading through mental fog all day.
I knew I had to do something. It wasn’t sustainable. Just letting this internal chaos run the show wasn’t working. I needed a way to, I don’t know, capture these things. Pin them down. Look at them properly. Hence, the “medicine jar” idea. A place to put them, maybe figure them out, get some relief.
Setting the Traps (Or Trying To)
My first move was pretty basic. I figured, okay, I need a physical ‘jar’. So I grabbed an old notebook. Nothing fancy, just a plain one lying around. The plan was simple: anytime one of these ‘butterflies’ popped into my head, I’d whip out the notebook and write it down. Quick. No filtering, no judging if it was important or stupid. Just get it out of my head and onto the paper.
- I started carrying that notebook everywhere. Felt a bit silly at first, pulling it out mid-conversation or while waiting in line.
- The first few days were wild. Pages filled up fast with random junk. “Buy milk,” “What if that project fails?”, “Remember that weird dream?”, “Call Dave back.” Just a total jumble.
- It wasn’t easy, mind you. Sometimes the thoughts were too quick, like trying to actually catch a butterfly. By the time I got the pen ready, poof, gone. Or sometimes I’d catch one, write it down, and three more would appear in its place.
It was messy work. Seriously. My handwriting got worse, pages were disorganized. It wasn’t some neat, scientific collection. It was more like the frantic scribbles of someone trying to map a whirlwind.
What I Found Inside the Jar
After doing this for a few weeks, I took a step back. Did I manage to trap every single fluttering thought? Absolutely not. My head wasn’t suddenly quiet and Zen. That perfect, sealed “medicine jar” full of neatly labeled specimens? Didn’t happen.
But here’s the kicker: the act of chasing them, of trying to write them down, it did something. It made me acknowledge them. Instead of just feeling overwhelmed by a formless cloud of buzzing things, I now had… well, pages of messy notes. But it was tangible.
Seeing them written down, even the silly ones, kind of took away some of their power. They weren’t just phantoms anymore. They were words on a page. Some I could deal with right away (“Buy milk” – easy). Some were bigger worries I realized I needed to actually think about properly (“What if that project fails?”). Some were just noise I could now recognize and ignore.
So, the jar isn’t airtight. Butterflies still get in and out. My brain isn’t “cured”. But the frantic chase forced me to engage, to see what was actually flying around in there. It’s less of a chaotic swarm now, more like… well, still butterflies, but maybe I know their names a bit better. And sometimes, that’s enough to feel a little less crazy. It’s an ongoing process, this whole thing. No magic fix, just the practice itself. That’s what I got out of it.
