Part Three: Addicted to Perfectionism? "Wreck this Journal!"

Here we are at week three of the Wreck This Journal adventure! (To see my previous entries, go here for week one and here for week two.)

Whew! This week brought up a lot of anxiety for some reason. Even just thinking about what I was going to do to wreck my journal made my heart speed up and practically jump out of my chest! Well, when you see what I did you’ll probably understand why…

One of the page’s instructions says to sleep with the book. Because I smeared mustard and chocolate syrup on some of the pages last week (see here), actually having the book in bed with me didn’t sit too well! Even though the mustard and chocolate syrup are completely dry by now, they’re still a bit “sticky” and I didn’t like the idea of the stickiness being close to my white sheets. Since this adventure is all about trying new things, though, I decided to really go for it and face-plant the pages with the mustard and chocolate syrup right onto my sheets!


Talk about anxiety!! This felt absolutely horrible, but I stuck with it for as long as I could handle it (about ten minutes). Gosh, even looking at the picture right now makes me feel really uncomfortable. Luckily nothing rubbed off on my sheets, although they do smell a bit like mustard now. ;)

After doing that, just sleeping with the book on the pillow next to me didn’t seem so difficult. I did accidentally roll over onto it once during the night, but he survived and was ready for our next adventure!


Finally, I’ve been wanting to burn one of the pages for awhile now since that’s one of the page's instructions. I tried to burn the cover first, but that didn’t exactly go as planned. (Note to others going through this experience with me: the cover doesn’t really burn). Next I tried burning a single page, and that worked like a charm. It smelled just like roasting marshmallows over a campfire!


I’ve noticed some pretty significant changes in myself this past week and I think at least some of them are directly related to this experience. I’ll list them here:

1) This past week I have been unusually CLEAN. I’m talking so clean and orderly it’s scary! I straightened up my condo last weekend, and normally it takes me all of about a day to destroy the place again. But here I am, a week later, and it’s just as clean as it was then! Maybe because I’m now giving myself permission to destroy my journal, I don’t feel the need to be messy in my living space anymore?! Food for thought…

2) I’ve noticed that I’m able to just sit with anxiety or other uncomfortable feelings and just let them be, rather than trying to run away from them or get rid of them all together. After all, they're just feelings and I can explore them and allow them to be until they're ready to leave.

3) I’m willing to try new things just for the fun of it! Instead of shrinking away from trying new things, I’ve been really going for it this past week. Because I’m trying so many new things with the journal, it’s carrying over to my life and it feels good. I'm learning that nothing bad happens from trying new things (hey, the sky hasn't fallen yet!)… it’s just a new experience I’ve never gone through before.

NEXT WEEK: Taking the book in the shower with me!

It's still not too late to join in on the fun if you'd like to go through this experience yourself. To join the group of us going through this together or to just follow along with how others are wrecking their journals, go here.