Naturally, I should start off with a definition for this fancy term, but I googled so I could quote a professional in the field, and sad to say the definitions I found on google though “educated” didn’t have the most positive connotation in the world of psychology. This leaves me to … you guessed it, create my own definition! Now remember, I’m not a licensed psychologist nor am I a cognoscenti in the field but I too have done my fair share of mental compartmentalizing on my life voyage, and you know what they say about experience- It teaches wisdom.
Mental compartmentalizing is the practice of subconsciously dividing challenging situations into categories and isolating them along with whatever emotions they stir, to process at the most suitable time possible. Or at least that’s what I think it is .
I do believe I may have a little understanding of this though, as I have dabbled in maybe more than my fair share of dabblings.
Being able to maintain a degree of emotional intelligence does assist when you are trying to compartmentalize in order to deal with situations at the most ideal time possible and honestly it can be the hardest thing to do. Because of this I thought I’d share some steps to assist with mental compartmentalizing as most of my friends and associates are young professionals, and we’re dealing with so much more than meets the eyes, and so we’ve gotta find a way to isolate and address certain situations, while still maintaining our composure, professionalism and couth.
Here are four short pointers to help with getting a more practical feel of mental compartmentalizing.
1. Identify situations and emotions that need to be separated from each other.
2. Separate situations from each other.
3. Practice focusing on separate situations, and if you are going to vent about it or attempt to work on a solution, then let that be the situation you are working on, and not and everything else.
4. Spend some actual time in a therapeutic setting, (can be personal or professional) to process each of these situations and the emotions that accompany.