Yesterday's phone client was a writer. She was intimidated by her over-stuffed writing files. They were jam packed with years of stories ideas. She was afraid to go near them.
To make things easier for her, I had her take all the stories out of the filing cabinet and put them in piles on the floor. Now the stories were no longer hiding in their container with the need to protect their space. They were in her space, giving her back the power to make decisions.
I had her pick up one story at a time and take a look. I wanted to see how she felt about each story idea. Was she still intrigued by the story and wanting to work on and develop it, or was she dis-interested in the story.
She was able to give her full attention to each story. She either got excited and said, "Oh, I love this story. I want to keep working on it and send it out." Or she said, "I don't care about this one anymore."
My client was animated by the process because it considered her feelings.
We were we done, she put the stories that she liked back into the filing cabinet. She said, "I'm so happy that this cabinet is just filled with stories that I love!"