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I recently polled my readers and IG followers as to what they were planning to do the first weekend after New Year's. 90% responded with "declutter and organize." Research has shown that there are 3 times of year when we naturally hum with purging and sorting energy. Those times are at the beginning of a new calendar year, when spring arrives, and when school starts. Even if we are not students or teachers, we buzz off the energy of those who are and we naturally want to purge and sort in August or September. While I know most of us have the "want to" to declutter, the question then becomes "but how?" - how do we transfer that energy and desire into action?
I have a few other tips for harnessing your purging and sorting energy:
I hope this motivates you to start purging at least one corner of your home. One closet. One drawer. One pile. It feels SO GOOD to have less "stuff" to manage and maintain. The older I get, the less I want to corral! Be sure to follow me on TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook! I love interacting with my readers!
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So here I am. 11:32 PM on a Friday night. Laundry is caught up. Dishes are done. I've been off work for 5 days for a knee surgery, and I'm wide awake. The house is fast asleep, but here I sit. Why is rest so difficult for me? I can't blame the pandemic, because this has been an issue for decades. I don't sit well. I don't laze well. I don't relax easily. I feel guilt when I am unproductive, and I'm not sure why that is. Oddly, I can usually relax on vacation. Sure, I bring a puzzle, books, journals, and planners to work on, but I can sprawl on a stranger's couch without hesitation. I can sleep late in a stranger's bed, and I can (sometimes) leave dishes in a stranger's sink. I love vacations where outings are limited and "doing nothing" and "not having a schedule" are the highlights. BUT I CANNOT SEEM TO DO THAT IN MY REAL LIFE AT HOME. Not a single person on planet Earth outside of my household would know if I had been a complete lump the past 5 days, but I would know. Am I judging myself? What is this all about? Busy-ness is a disease for sure. I am the first one to ask my patients if they are practicing any self-care or getting enough sleep. And I do practice some self-care and I really do want to be asleep right now. But my breathing is shallow. My pulse is approaching 90 and I'm seated. My mind feels scattered and my heart feels heavy. Yes, there are several things (and people) on my mind. There are unfinished projects floating around in my brain, and there are conversations I need to have. Writing is usually the best way to get all the "yuk" and "to-do's" off my mind, so I'm hovered over this laptop waiting for peace. Now I sit here, with this truth I long for the exhaustion that comes with youth For with each decade comes more woes My jaw won't relax My eyes won't close Perhaps I will run and jump and ride And dance in the kitchen and sit outside Can wind and sun and trees and breeze Steal my worries, my need to please? I see my children doze off with smiles Such hope and joy imaginations wild Come on, sweet girl it's still in you The hunt for knowledge, the quest for new Lay that body down dear girl, don't fight it anymore Put those thoughts to rest dear girl, stop that mental tug of war You are enough You've done enough My love is enough Today was enough This goes out to anyone anywhere who has watched the clock, felt the shallow breathing, or had feelings of guilt associated with REST. You are not alone.
Godspeed. Okay, this post might get a little confusing so bear with me. I would call it a fable, but fables involve animals or forces of nature according to Wikipedia. I would call it a parable, but I am not Jesus. So it's just a story. A True Story. As I was cooking tonight, I was actually following a recipe - which is something I very rarely do. Wouldn’t you know it? I totally screwed the recipe up. I had scrolled the internet late last night before the midnight cutoff for my click list and somehow combined two different chicken casserole recipes into one in my tired mom brain. Since I do cook on a regular basis, I tried to assemble the casserole from memory. That was where things went wrong. Long story short, the casserole was delicious and my family asked me to write it down so we can have it again. Then my writer brain kicked in, and I started to think of my friends who loathe cooking and would rather swallow nails than be stuck in a kitchen near a stove. I have always wondered if these friends (male or female) grew up in a house where meals were cooked on a regular basis. I have an inside scoop on meals in a wide variety of households because I am the primary care provider for around 2000 patients. I have families who eat out three meals per day seven days per week. How they afford a roof over their head, gas in their car, or clothes on their body is beyond me LOL. The folks in my house like to eat. Since I analyze everything, after this chicken casserole disaster-turned-deliciousness, I started to think about the non-cooks that I know.
Anyway, aside from all that, I started to think about the actual skills I have acquired from cooking on a regular basis. I rarely have to measure things unless it’s a new recipe. I really don’t even look at recipes. I’ve always been able to just make something up and it works. But I do give credit to my parents who always cooked and included me in the cooking. As a latchkey kid in the 1980s and 1990s, mom would leave directions for supper on an index card by the stove.
This helped me learn what side dishes pair with which main courses and how to time meals so that everything was ready at one time. If you hate to cook you’ve probably stopped reading by now, but bear with me- I do have a point. If you like to cook, I’m sure you’re reminiscing about your early cooking endeavors as a teen or early 20s and remembering the disasters and burned meals. We have all had them. Now back to my point. I think cooking is a lot like parenting. Some people have cooks in their homes and learn how to cook because they are included in the cooking and it comes naturally to them. Likewise, some children have really good parents in their homes and learn how to parent because they see good parenting every day. When they become parents, they are able to mirror a lot of what they saw as children. What about all the little girls and little boys that don’t see good parenting? Do they grow up to hate being a parent? Is parenting more difficult for them? Some of my non-cooking friends have told me that cooking is difficult for them. Are there any parallels? I am not saying good parents cook. Being a good parent has absolutely nothing to do with cooking. I am just wondering if my patients that seem to be checked out on parenting had poor examples of parents from which to learn. I know, I know. Deep, random thoughts on a rainy Sunday night. But I think of the little girls and the little boys who are now big girls and big boys. I see them struggling because they come to me. They open up about their struggles. And I feel them. I see their efforts and witness their frustrations. Most of them are really trying, but they feel defeated from the jump. I am not going to get overly cheesy here about a cookbook or a parenting book. Life is much harder than anything you could ever read in either of those books. I just want you to know that some of us got a “recipe” given to us while others did not. Some of us received love, attention, and praise while others did not. Let us be kind to one another and forgo the judgment. “Food” comes from many places. Let us feed each other well. ☀️ Godspeed.
Shame. Such an icky topic and feeling. I am not a licensed therapist. I am still trying to figure all of this out myself, but I am learning and I am working to diligently avoid shaming words being said by any member of my household (including myself). THIS IS HARD WORK. 😩 When I see myself, my spouse, or my children slipping into a shame spiral, I try to acknowledge it and stop it if possible. This is treacherous, however. The danger in stopping a shame spiral is the risk of entering into toxic positivity. Toxic positivity can equally invalidate and minimize a person's feelings. One can go from "I am not good enough" to "I am not good enough to have this emotion right now." One can go from being told "you worry too much, you are such a worry wart" to "don't worry, everything is always going to work out." Neither instance feels good. Has a friend or loved one ever told you what you should have done and how you should have responded? How did that feel? Even better, have YOU ever told a friend or loved one what they should have done or how they should have responded? That mirror comes up quickly. The Shame Spiral can start immediately or hours, days, weeks after the "injury." It can last a lifetime. My therapist just asked me if I had ever heard the story about the father and son and the nails on the fence post. I had not. I tried to find the original author and the original full story, but I could not find it. Please let me know if you do. The quick version is that the father gave the son some nails to nail into the fence post. The boy did and came back to his dad. The dad said "good job son, now go take them all out." The boy wondered what in the world his father was thinking but he did as he was told. Upon his return, the boy asked "okay, I took them all out, but why did you have me do that Dad?". The father replied "Son, those nails are like words. You can say them and you can try to take them back, but the holes will always remain." Credit to MaryAnn Denwood @ The People's Therapist and Richard Bamford Therapy for the above images. Credit to Michigan Health Blog and ThePsychologyGroup.com for the above images. I could not locate the exact source from these SlideShare images, but I found them to be extremely valuable. When I began my own work with my own shame, it felt bad of course. I wondered why I "felt so bad" when "I don't think I really did anything wrong." And I don't mean I've never lied or disappointed someone or made a poor choice. OF COURSE I have done all of those things. I meant that sometimes I feel like I'm doing good things, kind things, making smart choices, and I still feel SHAME. Why in the world am I feeling shame when I "act right" and make kind, intentional choices? I quickly learned that we can be just as shamed for doing GOOD as we can for doing BAD. (Excuse all grammar rules here - just go with me). I can be a good girl and be shamed for it. I can be the best in the room (at a sport, in a class, on a project, or at work) and be shamed for it. Am I crazy and causing myself all this shame or do other children and adults actually shame us when we excel? The truth is BOTH. We receive messaging from infancy to the grave that shape our responses. These messages come from our loved ones and from strangers. Today, they often come from avatars on a screen in the devilish device in our hands. The messages come from television and advertisements. They even come from our beloved children. Are other people TRYING to shame us? Probably not. But they may be full of shame themselves, so it's a language in which they are fluent. OR, they don't know how to handle their own emotions and we are the nearest punching bag. It's all complicated. It is layered. It is old and it is new. None of it feels good. As part of my own shame work, I was asked to draw my own shame creature. I think this is an excellent exercise for anyone. I included the most shaming statements I have received from strangers and well-meaning loved ones. So here I am, undressing on the internet and showing you my boo-boos. It is scary to be this vulnerable, but I want to do and feel better. I don't want to push the shame button of anyone I love, especially the sweet souls fast asleep under my own roof right now as I type this. So here goes.
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