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Loading... How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing| 668 | 14 | 34,906 | 
(4.26) | 11 | "For anyone tired of staring at the same mess every day but struggling to find the time and willpower to fix it, popular therapist and Tiktok star KC Davis presents a revolutionary method of cleaning to end the stress-mess cycle"-- |
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This book is dedicated to my family.  | |
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in February 2020 I had my second baby. | |
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My professional experience as a therapist had shown me time and time again that being overwhelmed is not a personal failure, but as most of you may know, the gulf between what we know in our minds and what we feel in our hearts is often an insurmountable distance. In fact, I do not think laziness exists.
You know what does exist? Executive dysfunction, procrastination, feeling overwhelmed, perfectionism, trauma, amotivation, chronic panic, energy fatigue, depression, lack of skills, lack of support, and differing priorities. They are unlikely to reach out for help with these tasks due to intense fear of judgment and rejection. As shame and isolation increase, mental health plummets. Self-loathing sets in and motivation vanishes. You don't exist to serve your space; your space exists to serve you.
Internalizing this belief will help you a) shift your perspective of care tasks from a moral obligation to a functional errand, b) see what changes you actually want to make, and c) weave them into your life with minimal effort, relying not on self-loathing but on self-compassion. As you embark on this journey, I invite you to remember these words: "slow," "quiet," "gentle." Next time you are trying to talk yourself into doing a care task, what would it be like to replace the voice that says, "Ugh, I should really go clean my house right now because it's a disaster," with "It would be such a kindness to future me if I were to get up right now and do _____. That task will allow me to experience comfort, convenience, and pleasure later." No one ever shamed themselves into better mental health. In addiction recovery, as in most of life, success depends not on having strong willpower, but in developing mental and emotional tools to help you experience the world differently. Although it looks like a lot, there are actually only five things in any room: (1) trash, (2) dishes, (3) laundry, (4) things that have a place and are not in their place, and (5) things that do not have a place. You can break down care tasks into three layers. At their foundation, care tasks have the basic function of keeping your body or space safe and healthy. This is represented by the bottom layer of the cupcake. The icing on the cake, so to say, is things that increase your comfort. The cherry on top is just things that make you happy. When we understand what really matters to us in terms of safety, comfort, and happiness, we can begin to let go of others' judgments of how our spaces must look. All the thoughts in your head come from you. The Compassionate Observer is a concept created by Kristin Neff, PhD. She has this and more exercises for cultivating self-compassion at https://self-compassion.org/.I love a calming visual as much as the next person, but it's important to remember that not everything has to be aesthetically pleasing to be organized and not everything aesthetically pleasing is functional! The truth is that if it's where you meant it to be, then it's organized. Instead of bullying yourself into finishing a task, instead try giving yourself permission to start a task. Instead of "I need to finish this" or even "I need to start this," begin to say to yourself, "How can I move towards this task?" I tidy things up not because it's bad that it's messy but because it has reached the end of the cycle of functionality and I need to reset it so that it can have another twenty-four hours of it serving me. Imperfection is required for a good life. Remember that anything worth doing is worth doing half-assed. sometimes it helps to consider your body as separate from you. You have a body—you are not your body. So even if you think your body is a little bit ratty, you can get to know it, slowly, curiously, nonjudgmentally, by caring for it. And it might end up your friend. You do not have to wait to care about your body to care for your body. In fact, caring for your body can often cause you to start liking it more. I hated myself and saying, "I like myself," in the mirror felt about as effective as saying, "I believe in unicorns"—and about as juvenile. But as I have started down the road of understanding self-compassion, I have found one—just one—affirmation that actually does work for me. And it's this: "I am allowed to be human." For several months I have gone to bed with my kitchen clean. The secret? I don't care what my front hallway looks like. It gets to look however it wants. It's none of my business. My clothes always get put up on washday because I stopped caring if they were folded or not. And my bedroom feels serene and tidy because I have given the bathroom permanent permission to look like a feral raccoon lives in it. The secret that is allowing me to have a functional home is that I've been half assing it all. And it's better than it has ever been. I find that the balance between rest and work seems to work itself out pretty naturally when you practice self-kindness. Contribution and productivity are not moral values—but nonexploitation and humility are. When someone demands the benefits of being a part of a family but refuses responsibilities to that family of which they are capable, it's a form of entitlement that exploits the other members of the family. However, having a limited capacity is not the same as being entitled and accepting help is not the same as exploiting others. If you have a particularly rude or pushy person in your life, you can use my favorite boundary phrase, which is "thank you for your concern, but I am not taking any feedback on this issue right now." Dr. Lesley Cook, a brilliant psychologist who works with ADHD, once said to me, "Forget about creating a routine. You have to focus on finding your rhythm." The best way to do something is the way it gets done. A support deficit is not always someone's fault. There are just some seasons in life we have to limp through.
I so often look back on these seasons of limping through and say to myself with tenderness, "Wow, I was really doing the best I could with what I had." And that's the funny thing about doing your best; it never feels like your best at the time. In fact, it almost always feels like failing when you're in it. Healthy is a wholistic state of being that requires more than just knowing the amount and type of nutrients in the food you are eating. Being kind to yourself while eating ice cream is healthier than hating yourself while eating a salad. Anxiety and perfectionism are not good for your health. At the end of the day, your relationship to food is as much a factor in your health as fueling your body in a way that makes you feel good is. Care tasks exist for one reason only... to make your body and space functional enough for you to easily experience the joy this world has to offer. | |
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▾References References to this work on external resources.  Wikipedia in English
None ▾Book descriptions "For anyone tired of staring at the same mess every day but struggling to find the time and willpower to fix it, popular therapist and Tiktok star KC Davis presents a revolutionary method of cleaning to end the stress-mess cycle"-- ▾Library descriptions No library descriptions found. ▾LibraryThing members' description |
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I laughed, I cried, I felt seen, I felt known without feeling called out.
Favorite part: when I paused at the chapter about cleaning your car because I wasn’t mentally ready to think about cleaning my car… and when I came back to said chapter… well, just read it. Or better yet, listen to it. I found the audiobook to be like a good friend and/or helpful big sister patting me on the shoulder and giving me the encouragement and permission I’ve needed for years, i.e. my entire adulthood. Seriously, best book to start the year, or anytime. (