I've got to get this little soap box rant out of my system, it's been weighing me down for weeks.
These days I get a great deal of pleasure just doing the things that need doing. The main tasks I refer to are related to food (buying, preparing, cleaning up the mealtime debris!) and housework (washing, more washing, washing again, tidying up). However satisfying I find the act of "doing", the sticking point for me seems to be that if I ALWAYS do what I "have" to do, I would very rarely get to the stuff I want to do. Sometimes I just have to let some things (that should probably be done) slip, otherwise my sanity would really suffer.
The housework I do is pretty much the bare minimum I feel I can get away with, I must stress I am NOT ironing tea towels and knickers, or anything else for that matter. I would actually love to have more time to be able to be a "better" housekeeper, scrubbing my doorstep daily and washing windows week in week out. But even now, just scratching the surface of what my inner flylady would love to tick off the task list, I struggle to keep up. When I add the demands of my (very demanding) children to this, I begin to see why for weeks now I have had very little time to myself to.....ummmm....write here and do all the other things I'd like to do be doing. Things like yoga, sewing, my little art projects, tinkling at the piano, reading...it's a long list.
Marshall Rosenberg talks about re-phrasing the way we think about things we find unpleasant in terms of choice. So, instead of thinking "ugh....now I have to clean the kitchen" , I would think more along the lines of "I really want to do some yoga right now but the kitchen is a bomb site and I really need it to be clean in the morning so I can prepare breakfast peacefully and with ease, so now I am choosing to clean the kitchen".
For me, thinking in terms of choices like this does make it easier to accept the elements of repetition and drudgery in my life. It also validates me if I decide to choose NOT to do the tasks at hand. But it's also just an intellectual distinction! It doesn't change the fact my family needs feeding, or that there is crap everywhere and someone at some time, usually me, will have to sort it out. I can't compromise my standards when it comes to fresh, nutritious food, and I'm not prepared to walk about in stinky dirty clothes.....how could I? So is there really a choice? Unfortunately thinking differently doesn't magic up home help or make extra hours in the day.
So, I'm mostly doing what I have to do (happily), but I need a way of finding more time for things I'd really like to do. Any ideas?
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I get time for myself by compromising the housework....everywhere gets a lick and a promise, we are in dire need of a huge declutter. I'd dearly love to have a clean and tidy bedroom for eg but right now it's not as important for my sanity as having a long bath alone a few times a week or doing a bit of knitting of a night or reading or sorting out volunteer bits n bobs I do. One day soon it'll become too much to cope with and I'll either send the kids out with Paul or park them in front of a DVD and turn my floordrobe back into a wardrobe! It's hard, isn't it?
I agree with Fiona, I've learned over the years of parenting that there is a level of untidyness I can live with,which means that other projects that are important to me and my sanity, and therefore my capability to be a (good) mother and wife get done too.
It's a very fine balancing act, and I don't always get it right.
girls n Paul have been dispatched to the shops and park and advised to NOT rush back....tidying every room in the house, when it reaches the point that there is not a single room I feel relaxed in then I just have to do something. Sigh! I'd SO rather be sleeping or knitting right now!
Hm. I think you should only do what you want.
That said, doing what you want can still include doing things you "have to". These things we do that we think we "have to", we can still get pleasure out of doing them because the outcomes feel good. I think this is the better way to rephrase it.
I wash my laundry and more specifically bed sheets because it feels good to climb into a fresh clean bed. The actual job of doing laundry is neither here nor there but the outcome is fantastic so I do it.
If there isn't enjoyment in the task, the outcome or the way it makes our loved ones feel after it's done then it's not really fun doing it, right? If we think we "have to" do something then we'll rebel and dread and resent it.
If you really don't enjoy some task and you can live happily with the lack of doing it, then I think you should not do it. At the very least I think you should work at getting to a place where you don't feel like you "have to" do anything. Instead do it because you'll feel happier when it's done. Maybe when the pressure is off, it won't be so bad or hard to get done at your own ease.
Why not do some yoga, center yourself and then go into the kitchen and see what you're willing to do. It might not be much or maybe it won't see all that bad to work on it slowly or maybe you'll come back to it later or maybe you can have a friend over who will help or inspire ease in the task or...
ps. I'd help if I was there.
Hello Sarah love, i don't think i've hit on your blog spot since you first started it, but saw the link at the bottom of your e-mail today. I've loved reading your posts. You have a real way with words. Inspiring. I used to blog lots on MySpace, but then got a bit hit of the vulnerables and stopped. But life is about risking being vulnerable, so i think i'm brewing up to go there again. I just might have something to say too!!
Euch, and i'd missed the news about your leg, or if i had heard it, the story was minus the gore factor and hence not retained. Hope it's all healed up now, but i'll send a healing beam anyway x
re: this blog i think i can be slightly too anal about tidyness, so take a leaf out of Jeanette's book (especially as i have only one child as this time) but certainly if i can clear all extraneous clutter life is so much easier, coz then there is space for the 'stuff' that is needed.
It might sound slightly evil, but keeping children's toys down to a certain level is one of my rules, Luna used to only be 'allowed' one box of toys... this has increased but is in check. She certainly plays with any old nonsense just as much and creatively as she does with 'proper' toys. Saying that I remember when my old friend Fi (mother to five), but at that time only two asked her children (then age 4 and 5) to choose toys to send to the charity shop 'to help other people'. Guess which ones they chose?... All the beautiful wooden toys she'd insisted on, but plastic nonsense had crept in anyway, and they loved that more!
Although i don't have a cleaner, i notice that friends, especially those with more than one child, or with full time jobs, have one! In this world of nucular families, and not quite being in 'the village', they seem to help muchly if can be afforded!
Still your essential comment of finding peace in your choice sounds very healthy. The Buddhist tenet springs to mind,
'Before enlightenment, chopping wood, carrying water,
After enlightenment, chopping wood, carrying water'
Nice to meet you here!
love Bela x
Hey thanks everyone ;)
My main issue seems to be not that I resent doing the things I really have to (like feeding the family, washing etc)because I do love good food and clean clothes and all that, and I am happy chopping wood and carrying water.... It's just that if I put the other things (yoga, sewing etc) first, it seems to push all the other things out of sync and I can't catch up. I never seem to get to the other things.
For example: I got really into sewing a bag and it took me a while- maybe a week of evenings with the kids asleep- to finish it. I let almost everything slide to get it finished for the wedding I wanted to use it at. When it was done I then spent the next *few weeks* trying to catch up on all the other stuff I had ignored whilst doing what I wanted! Little things had added up- papers in a pile needing filing, toys Esme had moved about not in their homes, books everywhere....just general clutter that I hadn't kept on top of cos I was doing what I wanted to so intensely.
I suppose I can see, thinking about it, a great need to get ahead of myself. Then I'd have a little more room for manoeuvre! I could stop and rest without the world having to stop for me too.
Also Bela you are so right about keeping the "stuff" in check. I have chucked out SOOOOOOOO much stuff lately. Actually, I am getting to a point where I don't have that much left. (Joel is another case entirely, sigh...and the kids!) However, I also feel sure that if I had just a teensy weensy bit more space life would just run so much smoother....
Little and often is the key as far as I can tell, it's certainly better than never..so that's where I plan to start ;)
finally got 'me time' to read your blog - how poignant eh!! Just done the hoovering so I can sit down for 10 mins without stressing that M will eat one of the clumps Jon walks in the house from the Peaks !! I actually love the hoovering - everything else is something en route to spending time with M or Jon. xx
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