Goals like: Keep Clutter from Home Environment !
I have a love/hate relationship with keeping my home clean and uncluttered to my imagined standards. I often find myself feeling guilty for not taking care of every little thing a home demands. … according to my imagined standards.
I’m writing today to share with you what I want to avoid, and that is, imbalance. When I say imbalance, I mean I am happiest when my physical world is aligned with my non-physical world. So here are my thoughts worth sharing.
Shuttering with Cluttering
Have you ever walked into a room and felt sudden irritation?
Instead of blaming others, know it is a message coming directly from you. Look around. It doesn’t seem like anyone else is bothered by the state of the room.
In every moment there is an ebb and flow of tidiness/clutter! …Leftover dishes, empty bottles on a kitchen counter, papers, pencils, clothes on the floor or over a chair, shoes scattered around, etc.
We may not realize the thoughts triggered simply by seeing a messy sink.
When someone helps around the house and everything turns back to house beautiful, you breathe with quiet satisfaction! If you demanded that someone clean up their mess, their face tells you they don’t share your private standard, and don’t understand your sudden anger.
Don’t be surprised if you feel agitation when you don’t meet your standards. Avoid escalating this emotion which is trying to help you! It says: Something is off. So, SBYS (Stop before you speak)
Most times I can keep my surroundings reasonably tidy and clean, even with lots of cooking, art projects, on-going experimental projects. Keeping myself mentally balanced and reasonable, makes life enjoyable.
But once in a while, I find myself suddenly irritated by a room that was fine with me 10 minutes ago. Now I am irritated by the clutter.
Attention! Something’s off!
If I stop and think about this (become conscious of what is going on), I will receive and listen to unsettling feelings. Nervousness, agitation is sometimes awakened in my shadow memories, alerting me to uncertainty, dissatisfaction, self-disappointment.
Agitation is an emotional message.
I try to remember not to worry whether the irritation is about the people in the room, some memory, or the mess I see in the coffee table. I feel like yelling at the person in front of me! I remember in the knick of time to pause and take a deep breath!
Better retreat to internal self! Better stop for a moment!
I am wired to observe my ups and downs in life. Yet, when I feel off, I still need to make a conscious decision, every moment, to quiet myself down and choose the direction that feels better to me. Reword the phrases coming to me into softer responses.
Tidiness and Messiness are just examples of triggering these ATTENTION feelings. I translate these alert feelings as signs. I am not living in the way I have imagined I want to live.
I can either ignore the feelings by changing my goals. I can relax my standards and feel better. I can tidy up. I can take a nap and then meet my personal standards.
What I am learning more and more is this: I am the one who sets the goals for myself, … or let others set my goals. Goals have infinite possibilities.
I can change them, improve them, take a break from them, … it is up to me. I may wish to make a big change, a small change, or even ignore the whole thing, and take a nap or go for a ride!
A messy room is seldom an emergency. Sit back, breathe, and find many ways to talk about your wish for a room and the people you live with, plus your heavy schedules. Find a more gentler way to think about clutter and tidy areas, and decide if your standards fit who your are or want to be.
SUMMARY – Facing Your Created Goal Standard!
- LISTEN TO YOUR FEELINGS OF AGITATION
- Something is off! You are not following your own goals OR
- Your goals are not coming from you, they may be objectively set.
- OR, somewhere in between
- MAKE A PLAN OF ACTION
- Tidy up to your happy satisfaction, OR
- Change your standard to meet your current big picture goals
- OR, somewhere in between.
- BREATHE AND ENJOY YOUR ABILITY TO HEAR AND RESPOND TO YOUR FEELINGS!
