Davis-How to Keep House While Drowning 1

How to Keep House While Drowning

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Highlights

Care tasks are the “chores” of life: cooking, cleaning, laundry, feeding, dishes, and hygiene. These may seem like simple or noncomplex tasks to most. But when you actually break down the amount of time, energy, skill, planning, and maintenance that go into care tasks, we begin to see that they are not always simple. — location: 27

This book is about learning how to tackle care tasks when you have functional barriers. — location: 57

You deserve love and compassion regardless of your level of functioning. True skill building can only happen in an atmosphere of profound self-compassion and gentleness. — location: 67

If you try to jump right to “how do I do this better” without unpacking the emotional messages you give yourself around care tasks, you are likely to end up continuously trapped in the cycle of anxiety and exhaustion. — location: 73

When you view care tasks as moral, the motivation for completing them is often shame. When everything is in place, you don’t feel like a failure; when it’s messy or untidy, you do. — location: 79

you are probably also relaxing in shame too—because care tasks never end and you view rest as a reward for good boys and girls. — location: 81

Care tasks are morally neutral. Being good or bad at them has nothing to do with being a good person, parent, man, woman, spouse, friend. Literally nothing. You are not a failure because you can’t keep up with laundry. Laundry is morally neutral. — location: 85

You do not need to be good at care tasks to learn how to develop a compassionate inner dialogue. You deserve kindness and love regardless of how good you are at care tasks. Challenging these critical message you give yourself will go a long way in relieving your distress. — location: 90

Instead of bullying yourself into finishing a task, instead try giving yourself permission to start a task. Let yourself get a little done. Set a timer for 10 minutes and give yourself full permission to stop when the timer goes off. Often you’ll find that motivation kicks in after you have already started. It’s stressful to try to summon up 100% motivation sitting on the couch. Let yourself use 5% motivation to do 5% of the task. Maybe you keep going. Maybe you don’t. That’s ok. Anything worth doing is worth doing partially. — location: 99

Remember that because care tasks are morally neutral, mess has no inherent meaning. — location: 111

Dishes don’t think. Dishes don’t judge. Dishes cannot make meaning—only people can. — location: 113

What you say to yourself when your house is clean fuels what you say to yourself when it’s dirty. If you’re good when it’s clean you must then be bad when it’s not. — location: 121

If care tasks are morally neutral, then having not showered or brushed your hair in three weeks does not mean “I am disgusting,” but instead simply means “I am having a hard time right now.” — location: 126

Get a picture of you when you were a very young child and speak to them instead. Speak to them the way you would if you were their parent—the parent they deserved. Tell them you see them, you are going to take care of them, and that they are worthy of love. Or try writing a letter to your little self instead. — location: 131

Although it looks like a lot, there are actually only 5 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. — location: 137

  1. The first step is to take a trash bag and pick up all the trash. Throw it away into the bag. Take large trash items like boxes and stack them together and place the trash bag with it. Do not take the trash out. 2. Next gather all of the dishes and place them in your sink or on your counter. Do not do the dishes. 3. Take a laundry basket and pick up all the clothes and shoes. Place the laundry basket next to the trash pile. Do not do the laundry. 4. Next pick a space in the room like a corner or a desk, and put all the items there that have a place back in their place. Then put the items that have no place in a pile. Move to the next space and repeat until all things are back in their spots. 5. Now you will have a pile of things that do not have a place. It will be easier now that the space is clear to tackle this category. You may choose to get rid of some items that have no place and are contributing to clutter. For important things, you can find them a permanent place. 6. Take out your trash to the bin, throw laundry into the wash or laundry room. Now your space is livable. I always save the dishes for another day. — location: 139

Please do not bully yourself into doing care tasks. Shame is a horrible long-term motivator. — location: 163

When we are stuck in this cycle we often are suffering under the constant barrage of our inner bully. “Look at this filth, you are so lazy.” “How could you let it get like this?” “You don’t deserve a shower, look what you’ve done to your room.” — location: 183

In turn, our little self (the one being bullied) grieves. “Why is this so easy for other people?” “What’s wrong with me?” “I’m failing.” This right here is an abusive relationship and someone needs to step in. That someone is you. Wait, you are bullying yourself and you are going to step in? Yes. There is a third voice in there. Think back to the last kind thing you did for another human or animal. Remember the compassion you felt? The gentleness with which you helped them? That person. This is your compassionate self. This self feels empathy for others because they are worthy of love, and this self wants to give it to them. — location: 185

They say to the bully, “You are not being helpful and I need you to stop.” And they turn to the little self and say, “I know you are in pain, and I know you feel like you are failing. But you aren’t. It’s not a moral failing to be untidy. Being unwell and struggling do not make you unworthy of kindness. You are going to be ok. I am here with you.” Think of what you would say to a friend that was — location: 195

Cleaning is morally neutral. It doesn’t need to be great or good or done the correct way. It just needs to be done in a way that allows you to function so that you can get on with the things in your life that matter. — location: 205

You are not responsible for saving the world if you are struggling to save yourself. — location: 217

When you have the opportunity to do a task and struggle with the motivation to start it, it might be helpful to think you are doing it as a kindness to “future you.” — location: 448

Quit beating yourself up for having a skill deficit when what you really have is a support deficit. — location: 459

If you can afford a maid, even once a month, and you do not have one, you must ask yourself why. Do you think you deserve one? Why not? — location: 463

I would feel stressed out at having to pre-clean and pick up before they got there. Knowing I didn’t have to do that took so much stress away. Because I knew she would be there for four hours and I had more than four hours of cleaning, every week I found myself taking the time to pick up and doing a little cleaning so I could get the most out of her time. Funny how the subtle shift from pressure to option created motivation for me. — location: 476

You do not exist to maintain a space of static perfection. 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. — location: 486