It feels like we’ve had a very long journey talking about cleaning here, and I’m eager to move on to other topics. Before I do, it seems worth a post to discuss the fact that no matter how motivated we are to do our cleaning, actually doing it can be a very miserable and unpleasant experience. No amount of love for my cats will ever get me to enjoy scrubbing their wet hairballs out of the carpet, and I know my parents made a real sacrifice when my brother threw up all over my side of the room and they had to somehow pick that nastiness out of Barbie shoes.
Some messes are simply gross, and even routine cleaning tasks can feel monotonous or physically strenuous. When we move from simple cleaning into sorting and organizing as well, the strain can also be psychological. Sifting through items in storage can bring up all kinds of memories you don’t know what to do with and can uncover items you’re out of energy to sort. (Truly, wherever possible I would recommend leaving storage alone and focus on the actual cleaning. Save that nonsense for a less stressful time.) A certain amount of unpleasantness may be inevitable while cleaning, but it doesn’t have to be unbearably miserable. Here are some strategies to help make the unbearable bearable. For starters, pace yourself physically. We all have physical limitations. Even at the youthful, vigorous age of 17, I was sore every day for the first week or two of my job doing kitchen and housekeeping work at Camp Wawona. Even deep into the second summer in the best shape of my life, my body would wear out as I neared my day off. I was grateful for the “split shift” arrangement that allowed my body a few hours off to recover between 4-hour blocks of kitchen work. Be kind to your body. Try to avoid cleaning marathons. As important as cleaning is for beating the coronavirus transmission via surfaces, it is even more important that your immune system be strong enough to fight it if you happen to catch the virus another way. Keep your efforts moderate; if something in your body starts to hurt, find a good place to leave off your task and come back to it later. Sleep and good nutrition are probably more important in this war against COVID-19 than cleaning, important as cleaning is. Respect your immune system’s needs. To help you get through your most unpleasant cleaning tasks emotionally, pair them with something you enjoy. For many people, this involves good music. I’ll never forget my brother cheerfully singing along to whatever he was playing on his Discman while cleaning the bathroom. If you are cleaning with other people, a pleasant conversation can make it more enjoyable for everyone. When my husband and I hand-wash dishes together (will the repairman ever get the part to repair our dishwasher???), I enjoy the conversation that can otherwise be hard to make time for in the hustle and bustle of everything else. When I’m cleaning alone, I enjoy a good audiobook and I sweeten the deal with a cup of tea I sip from as I hit intermediate landmarks. In fact, I use sips of tea as a small reward/motivator for a lot of tasks, like reading long books. It has several purposes: it keeps my body hydrated, helps me out with energy (if it’s caffeinated; it isn’t always), rewards me for completing smaller chunks of work, and helps me to associate hard work with something pleasurable. You may sub the tea out for juice, coffee, or a healthy snack, but the principle remains the same—you reward yourself both physically and emotionally for the effort you’re expending. A more esoteric art I’ve used to survive long cleaning shifts is mindfulness. Not to be confused with Eastern forms of meditation that are occasionally lumped into this category, mindfulness is the art of being present with what you’re doing. You immerse yourself in the physical sensations and rhythm of what you’re doing. This is less about conscious thinking and more about feeling. Let’s say you’re doing dishes by hand. Mindful dishwashing would involve you noticing the warmth of the water, feeling the effort your hands are putting into the scrubbing, noticing the glints of light reflected off the droplets of water on the glasses in the drying rack, and smelling the faint aroma of dish soap. In this way, you can achieve the same sort of flow while cleaning that an artist does while inspired. If your mind is totally present with what you’re doing in the moment, it’s not wandering off into the dozens of areas that cause you stress and anxiety. I spent a good 6 hours on household chores this last Sunday (laundry, dishes, and large-batch cooking). All of it went surprisingly quickly because I was so absorbed in these tasks (and the audiobook I was listening to while doing them) that the time just flew by. Learning to cope with these things is practice for the larger stuff of life. The skills you build to make routine chores bearable ultimately help you build the stamina to make the rest of your life more bearable too. If you can find pleasure despite the grinding monotony of recurring chores, you can find it despite a several-month stay-at-home order. In both cases, the effort is worth it; you cannot afford to miss the scraps of joy you can make for yourself while waiting for circumstances to catch up. Treasure whatever small happiness you can find wherever you can find it.
1 Comment
Betty Sue Smith
5/22/2020 10:38:20 am
Enjoyed the different perspectives of housework.
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AuthorJillian Lutes is the youth pastor at West Covina Hills Seventh-day Adventist Church. Archives
May 2020
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