Treat Yourself
We had people over for dinner the other night. Just a few, but in our teeny tiny one-bedroom, adding a couple of adults and a couple of littles, really filled the place up. It was lovely and makes me want to do it more often. It also makes me want to clean as if people are coming over, more often.
After everyone had gone home, the dishes were cleaned, the temporary dining table dismantled and slid away, I revelled in the perfection of a freshly clean home. It’s different, the way I clean if company is coming over, and the way I clean if they aren’t, if it’s just for us. I had a moment, getting ready for bed, where I thought, “I’m going to do this just for us every week!”, and then I laughed, and wondered to myself if I would ever put that much effort in just to make myself happy, “just for me”.
It struck me suddenly, that cleaning is an act of self-love.
Cleaning the toilet is an act of self-care.
Photo by Gabor Monori on Unsplash
I love a clean home. It feels so satisfying and calming and full of potential. When it is sparkling, I just walk around basking in the cleanliness. But. I have to admit that it usually takes the threat of impending visitors before I clean it to within an inch of its life. Otherwise, it exists in a state of flux between tidy, and mostly clean, or downright messy and mostly not clean. I’m pretty good at tidying things away and having little piles of stuff organized in most of the space. But there is always a room or shelf or cupboard (or many!) where things look like a disaster. As for sparkling clean, well, dusting is not my forte. Neither is vacuuming (although I did get the cordless vacuum I spoke about here, and it DOES help! I swear!).
I resist the cleaning as if it is a punishment of some sort, but what if I could reframe that? See it as an act of self-love?
We look at self-care sometimes as this reward for being hard done bye. We are tired, overworked, underpaid, whatever it is, and so we deserve a treat, a reward. Bubble baths and massages, pedicures, pumpkin spice lattes, new boots…all great. I love them. But part of me thinks that the whole “Treat yo’self” philosophy is just consumer culture at its worse. Who really benefits when we spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need? Is it really nurturing, an act of self-care when we are doing things that are not good for us in an effort to cancel out the stuff that is burning us out?
I am most certainly not saying we should avoid the things we love. Absolutely not. Get the massages, the facials, the boots by all means! If these are things that nurture you, lift you up, bring you joy, go for it. But perhaps proceed with caution. It is so easy for a treat yourself shopping spree to end in guilt and worry over the funds you've blown.
I tend to resist so-called chores, feeling it’s not fair that I have to do them. I spent many years feeling it’s not fair that I have to go to bed! And yet, who is it unfair to?! Doesn’t having a clean bathroom make my life better? Isn’t getting to bed early and getting a good night’s sleep so much better for my well-being than staying up to watch another episode of Stranger Things? This sense of unfairness is a misperception. If we can reframe it, then we can embrace all these things that actually make our lives better. I can clean the apartment for me. Unload the dishwasher for me. Cook a healthy meal for me. Exercise for me. If these things bring me pleasure, make me happier, why would I group them in with things I don’t want to do?
Perhaps it is about looking deeply at what being good to ourselves really means. Instead of wolfing down cookies, what would really satisfy that craving for sweetness? What would really make you feel good. My theory is that when we take care of those things that make us feel deeply good, we will be more inclined to delight in a cookie or two, really enjoy it, rather than mindlessly eat ten of them in an attempt to manufacture sweetness.
So go ahead, Treat yourself to a clean toilet.
