Does a dirty kitchen drive you crazy?

One of my childhood chores was doing the dishes after dinner. I became rather efficient at the task. When I grew up and had my own home, I wanted the kitchen spotless after dinner. My husband didn’t have the same clean kitchen policy in his bachelor pad, so if I wanted a tidy kitchen, it was my job to do it.

Some days, if the kitchen wasn’t clean, I got a little crazy. The trouble was, cleaning it could make me crazy, too.

Not too long ago, I finally smartened up.

Who cared about the clean kitchen? Only me.

Did Paul? Not really.

Did my neighbors, who can see the dishes stack up through the window? Likely not.

Did my mom? No. Even if I fabricated a story that she did care, she can’t even see them. She’s 3000 miles away and only knows that my kitchen is occasionally messy because I posted it here for the the world to see.

Why did I like the kitchen clean? It was one less thing to make me crazy, because so much in my life was making me crazy.

Interesting. I really pondered that. A kitchen can make me crazy. From an outsider, objective view, that’s a little crazy.

While I can pretty much control how clean my kitchen is, the process of controlling that trivial thing made me crazy. Like I said, there was little room to feel good.

This is when I realized it was time to lighten up. (If my sister’s reading this, she’s probably laughing hysterically at this point.)

I thought a clean kitchen made my house more relaxing. Although maybe it did, keeping that kitchen clean was far from relaxing. Was a spic-n-span kitchen necessary for me to function in life? Certainly not. In fact, it was limiting my functionality because of all the mental space I was taking up just by thinking about it.

Once I sorted out that I didn’t need my kitchen to be perfectly clean all of the time, I began to pride myself on the ability to occasionally let dishes pile up for a few days... and not go crazy in the mean time.

What can you let go of just a little, for the sake of your sanity?

... but it does.

I hear this from clients: “Grrr. I’m so mad at her. I can’t believe she did that! She does this all the time. Why do I let it get to me so much?!” Or something along those lines anyway.

Sound familiar?

I’m sure you can think of a time where (1) you were frustrated with someone about something and (2) you were also frustrated with yourself for being irritated in the first place. I know it happened to me a few times just last week!

Recall the last time you were irritated about being irritated. Could it have taken you longer to get over the situation than if you had been okay with your frustration? When we judge ourselves for our reactions, we often double the effort required to regain our balance.

Next time you find yourself mad for being mad, try these steps to get past it.

1. Acknowledge how you feel about the situation. [I’m mad at her for what she did, and I’m mad at myself for being mad about it.]

2. Allow yourself to feel how you feel. Safely and privately express your emotions. [If you’re angry, allow yourself to be angry. Get it out by writing it down, by yelling--some place where it’s safe and private--or by going for a walk or run.]

3. Ask yourself what story you are telling about why you shouldn’t be angry about what happened. [I shouldn’t be mad because she does this all of the time--I should expect it.]

4. Ask yourself what story you are telling about why you feel irritated about the incident. [She always talks down to me, and it’s so rude.]

5. Tell new stories. [I can choose to stay calm even when others are uppity. She is who she is, and oh, well.]

If you want a little more help, refer to Monday’s post for some finer details.

I recently walked through a similar scenario with a client. She found the most relief once she stopped being upset with herself about being upset. We are the hardest on ourselves. When she found peace with her reaction, it was easy to change the story about the crazy woman she was facing.

Be gentle with yourself when someone is acting crazy. Being mad about being mad only doubles the madness!

What new stories can you tell? Share your ideas here!

If you have been following my blog recently, you know that 1) I like to bike, and 2) my bike’s cyclocomputer recently went haywire. As my post will tell you, it was a great thing that this happened.

I will cut to the chase, for those of you wondering if I put the cyclocomputer back on: The answer is No.

I’ve been riding for a month without it. It’s not that I’m too lazy or too busy to put it on. There have been plenty of opportunities. I’m finding that I enjoy listening to my body instead of reading the numbers. My body does a great job of telling me if I’m working hard enough or working too hard. I don’t need a gadget to keep me informed about how I feel. Sounds a bit obvious, doesn’t it? Maybe not, if your a gadget kind of person.

How often do we use external signals to tell us something our body should be capable of telling us?

Here are some examples that come to mind:

- I see the clock say 6:00 a.m., and it must be time to get up.
- The clock says 12:00 p.m., so I must be hungry for lunch.
- I smell the sweet air from a bakery while walking down the street, so I must need a tasty treat.
- The thermometer says 100 degrees, so it must be too hot for a walk.

I teach clients to listen to what their bodies are telling them--instead of using their heads. Society teaches us to figure things out with our brains, but our bodies are wise, and they often need little interference from our minds.

Listening to our bodies is the key to living the happiest life possible.

If you’re skeptical of my suggestion, re-read my post on Ignoring the Numbers. Would I have been happier staring at my biking stats for 90 minutes? Definitely not.

Here’s some ways this has played out for me recently, besides the cyclocomputer example.
 
- Instead of getting up when the clock tells me, I listen to when my body tells me I’m done sleeping and get up when I feel well rested. It puts me in such a good mood!

- The other night I was hungry at 9:00 p.m. I rarely get hungry at that hour. If I had used my mind, which was telling me that I don’t get hungry after dinner, I would have ignored the signal and likely woke up grumpy the next morning. Instead, I had a small snack and felt better.

- I recently asked my body what kind of exercise it wanted, and it told me to swim. I haven’t swam for exercise since high school. The following day, I pulled out a swimsuit, a cap, and goggles and went swimming. I was giddy all day, it made me so happy.

Humans are blessed with a logic center in our brains. This serves us well in so many ways. Unfortunately, it hurts us when it comes to making decisions about our bodies. Wild animals don't use logic to decide when to eat or when to sleep. They just do what feels right at the moment. There is no internal debate about a chocolate chip cookie or an afternoon nap. If that's what they need, they do it

Next time you notice a feeling in your body that indicates tiredness, hunger, or something else uncomfortable, check in with your body. Are you really hungry, or is it something else? Are you staying up later than your body would like you to?

What is your body telling you about what it wants or needs?

I had a great realization the other day, thanks to one of my coaching friends.

There will always be too much to do.

This may sound like a funny realization, but it completely changed my perspective.

I was fretting about my to-do list, which was growing faster than I was tackling it. I also had plenty of things I wanted to do that I was too afraid to write down, fearful of making my list even longer. I was feeling quite overwhelmed!

For some reason, I thought that when I left my corporate job to coach full-time, I would have excess time on my hands. In addition to coaching, I was going to read the books that were piling up on my shelf, spend more time working in the yard, clean the garage, put together the photo album from two summers ago, among a dozen other things. After a few weeks of not working my 8-5 job, I had barely dented this list.

As I was talking through this with my coaching friend, I began to recall all of the times I thought, “When [insert future goal here], then I’ll have more time.”

"When I graduate from college, I’ll have lots of time because I won’t be in class and working all day and having homework to do at night."

"When summer’s here, I can tackle all of those outdoor projects that have been accumulating over the winter."

"When I finally finish reading and completing the exercises in that business development book, then I can take a breath of fresh air and spend more time painting."

"When I get all of the cleaning and laundry done, then I can go play outside."

After I finished sharing the list of my “I will have more time when” experiences with this coach, I had to just laugh out loud. I am never going to tackle everything on my to-do list!

“So, what do I do?” you ask.

Take a few items off the list and commit to not doing them.

Here’s what I took off of my list:
- putting together the photo album from the sabbatical Paul and I took during the summer of 2007
- cleaning the garage
- figuring out how to make the back yard look decent

Realizing that there is always too much to do means you can decide to not do things. They're never going to all get done anyway. So do something fun instead!

I stopped thinking about the to-do list for the rest of the day, and I painted. I felt calm and relaxed.
 
The day after, when I sat down to work, I felt focused. I no longer felt like I had a looming to-do list. As a result, I accomplished a lot in one day. It amazed me that small things that I had been procrastinating practically did themselves! I felt like Superwoman. And at the end of the work day, Paul and I headed out with friends for a bike ride, and I felt fantastic.
 
What can you take off your to-do list?

What fun thing do you want to do instead? Do it!

Numbers often control my life. The other day I learned that occasionally ignoring them can lead to feeling happier.

I enjoy road cycling and mountain biking in the summer. My husband and I headed out for a ride recently, and I noticed that my cyclocomputer (the speedometer and odometer for the bike) was not working properly. I have a new one ready to be put on the bike, but it takes more time than I wanted to put into it at the moment. I took the broken cyclocomputer off my bike and set out with Paul to ride.

Usually when the two of us ride, he rides and front and I draft behind him. [If you’re not a cyclist, drafting is when one rides close to the person in front of them, so they experience reduced wind resistance, making it easier to ride.] For some reason, I set out on this ride in front of Paul this day.

Within the first mile, I must have looked down a half-dozen times to where the cyclocomputer display usually sits. My habit of looking at the display became quite evident when there was nothing to look at!

We had a route in mind when we set out, but the weather in the direction we were headed looked dark and rainy. We decided to play the ride by ear and make a decision about which direction to go at each intersection. We ended up following one of our usual routes, just in reverse.

After five miles, I felt rhythmic in my riding. I felt strong and confident, and I was having fun.

Paul shouted out encouragement at one point, not quite half way through our ride. “Doing great, babe!” I thought, “I am? Cool!” After all, his cyclocomputer was still working, so he knows how fast I’m going, and Paul likes to ride faster than I can usually go.

With his words fresh in my mind, I stopped worrying if I was going too slowly. I enjoyed the new view on our old route. It always amazes me that a riding route can look so new by just following it in the opposite direction. I saw the farms in a different light, as the sun was slowly setting over their fields. I saw the central Oregon Cascades as we headed east on a road where we usually ride west. It was gorgeous!

I continued to ride at a pace that made me feel strong and challenged. I felt comfortable and confident, which is not always the case when we’re out on a ride.

With just seven miles left, I started to feel my legs fatigue. I almost gave up my captain’s position to draft behind Paul, but decided to stick it out in front. I made it this far, why not keep it up?

As we cruised towards home, I felt strong, happy, and a little tired. I felt alive. I love when exercise does that!

We pulled up the driveway, and I dismounted my bike. I queried Paul for our average speed. He told me, and I was shocked. “That slow?!” For a moment I was disappointed, then I decided to let it go. Who cares? I pulled the whole way, and I had fun. I enjoyed the whole ride because I didn’t know what my speed was. If I had known my pace, I would have been beating myself up for going so slowly.

So this is what I learned:

When I look at the numbers, I judge, evaluate, criticize, and focus on how good or bad I’m doing.

When I have no numbers to watch, I enjoy the ride and feel strong and confident.

I have a feeling this idea can be applied in many areas across life.

Where could you stop checking the numbers and start having more fun?